Thursday, February 27, 2014

Ukraine and Our Useless Outrage

Ukraine and Our Useless Outrage | National Review Online:

"Although the U.S. alone seems to honor its promised deadlines of withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq, the world’s aggressors sense that the Obama administration’s bluster will be followed by more bluster.

Therefore, they have decided to risk aggrandizements while they can.

In the mind of Vladimir Putin, today Ukraine, tomorrow the Baltic States or Eastern Europe. 

In the minds of the Iranian theocrats, if chemical WMD are okay in Syria, why not nuclear WMD in Iran? 

In China’s view, when Japan backs off, why shouldn’t Taiwan, South Korea, or the Philippines? 

Such a seemingly insignificant loss of deterrence is how wars often start — when an aggressive nation bets that loud words signal that consequences will never follow. 

So it is emboldened to up the ante to try something even riskier.

 America’s step-over line/deadline/red line outrage is long past monotonous and empty — and the result has been an ever scarier world."

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