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The crisis in the Ukraine continues unabated as thousands of Russian troops, which some estimate to be around 6,000, continue to occupy the Crimea Peninsula, severing it from the rest of the Ukraine.

On Saturday, President Obama had a detailed 90 minute heated conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, regarding military incursion into the Crimea region of the Ukraine.

Obama expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s “violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity . . . [and] breach of international law,” the White House said. 

R. Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat who became Under Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration. “The stakes are very high for the president because he is the NATO leader. There’s no one in Europe who can approach him in power. He’s going to have to lead.”

The muted U.S. response and vague warning issued on Friday about costs associated with Russian troop incursion has basically amounted to only the threat to boycott the G8 summit in to take place in Sochi in June.

One has to remember that back in 2012, Putin refused to attend the G8 summit, hosted by President Obama, virtually humiliating the president on the international stage.

Andrew C. Kuchins, a Senior Fellow at the Center of Strategic and International Studies wrote, “The Obama administration must abandon its oxymoronic inclination to “lead from behind” because the imminent danger is that of a broader use of military and quasi-military tools to effectively separate other eastern regions of Ukraine from the rest of the country.  This would have disastrous consequences for Ukrainians and U.S. credibility around the world.  Just imagine, for example, the takeaway for Japanese and Chinese leaders about U.S. commitment as they spar in their own territorial dispute.”

Criticism of the presidents handling of the crisis has come from different diverse foreign policy experts, but House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) on yesterday’s Sunday morning talk show had this to say about the president handling of the situation.

“Well, I think Putin is playing chess, and I think we’re playing marbles. And I don’t think it’s even close. If you look at the nuclear negotiations, we got our fannies handed to us. They took tactical nukes out of the equation.  This has been a huge mistake, especially for our allies in the Baltics. When you move down the list in Syria, the Russians got everything that they needed, and they believe they needed in Syria.”

“I think it’s really the naive position on the National Security Council and the president’s advisors that if we just keep giving things to Russia, they’ll finally wake up and say, boy, the United States isn’t all that bad. That is completely missing the motivations of why Russia does what Russia does. And, again, they have an interest in expanding their buffer zones by influence — I don’t think by Russian occupation — but by influence in cases like the Crimea, I think Moldova is next, and other places that it’s in their interest to continue to push out that buffer zone.”

Again, no one is contemplating military action or anything resembling military force, but the president has placed himself and the U.S. in a precarious situation with his past response toward Russia.

U.S. Secretary of state John Kerry will be traveling to the Ukraine hopefully to defuse the crisis, but in the meantime the president needs to take the lead in conjunction with our European Allies.

Yesterday, a State Department press spokesperson stated, “Secretary of State Kerry will travel to Kiev. He will be there on Tuesday for consultations with the transitional Ukrainian government. He will also meet with members of the Rada, we expect, civil society, and talk about steps that we are taking to support Ukraine economically, to support Ukraine politically, and to address the needs that they have.”

They continued “We are also, at the Ukrainians’ request, calling a meeting, likely on Wednesday but later in the week, of the parties who committed in 1994 at Budapest when Ukraine made the decision to become a nonnuclear state to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The four signatories to that were the UK, the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine. Ukrainians have asked for emergency consultations under this Budapest agreement, and we will call those and host those later in the week and see whether the Russians show.”

The lingering question is how will the president respond to this crisis?

Our allies and adversaries around the globe are watching how the president responds and how he does will dictate their actions on a host of other foreign policy issues.       

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