By John Ubaldi, “Ubaldi Reports”

Everyone was anticipating a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin obliged by sending his country’s military into the country in the early hours of February 24th in a large-scale assault by land, sea, and air.

To many foreign policy experts this invasion by Russia caught many by surprise, but if anyone has followed Ukraine-Russian relations over the years they would have realized this was anticipated and complicated since the collapse of the Soviet Union decades ago.

Ukraine has been drifting toward the west, and this has accelerated since the people’s protest in 2013–14 which toppled a Russian-friendly president of President Viktor Yanukovych.  Putin then put forth a broader strategy with his annexation of Crimea as he believed the west would not do anything significant, especially after his partial invasion of Georgia located in the Caspian Sea region in 2008.  Rhetoric by the west but especially the U.S. was made but nothing subsequent came of it.

In 2014, strong condemnation was leveled at Russia for its annexation of Crimea, but nothing more again came of it.

“The move was a thinly veiled attempt to forward Putin’s real agenda: re-establishing Russia as a resurrected great power.” John Mearsheimer writing in “Foreign Affairs” by suggested that the United States and Europe had provoked Moscow: “The taproot of the trouble is NATO enlargement, the central element of a larger strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit and integrate it into the West.” Michael McFaul in “Foreign Affairs” disagreed, placing the blame squarely with the Russian leader. “This crisis is not about Russia, NATO, and realism,” he wrote, “but about Putin and his unconstrained, erratic adventurism.”

The potential NATO membership of Ukraine was the precipitous reason often mentioned by the Putin, but another plausible reason was that the Russian leader didn’t want a pro-western nation with a free-market economy and a viable democracy on its border as this would have been a sever threat to his leadership.

Many Russian’s would have openly complained on why Ukraine has a vibrant free market economy with luxuries unavailable throughout Russia, and openly protesting why can’t we have that here in Russia!

The question many have been debating is what are Putin’s real strategic aims?  One only has to understand that Putin has always tried to peruse a two-decade policy of reclaiming the lost prestige and power of the former Soviet Union—the country now only has around 75 percent of his country’s former territory and with it 40 million fewer people.

Both Republican and Democratic administration have never understood Putin!

Each time Putin moved against his neighbors, countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, is when the price of energy was at its highest. In his invasion in both Georgia in 2008, and Crimea in 2014 happened when the price of oil went over $100 a barrel and Putin was flush with financial revenues from high oil prices.

This gave him the financial resources to re-build his military and enabled Putin to engage in adventurism abroad. Every time the globs is awash in oil prices drop considerably, and this was the case between 2017-2020 when the U.S. was the world’s largest gas and oil producer, for the first time since in over 70 years America was energy independent.

The other dimension that caused autocrats pause including Putin is when U.S. increased its military defense budget, and when America exudes strength enemies of the U.S. states pause, contrast this when the U.S. “resets” or appeases Putin and other autocrats challenge feel embolden.

Military historian at the Hoover Institute, Victor Davis Hanson stated that “In 2008, the United States was battered by sky-high oil prices and bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then between2009 and 2016, President Obama went on an apology tour, cut defense spending, boasted of a new “Russian reset,” contextualized Iranian and North Korean aggression, and begged Putin to behave until Obama was reelected in 2012—in exchange for dismantling U.S. missile defense programs in Eastern Europe. Obama then invited Russia into the Middle East after a 40-year absence.”

As a result, during all those years Putin formally invaded Georgia, Eastern Ukraine, and Crimea. But between 2017 and 2020, Putin strangely enough was muted.

During the presidency of Donald Trump was dogged relentlessly by the false Russian collusion narrative perpetrated by Hillary Clinton and her multilayered associates. For perspective, as Hanson mentioned that in 2018, the Trump Administration killed attacking Russian mercenaries in Syria. It got out of an unfavorable missile deal with Russia in 2019. It sold offensive weapons to Ukraine. It maintained sanctions on Russian oligarchs. And it greatly increased defense spending.

During this period Putin never threatened his neighbors with military mobilizations on their borders.

Putin always becomes embolden when he since weakness by the U.S. and discord among NATO member nation countries, during each of these periods Putin becomes more aggressive.

This occurred when the U.S. and NATO openly clashed over Iraq and Afghanistan between 2006 and 2008.  Again this was on full display during 2009-2010; this is also was on display when President Obama openly complained that NATO members were “free riders” for not meeting their promised military obligations of spending 2 percent of their annual budget investments in military readiness.

Two NATO member countries Germany and Turkey became more belligerent and more anti-American.

During the Trump presidency, the U.S. criticized NATO countries, with especially pointed rhetorical barbs at Germany the most prosperous European country for failing to spending adequately on its defense, and relying entirely on the U.S. for its defense needs.

Trump even criticized European nations but especially Germany who state they need protection from Russia, fail to spend adequately on their own defense, and then sign lucrative energy deals with Russia such as Nord Stream II energy pipeline from Russia to Germany from a pipeline under the Baltic Sea.

One of the first official acts of the Biden administration was to lift the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on the construction of the Nord Stream II energy pipeline, and ending America’s energy independence.

With many holding distain for Trump, but Trump’s tough-talking persona shamed the NATO allies into hostile and reluctant alliance into spending upwards of $100 billion more in defense. After the rough admonishment by Trump countries finally began to meet their promised defense spending obligations.

During the Trump administration he had sanctioned the Putin-Merkel Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that would bring Russian energy to Germany.

Finally too often U.S. presidents often trash talk, but there rhetorical verbal barrage often prove anemic, as they fail to back up there tough talk to action. President Obama was famous for this; especially in Syria, where Obama failed to follow up with his redline over Syrian forces utilizing chemical weapons on their own people. Obama’s bluff was called and the president caved at the precise moment when he needed to act. Every time U.S. president trash talk, Putin explodes at fake bravado and turns aggressive.

Obama repeatedly ridiculed Putin with putdowns of the Russian country and people: “Their economy doesn’t produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate.”

For all of his bluster, Obama was petrified to sell or give defensive weapons to Ukraine in there time of need to combat blatant Russian aggression and implored Putin to give him “space.”

Now President Biden, who was Obama’s Vice President utter the same empty rhetoric that Obama showed Putin. Biden throughout the 2020 presidential race stated he was the one person who would be tough on Putin, as the only one who has gone toe-to-toe with him.  Biden constantly attacks Putin calling him a “bully” and “killer.”

When Putin blatantly allowed Russian-affiliated hackers to attack U.S. companies and agencies, Biden urged Putin tell the hacker‘s to not 16 critical American “entities” off-limits.

As soon as he became president, Biden did everything in his power to end American energy independence by slashing U.S. oil and gas production in favor of his climate change agenda, but when prices skyrocketed. Biden then begged the “killer” to please pump more of his “dirty” fuel to help American commuters.

For all of his bombastic rhetoric, Trump spoke with clarity and resolve, Putin never knew quite what Trump might do in any given crisis, other than that it would be unpredictable, in U.S. interests, and possibly deadly.

Again, the result was that Putin did nothing provocative during the entire Trump presidency.

We don’t know how this crisis will end in Ukraine, but right now China is watching on Biden deals with Putin’s Russia, and President Xi and Putin don’t fear Biden and that is dangerous for the U.S.!