As the Ukraine situation moves along as anyone with an objectively nuanced clue not hobbled by narrow ideological prejudices predicted it would, let's revisit the question of significance here - how bad is it that the entire leadership of Western democracies so badly misjudged Putin and the security situation in general - and how utterly disturbing is it that the decision makers in Obama's White House as regards foreign policy and security issues seemed to [and quite possibly still do] not grasp the import of Putin's actions, ridiculing him as a small time regional malcontent acting all 19th century which is just so not in keeping with the way precious progressivism has decided the world should be? Well...it's bad and it's disturbing - hell, it's really bad and disturbing. Even if one cuts them some slack over failing to predict how Putin would respond to what was going on in Ukraine and to the EU push east in general since many people, including conservatives, made that mistake - you've still got the wholly disquieting problem of Obama et al seemingly being unable to grasp the design, contours and import of Putin's larger strategic imperatives - which, putting them simply as they appear to me, amount to making the West and America in particular [since it's obviously the security lynch pin] look weak and in decline and then moving onto isolating America and undermining its relations with key allies by working with an alliance that includes Iran and its client states, China and possibly some South American n'er do wells and thereby completely upending the current global power structure to the detriment of the US and its democratic allies - Russia will obviously control the European sphere, Iran the Mideast and China just about everything else that's left to be controlled, co-opted or manipulated, most importantly of course the China Sea and environs - in a nutshell, that is what I think we're seeing here - it's not Putin wandering around all lost to a 19th century delusion, nor is it him trying to per se reconstitute the USSR [although it may indeed look that way in many respects] - it's about the furthering of a loose alliance the goal of which is to sink or seriously constrain America as a global power - it's a real, daunting, disturbing threat - and that Obama et al don't see it and indeed are playing right into the hands of it - well, like I said, that ain't good.
