What Is to Be Done?

Obama's responses to Russian belligerence have not only been wrong, but almost the worst possible actions.  He postured, threatened, then leveled meaningless sanctions against Putin's Russia.  Obama's impotence only made his Russian counterpart that much more popular.  Russians historically appreciate dramatic action that builds national strength and international respect.  Adding to the land area of the nation does not hurt either.  Russians see the mano y mano struggle with Obama as being without consequences because under this president, the United States has only rarely shown strength.

Here is what Obama could do to regain some leverage.

Stop everything you are doing now.  No more talking with the Russians.  No kicking them out of international clubs.  And definitely no sanctions.  Stop doing anything that is pointless presidential posturing with nothing behind it.  The Russians know these are public relations moves, not serious diplomacy.

And sanctions do not work against a nation that has pretty much everything.

Concede the Crimea; anticipate the next move.  Crimea belongs to Russia now.  Stop making it the issue because it deflects world attention from what could come next.  It also happens to be the move Russia can sell best to its own people.  No way the West can peacefully get him out.

Go to Canossa.  When the Soviets moved aggressively after World War II, Harry Truman had to do something that he hated worse than anything on Earth . . . talk to Republicans.  Truman wanted to ramp up American support of free nations while Republicans wanted to save money.  He struck a deal with GOP senators that underlay American resistance to Communist aggression for the next four decades.  

Obama needs the House of Representatives in his camp on this issue.  To get the Russians' attention, he must get funding for the A-10 and the armored divisions.  The A-10 kills tanks more effectively than anything on the planet.  American tanks have not lost an armored engagement in most peoples' living memories.  Both are designed to engage Russian forces in northern or eastern Europe. Reinstating these programs shows Putin that the US is serious.

So too will Obama offering up sacrifices to gain Republican confidence and support.

Supporting allies.  The United States needs to reassure Europe that we remain committed to the NATO alliance.  Military forces could perform public, yet peaceful, joint exercises with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland.  Since all are NATO allies, Russia has no cause to publicly complain, but it remains a message sent.  An extra carrier strike group could visit Portsmouth, or some other allied naval base.

Turn on the taps.  Lift export restrictions on natural gas, rescind EPA regulations passed on coal since 2009, and approve oil and gas drilling quickly.  This ensures that energy remains inexpensive in the United States and prices drop around the world.  Russia relies heavily on energy exports to support its prosperity.  American market dominance could cripple the bear.

Messages that the United States will not fail its allies, combined with real measures that will weaken the Russian economy can halt Putin in his tracks.  The United States, with a wise and strong policy, can block Russia's future ambitions

Ukraine and the Woodrow Wilson Problem

Vladimir Putin currently uses his ideas as justification for Russian moves in the Crimea.  Although the situation is not the same, Hitler referenced the same intellect?  Whose world shaking words served to justify slicing away chunks of weaker states?  Woodrow Wilson.

The end of World War I spelled the end of three multi-national empires, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire.  Each one of these states formed around core ethnic groups, Great Russians, Austrians, and Turks.  Each group established a powerful state that absorbed surrounding territories peopled by different ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups.  Another tie binding the three lay in their belief that they fulfilled the Roman Imperial tradition.  This, they believed, gave them the legitimate right to rule others.

The 20th Century challenged that notion and tore it down.  Long standing dynasties and loose ties to the Roman Empire no longer mattered.  Legitimacy remained a powerful word, but what made a government and its power legitimate?  The Bolsheviks substituted class warfare for czarism and kept their empire going.  The other two broke up.

Austria-Hungary challenged the West.  About 15 different ethnic groups populated the empire and many wanted free of Austro-Hungarian imperial power.  Wilson suggested that the peace treaties ending World War I reorder the world on national self-determination.  No one, however, defined what that meant.  It has remained a staple of US diplomacy ever since, but not without raising puzzling questions?.

Does it mean that each ethnic group has the right to rule itself?  Wilson certainly did not think that extended to black Americans and Indian nations.

Does self-determination require democracy?

Does every group have this right, or only groups large enough to form a viable country?

No one knows for sure and we have made it up as we went along.  This mostly resulted in good results.

But it also provides justification for National Socialists, white supremacists, and ethnic cleansing.  The logic of national self-determination carried to its logical conclusion leads to messy problems, such as Hitler demanding that Czechoslovakia hand over the Sudetenland because it had Germans there.  Of course after World War II, to prevent such a thing from happening again, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other countries expelled every German from fear of this happening again.  Serbs and Croats later feared the influence of minority Bosnians in their countries and drove them out.

Crimea is mostly populated by Russians, but is under Ukrainian control according to international law.  Putin is, as many have done, appealing to the Wilsonian ideal of national self-determination.  The Russian implemented vote in the Crimea chose Russia (whether or not that was a fair vote is highly debatable.)

Putin has put the West in a bind by turning the ideals of Woodrow Wilson and the imposed treaties ending World War I back against it.  When addressing Putin, the West will have to deal with the hundred year old specter of the idea of national self-determination as well.  Not that it was a bad idea, but a clear definition is way overdue.

Putin, Ukraine, and an Abysmal Failure of US Foreign Policy

It did not have to be this way.

Today, Vladimir Putin's forces hold the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, part of the sovereign nation of Ukraine.  Barack Obama looks weaker than ever, his presidency's previous shambles even look good by comparison.  Pundits decry the loss of US influence.  The stark truth is that there is little that the United States can do to alter the situation.

But why?

First, Putin actually has defensible reasons to enter Ukraine.  This is not to say that he could not have achieved better results with a less dramatic move.  But a border country approaching chaos gives Russia a powerful excuse to protect Russian ethnics and Russian facilities there.  What if Mexico devolved even more into violence and instability?  At some point in the near future, US forces may have to occupy parts of that country to bring stability and protect Americans living there.  Before criticizing others, a nation must consider what it would have to do in a similar situation.

The West failed in Ukraine because the United States abdicated its role, dating back to the Treaty of Versailles, to bolster free societies and free markets around the globe.  US policy has, at times used the Franklin Roosevelt philosophy of "he's a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch" in backing friendly authoritarian regimes.  But the overall goal has always been transition into free societies with economic opportunity.

That does not happen by dumping money or bombs on a nation.  It comes from a consistently articulated vision by the US foreign policy establishment that natural rights, free markets, rule of law are essential to human happiness and world peace.  Praising democratic friends, such as Britain and Israel, helps to broaden the "city on the hill" ideal articulated by Democratic and Republican presidents alike in different ways.

The vision does not just come from talking about freedom.  Diplomatic, other government, and private groups must engage fragile societies to help educate and develop faith in the essential aspects of freedom and prosperity.  Internationalize the values that Americans and others take for granted.

Instead, Obama tore apart the fabric.  He blamed the United States for the trouble in the world, never realizing that wise use of American power and influence more often puts us in the referee role.  We are keeping more conflicts apart than anyone realizes.  Until the influence and respect dissipates and the world runs riot.

We are not the world's policeman, nor should we be.  But constant engagement of rhetoric, policy, and economic influence has helped to keep the world at peace.  Obama could not see the overall benefit of US power, only the rare times that it has not turned out right.  He tore it down and now instability hits one country after another.

Power seeks a vacuum,  Obama created one.  Putin and China have been happy to step in.

And so you get what we had here last week.  Which is the way he wants it.

As for Putin, he is more Bismarck than Stalin.  He's willing to bend his own region to his economic and security goals, use social issues to rally his supporters and alienate his political opponents.  Russia's sudden worry about gays smacks of Bismarck's kulturkampf against political Catholics.  But Bismarck did not want to completely revise the international system, just strengthen Germany's position within it.  The Russian Czars acted in the same way.  Russia traditionally seeks security on its borderlands and will aggressively move to ensure it.

Had the United States remained engaged in Ukraine and kept its near century old commitment to supporting freedom, that country may have solved its own problems.  It may have remained solid enough to deter Russian fears or thoughts of aggrandizement.

China is more worrisome for a number of reasons.  As is Iran.  Both countries have more revisionist fantasies.

What Has Russia Lost So Far In Sochi Debacle?

Russia for centuries has remained obsessed about its image.  It demands and craves respect as a modern, powerful nation, but also struggles with images of what it considers to be embarrassing backwardness.  The Sochi Olympics should have advanced Vladimir Putin's plan to move Russia back to the forefront.  Instead, even before the first event, it is a public relations nightmare.

The first rule of public relations?  Put the best foot forward with the media.  That also may be the second, third, and fourth rule.  This Deadspin assemblage of reports and tweets puts Russia in the worst possible light.  The land of the bear does not come off as strong, resilient, and capable.  Sochi is "a hilarious adventure," looking less like competence and more like a bad prat fall flick. London's Daily Mail shows even more horrors, as well as a picture of the Russian president.

A reporter from one of the world's most prestigious sports-only publications must climb out his window because the hotel is locked down.

Another gets a terse warning not to use the water "because it contains something very dangerous."  Her picture of the water looks like ginger ale or urine.

Whatever happens next will not unring the bell.  When the media of the United States, Europe, and Japan were dumped into accommodations with broken doors, urinesque water, no lobbies, and mysterious bodily fluids, they gleefully reported all the issues.  Being reporters, they dug and quickly found corruption, waste, and abuse of power mostly connected back to Putin. With 70,000 workers on the ground, Sochi may well be ready for the athletes.  But the media sent home jokes and ridicule.

If Russia wants to break free of stereotypes and establish a better image, it should stop reverting to stereotypical images like Potemkin Villages.

For a nation seeking respect, ridicule is the deepest cut.

The obsession with its image in the West dates back to Czar Peter the Great in the late 1600s and early 1700s.  He demanded that Russia modernize along Western lines.  Being a very tactile intellect, Peter worked to bring visible changes, such as factories, newspapers, and western styles of clothes.

Peter established some westernism, but failed overall.  He did not understand that the successes of the West sprang not from copying others, but from a liberty that birthed inquiry and development.  Since then, Russia has vacillated between Slavic nationalism and Westernism, but has only rarely thought to embrace freedom to inspire innovation.  It often finds itself playing catchup in the most visible ways, while lagging behind in others.

That is not to say that other countries have even patterns of growth and development.  Certainly the United States does not.  But most Americans do not see the perception of the world as damaging to economic development or national security in the same way as many Russians.

And Russians have reason to be concerned.  They must compete with Western Europe's manufacturing economy, the shale gas revolution in the United States, keep a close eye on an increasingly nationalistic China, and figure out how to spur diverse growth and expand its population.  Russia has over twice the land of China and one tenth of its population, all the while holding territory that the Chinese still consider their own. It also has innumerable ethnic groups within its borders, many of whom resent Moscow's rule.

Putin's nationalist bluster covers glaring weaknesses and concerns.  So far, the Olympics that were supposed to serve as a crowning achievement have undermined the image of Putin and Russia alike.

Two Very Different "Men of the Year" and How They Define Our Times

The US magazine Time and the UK newspaper the Times both selected very different men of the year for 2013.  Each reflects ascendant spirits with very different worldviews.

Time magazine chose Pope Francis.  The Times selected Russian president Vladimir Putin.

In some ways, this is amazingly Augustinian.  St. Augustine wrote of the division between the City of Man and the City of God.    Vladimir Putin has emerged as a near czar of an expanding informal Russian Empire.  He follows the early 19th century British model of using economics to influence and profit from other nations. But he also follows a very Russian path of controlling border nations to keep the homeland secure.  In this way, Third Rome very much resembles the first.

Pope Francis, known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio before March 13, has emerged as a Catholic Father for his times.  The Cold War needed, for example, the iron tough, theologically sound, and eternally compassionate Pope John Paul II.  No pope since the Middle Ages had the impact of the man Catholics and many other Christians call "John Paul the Great" (a moniker not bestowed on a Pope since the 600s.)  His leadership made the Roman Catholic Church a mighty fortress again, regaining credibility and luster after the tragic World War II years.

The 21st Century, however, challenges Christianity in a different way.  Many are lost and want to be found.  While the Church certainly will not abandon doctrine, Francis has pointedly emphasized love, forgiveness, and compassion for the vulnerable.  This may not look like power, but it works effectively in contrast.  John Paul II's expression of these sentiments helped the Polish Pope bring down the Eastern Bloc.  Francis' message will thrive in places such as Cuba, where Communism lost credibility years ago.  Or Africa where Christians face determined Islamic expansionists.  The Christian faith at its core remains the simplest and most profound way to make sense of man's place in the world.  Pope Francis, agree or disagree with the details of some of his pronouncements, is a powerful ambassador of faith.  He senses that the world is changing and seeks to adapt Catholic teaching to it without abandoning fundamental foundations of faith.

Power matters to Putin, too.  He has gradually absorbed Belarus, convincing that impoverished republic to cede sovereign right after sovereign right.  Before Christmas, he offered a bailout to corrupt and struggling Ukraine.  Historically Belarus is "White Russia," Russia proper is "Great Russia," and Ukraine is "Little Russia."  Ukraine, however, is where Russia began.  Russian nationalism craves respect and seeks to ground its actions in tradition and history.  Putin's slow moves westward reflect these old habits.

But how well grounded is that power?  Russia has relied heavily on natural gas revenues to fund its return to world prominence.  The United States, however, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon, could undermine Putin's plans.  As West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas sprout gas wells that rely on cheap hydrofracturing techniques, they threaten to undercut Russian dominance of this market in the Eastern Hemisphere.  In the same way that late 20th century Middle Eastern oil was cheaper for Americans to buy abroad than produce at home, so US gas undermines Russia and depresses prices in the entire gas market.

Unless Russia can diversify or convince Obama to shut off the tap, the moment in the sun carved out by Putin for Russia could be brief.

Putin's hard nosed domestic approach runs counter to Francis' preaching as well.  The Russian president is essentially conservative in the European sense (not, I repeat, not the American. Or the British, for that matter.)  European conservatives emphasize order above liberty.  They prefer control and predictability in both domestic and international affairs.  Russia particularly has feared the advance of uncontrolled social movements regardless of whether they were ruled by the czar or the Politboro.

These two men both qualify as "Man of the Year" for different reasons.  And there is no reason to think that their influence and appeal will diminish in the next 12 months.  What should be troubling for the United States is that neither figure needs to account for America in any way in terms of his ideals, values, or morality. We are no longer a major part of their conversation.  Whether one sees the US as a powerful example of a Judeo-Christian republic or a force for liberty and natural rights, the demise of America under Obama is underscored by the emergence of these men.

Ukraine Continues Tilt Toward Russia

In the Middle Ages, Kiev served as the capital of Russia.  Now it serves independent Ukraine in that capacity.  Over time, Russia and Ukraine separated culturally, linguistically, and nationally.  Now Kiev once again looks to Russia for leadership and support.

Ukraine in terms of size is about the size of Texas or France.  Next to the North American Great Plains, its soil potentially can produce more than any region on Earth.  Its 45 million people live in a state of chronic underdevelopment.  The nation suffers from severe corruption and holds the fifth lowest international credit rating.

Twenty years of independence from the old Soviet Union brought disastrously bad government to a nation with energy reserves, a seaport, and food production capacity that could easily provide for a continent.

Ukraine naturally shied away from Russia at first.  Russia dominated the old Soviet Union which in turn terrorized Ukraine.  Stalin ripped away from the land tens of millions of innocent farmers and others.  Over the USSR's entire history, Ukrainian language and culture were stifled.

Ties to Europe and the United States grew.  Ukraine wanted to participate in institutions such as the European Union and NATO.  Economic instability in the past several years has made help from the EU come with conditions.  These include applying to the IMF and signing a free trade agreement.

Full free trade with Europe would help Ukraine develop itself.  It can cheaply produce enough food to sell to all of Europe.  France, Germany, and other countries, however, continue to cling to agricultural subsidies.  For Ukraine to get ahead, it needs to be able to exploit its competitive advantages in land and cheap labor.  A free trade pact would merely open the door to European manufactures without helping Ukraine develop its agricultural sector.  Some in the United States have floated the idea of a bailout, but with the US and the EU experiencing their own debt crises, this will not happen.

Enter Vladimir Putin and Russia.

Putin seems to have figured out what Britain learned after the American Revolution.  Gain influence over an independent nation's economy and get the benefits of colonialism without the costs of administration.  Britain, the United States, Japan, and others have all adopted that lesson at some point after hard lessons learned about war, conquest, and colonialism.

Russia has extended its hand to Ukraine, offering a trade deal and other forms of assistance.  This will tie Ukraine more strongly to the nation that served as its overlord during Czarist and Soviet times.

Many in Ukraine see this as too risky.  Thousands have rioted in protest against rising Russian influence.  Russian ties to Belarus have resulted in the near merger of the two states.  This will likely not change Ukraine's official position.

Putin will continue to channel efforts into building an informal empire dependent on Moscow.  This is a less risky strategy than China's new belligerence in the Far East, but it is no less important.

As for Ukraine, its potential remains untapped.  But a country the size of France with oil, gas, and food capability is not a forgettable part of the world's balance of influence.

What About Russian Relations? Obama's Lost Credibility

The Kremlin influenced news outlet Russia Today this week compared Obama's foreign policy stature to Vladimir Putin's using a sports metaphor from European soccer (Barcelona versus Wigan Athletic.)  It was somewhat kinder that one published earlier here, which compared Putin to the Harlem Globetrotters and Obama to the perpetually fated square losers, the Washington Generals.  The Globetrotters simile is more apt.  They dominate with panache and style while their ill matched competitors always seem confused and, well, square.

Putin, like the Globetrotters, plays a different game that Obama and those around him cannot comprehend.  This is understandable.  Putin once worked in the KGB, responsible for some of the most successful psychological operations ever seen.  His worldview developed in the context of a global conflict of perceptions with the United States.

Obama's vision has never really transcended Chicago.  His politics are Chicago.  He surrounds himself with bit machine politicians.  Secretary of State, for Obama,  is a box to keep one quiet or a reward for prior support.  Imagine if Harry Truman appointed Sam Rayburn as secretary of state and only listened to the advice of Tom Pendergast.  How many rings would Stalin have run around the Man from Missouri?

Democrats love to accuse Republicans of knee jerking back to Cold War archetypes.  And Obama has gotten sucked into the old mano y mano competitions that Nikita Khrushchev employed successfully at times against John Kennedy and unsuccessfully against Vice President Richard Nixon.

That does not mean, however, that Russia aspires to global revolution. Putin, instead, conducts himself internally and externally much in the same way as the old czars of the imperial age.

Russia, since Peter the Great in the early 1700s, has swung back and forth like a pendulum.  Peter the Great imposed Westernization onto Russia in the same way that an abusive parent would force a child to eat broccoli. Westernization was good for Russia, but it never fully developed a taste for strong relations with the West.  Out of necessity, or the affinity of the leadership, Russia does "swing" towards the West occasionally.  Catherine the Great established intellectual contacts with Voltaire and Jefferson.  Boris Yeltsin worked closely with Bill Clinton and Western experts to construct a free market Russia among the shambles of the dead Communist Soviet Union.

On the other hand, Nicholas I cut off all contact with the West and Joseph Stalin initiated the Cold War.

The anti-Western turn is a combination of a reaction against the West and a reaffirmation of traditional Russian identity.  Russia suffers from an inferiority complex that has led it in the past to assert that most of the world's great inventions, such as radio and telephones, actually came from there. With inferiority comes a craving for respect.  And Russia perceives that Western respect only comes from a show of power and force.

Russia also craves security.  And why not, after all, it experienced devastating invasions by Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon, and Hitler.  They prefer to have their enemies far afield and rarely trust professed friends.  Russia puts its trust in territory.  Keep unfriendly states and alliances as far away as possible while dominating one's neighbors.  The Republic of Georgia a few years ago skirmished with Russia.  Now they have developed ever closer ties.  Belarus seceded from the Soviet Union to escape Great Russia dominance.  Now it has devolved into a near protectorate.

Security also comes from international stabilization.  The czars despised the idea of any revolution or upheaval against established governments.  For example, they warmly supported the United States government in its struggle against the Confederate States, even to the point of deploying warships for a visit to New York harbor.  They "helped" Austria in the 1800s by sending in troops to quell a revolt, without that country's invitation.  Russia's Syria position reflects this old commitment to what it has always seen as "legitimacy."

Russian foreign relations operate almost entirely on the basis of self-interest.  What enhances the prestige and the security of Russia will be pursued.  It serves Putin's goals that the United States be raised to the position of antagonist, regardless of what America does or does not do.

Of course the US sometimes plays into anti-Westerners' hands.  Criticizing the Chechen War in the 1990s was a terrible misstep.  Scolding Russia for its internal developments, negative as they may be, does not advance the US position.  Putin's consolidation of power does not threaten the United States, it is not entirely unpopular, and there is little that America can do about it.

Scolding Russia over gay rights and voicing threats about the Olympics does not hurt Putin.  It actually reinforces his anti-American message about international meddling.  What would really hurt the master of a nation strongly dependent on natural gas revenues is to lift all export controls and turn on as many drills as possible in the US.  When the international price of natural gas drops, Russia will be hit.  They will also understand that the US can hurt a country without bombing it.

That builds respect.  That increases credibility.

Also, make no more mention of anti-gay laws in Russia. Instead, let the gay athletes who will represent the United States compete with class.  Jesse Owens and America's Jewish athletes struck a blow against National Socialist doctrines on race and religion by winning  events and conducting themselves with honor in Berlin in 1936.  They can do the same in Sochi.

No more "resets" can happen under Obama.  He has no respect or credibility in the Kremlin.  The next president needs to bring people aboard who understand Russia.  Then the US can craft a position vis a vis that country that is productive without being subservient.

The Dangers of Meddling in Syria

Last month, experts testified to a House committee that inaction in Syria emboldened Iran.  Not long after that, Senator John McCain predicted that "the entire Middle East is up for grabs, and our enemies are fully committed to winning."  He urged Obama to lead.

The New York Times cited an estimate from the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that over 100,000 have died so far in the four year conflict.  As in many such wars, civilians and their property take the brunt of the violence.  Both sides seek to terrify the population into supporting its cause.  Resources must be destroyed to deny their use to the enemy.

Such is the nature of "civil war."  Even in the American Civil War, Union generals used artificial famine as a weapon in Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

Because of the misery inflicted by this war, many have urged Obama to get directly involved.  Some cite humanitarian issues.  Others point to Russia's support of the Assad regime, a government which has historically acted out against American and Israeli interests.

Just because there is a "bad guy" does not mean that he is opposed by a "good guy."  President Assad is an authoritarian tyrant and supporter of terrorism.  But would he be replaced by anything better?  Rebel murder of a Syrian Roman Catholic priest tells the Western world otherwise.  He was decapitated with an ordinary kitchen knife as fanatics shriekingly chanted "God is great!"

Do we really want that to run a Middle Eastern nation state?

Syria occupies a keystone position in the Eastern Mediterranean.  North is Turkey, grumbling against a somewhat Islamacist government.  Nearby lies Egypt, seemingly ripe for a military coup.  Bordering Syria is Lebanon, who suffered a horrific civil war of its own in the 1980s.  Spillover from the war could be destructive.  A jihadist regime replacing Assad could be even worse.

The correct U. S. response should be a pox on both your houses.  Do not get sucked into a race with the Russians over arming sides.  Leadership should take the part of cooperative quarantining of the war within the bounds of Syria.

Yes this is a particularly horrible war.  But there is nothing that the United States can directly do that will not make it worse on Syrians and threaten the degenerating stability of the region.

Vladimir Putin's Winning Streak

At this point, 2:34 PM Monday June 24, Russia Today's website is almost entirely devoted to the Edward Snowden debacle.

Fox News's site leads with Snowden, but also lists a variety of other stories.  CNN didn't have Snowden covered in any prominent spot.

But Russia Today revels in the twists and turns of Snowden's ability to elude American surveillance.

Putin has been on a winning streak of sorts lately.  His ally, Syria, now receives arms and other support that may push the regime to bloody victory.  The Russian leader put his thumb directly in the eye of Obama by facilitating Snowden's escape.  He managed to split from his wife without much public fuss.  Putin even somehow managed to score a Super Bowl ring without ever suiting up.  The only mark against him is the viral picture of Steven Seagall giving him bunny ears in a photo.

This presidency has never played the diplomatic game well, but now the world has become the Harlem Globetrotters to Obama's Generals. 

From the beginning, Obama wanted to organize the world community.  He failed to realize that diplomacy at its core is a relationship of power and interest.  Choices made for the office of Secretary of State reflect domestic political priorities rather than wise selections.  Former Senator Hillary Clinton turned out to be a non entity (although Obama rarely put his trust in her.)  John Kerry will not do much better.  Diplomats, military officers, and even academics seem to understand the abstract and the reality of power better than legislators. 

Obama also does not seem to understand the limits of power.  One never makes threats or demands that can be easily flaunted.  The US government warned Western Hemisphere nations to not allow a plane carrying Snowden into their airspace.  Fair enough.  But what will we do if one does?  More bluster?  Any tin pot who wants to make the US look bad without consequences can bring this guy to their country, at least in the short term.

The government should have said nothing and just kept quiet tabs, waiting for the pressure to get to him.  He would either turn himself in, or make a mistake.  Snowden has already brought his own judgment into question.  American officials making themselves look like fools will not bring him to account. 

Strangely enough, Obama has the ability to embarrass and even harm Putin if he chooses.  Should the United States ever remove its export restrictions on natural gas, the price will plummet even further.  Gas revenues are most of the foundation of Russia's recent prosperity.  The impact of American shale gas on the global marketplace has seriously weakened Russia's economic position.  Why not turn on the taps full blast and watch American energy might push Putin (and a few oil states in the Middle East) toward irrelevance? Why not build the pipeline that would bring even more US made energy to market?  This would put even more Americans to work in gas and its byproducts.

Putin may be on a winning streak, but it lies within Obama's power to prevail in the game, if he so chooses.

And Creepiest Guy of the Year Award Goes to . . . Vladimir Putin

Everyone's known that guy. The one who always has something a little bit too weird to say around much younger women. Who thinks that they are a divine gift to all women, but are not exactly all that they think they are.

So what happens when that guy is the most powerful politician in his country?

To the lay observer, the entire Vladimir Putin ad campaign for president seemed to be based on two premises. Either he inspires young and attractive people to have sex with each other, or to have sex with him. Or at least tear their clothes off in honor of him.

This is no exaggeration. I am not making this up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfqGSN-le0g

I think this is only legal in Lincoln County.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG2XV2n9efc&feature=related

It actually gets more tasteless than the above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2_7AfFCH-g

Yup, this is it.

Maybe this is normal in Russia, and probably most of Europe for that matter, but to Americans this is really creepy. Basically a sixty year old bald guy is trying to perv on 19 year olds. And also control them through soft tyranny.

Imagine any American political figure running a campaign like this. These ads are more ridiculous than Saturday Night Live parodies. They also reflect Putin's utter contempt for his electorate.

After watching this, give me good old fashioned American mud slinging every time. At least they come within shouting distance of an issue every once in a while.

I'd even prefer a campaign like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zTN4BXvYI

The Russians Would Like to Know Who Runs American Foreign Policy: So Would We!

The rank incompetence of Obama's foreign policy exploded once again in the Maximum Duce's face. This time the object of his policy has a point.

Obama took to Russia with him the language of apology and conciliation, part of the "America is evil" world tour that left him to embrace opponents and ditch old friends. That country, led by Vladimir Putin through a puppet president (no one seems to acknowledge that fact anymore) seemed to accept Obama at face value, just like everyone else.

The next interesting statement came from the Vice President. Joe Biden told an American newspaper (apparently not knowing that Russians read them) that Russia's economic weakness would present Americans with an opportunity to get more national security concessions out of them.

Russians, understandably, reacted with anger and confusion. Which statement reflected real American policy?

As usual, Joe Biden is right in his assessment. The Russians are right in saying that it reflects more of a Dick Cheney style hard nosed approach than Obama's airy apologies. Russians also tend historically to respect blunt hard diplomacy much more than airy platitudes. However, Mr. Vice President, truths need not be told simply to make yourself look intelligent. Russia knows what shape it is in. It does not need you to remind them. This certainly will not help relations.

As usual, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gets the job of sewer cleaner. When Obama, Biden, or the various czars leave a pile of crap, she must don the gloves and clean it up. She called Russia a "world power" on the Sunday shows, but no one believes that she has any input on anything.

The Bush approach lay in occasional expressions of vague concern with, very likely, blunt expressions in private. Russia understands the language and methods of power betterthan most. They are much better off when they respect your country because they only like those whom they find subordinate. Obama's schizophrenic foreign policy complex has undermined whatever his goals are yet again.