Steps a High Ranking Traitor Would Take

[Dill]

(01-17-2019, 09:33 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I get what your position is, here, but I don't think that was our fight to get in. As someone that is a bit tired of us deploying our military to make other countries play nice with each other, I don't want to see us interfere with force in a situation like this without the backing of the UN and a coalition going in. I think that is one of the reasons why Obama didn't take that military action, because the public mood in this country is on that side. He could have gone in for the short term, 60-90 days at most, but that wouldn't have resolved the conflict and the Congress he was facing would not have supported an extended stay.

All-in-all, I agree with Obama's actions, even though they were weak. There was essentially a CBA done on the situation and the benefits weren't worth the costs. As he put it during an interview: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do." To quote the interviewer of the article, "Obama’s theory here is simple: Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there." That's exactly right, in my opinion. We had, and have, military focuses to tend to that are more pertinent to our country. Re-initiating not just the Cold War, but making it hot, would have been a losing gambit for the long-term.

Good answer, and the quote you selected is spot on.

There is not much any rational president could have done, beyond organizing a sanctions regime, with UN/EU backing, as Obama did.  The value of doing that is that sanctions may deter future aggression, if it is clear there will be a high cost and the world/UN/EU sides with the US.  Even now, the cost appears to be rather higher than Putin anticipated, but as your source points out, the Ukraine is a core interest and Putin might have been willing to sacrifice even more to retain control over an important border region. Ukrainians clamoring for NATO membership and European states like Germany actually listening was the real trigger here, not just the fall of Yanukovych. 

Bush was presented with a similar challenge when Russia invaded Georgia while it was applying for NATO membership. His response was to send warships into the Black Sea and return a Georgian brigade fighting in Afghanistan. He also stopped backing Russia's entry into the WTO.  But no sanctions, so far as I know. In retrospect, that response was considerably weaker than Obama's. To be fair what happens in Georgia is much less important to US national interest than the Ukraine. Still, it was a chance to set a sharp precedent.

One wonders here what Trump might have done in either of these cases.  He knows nothing of diplomacy, viewing international politics simplistically in terms of "strong" and "weak" actors, regarding Obama as weak and Putin as strong. His GOP would demand a "strong" response, but likely stop short of war. However, given Trump's weak response to the Russian attack on our election--the homeland itself being a CORE US INTEREST--I would not be surprised if Trump acquiesced in the Crimean annexation, perhaps even "understood" or otherwise defended Putin publicly. I do not see him leading an international regime of sanctions like the one concocted by "weak" Obama, targeting Putin's oligarch friends personally.