Here we are once again seeing a bully run roughshod over another country. You would think global leadership would have figured out this type of thing by now, but obviously not. Here is a bit of recap on why Putin thinks he can get away with this:
- When Obama came into office one of his first acts was to write a letter to Russian leadership that stated that we would not follow through on the European missile defense shield we were building. Huge mistake and taken as a sign of weakness by the Russians (and rightfully so).
- Obama drew a red line in the sand with Syria and didn’t follow through with that, which lead to massive issues in the middle east. Another sign of weakness.
- Obama was successful in getting Mubarak removed from Egypt and Gaddafi removed from Libya, which lead to massive unrest and culminated in the Benghazi situation. Obama used the CIA to move weapons into Syria, against US law which forbade it, and this fueled ISIS. This was seen as sheer folly by leadership in Russia and rightfully so.
- Obama did absolutely nothing after Russia annexed Crimea. Again, a sign of weakness.
- Obama was horrible at dealing with ISIS and had very limited success against them. Remember the millions of displaced people fleeing the middle east? Russia noted this as a lack of willingness to deal with threats appropriately.
- Biden gets into office and leaves Afghanistan in tatters and once again an American leader shows callous disregard for people in other parts of the world and a lack of willingness to stand up and do what is right. Obviously, this was a sign of weakness and noted by the Russians.
- Biden had months to do something to help Ukraine and did very little. This essentially gave approval to Putin to move forward with his designs.
Putin has mostly seen weakness from the world and believes he will get away with this action. Will the West be able to hold together strong enough to force him out of Ukraine? Who knows. But, I know one thing for sure: we had better buckle up and put our big boy pants on, because the real world is coming for us.
