Are you kidding me?
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow's biggest concern over the crisis in Ukraine was that the former Soviet republic would join NATO.
Gosh! Why would Ukraine want to join NATO now? I mean, Russia only captured Crimea and stokes separatist violence in Ukraine's east. I mean, that Ukrainian talk of joining NATO just came out of nowhere, huh?
And by taking Crimea, Russia removed an impediment to Ukraine joining NATO by putting the Sevastopol naval base in Russian territory. If I understand the situation correctly, NATO does not allow member states to host bases of nations not in NATO. So Russia took care of that.
Consider, too, that European NATO nations have so little offensive military power that these nations needed significant American support just to carry out an air campaign against revolution-wracked Libya.
Yet Putin is worried that one day American missile defenses will be put in Ukraine? At best, such defenses would only make Russia's ability to nuke Europe a little less efficient.
But the truth is too difficult for Putin's ego to handle. The truth is that contrary to his nightmares of NATO plots to destroy Holy Mother Russia, NATO was content to not even think much about Russia as NATO nations continue to reduce their military capabilities down to their core employment role of being a uniformed civil service jobs program.
At a certain level of spending, European countries had some actual military power built on that base of pretend military power. But spending reductions are eliminating the actual military power to preserve the uniformed civil service. At this point, Poland might be the only exception to this trend.
So Putin gave Ukraine a reason to join NATO, allowed NATO to accept Ukraine into NATO, and prompted NATO members to worry about whether it is safe to keep cutting their military budgets. Oh, and Sweden and Finland have new reasons to ponder NATO membership. So, really, bravo, Mr. Putin. Well played. Truly awesome.
So what is Putin? Paranoid? You bet. Autocratic? Of course. Have an aversion to wearing shirts while hunting tigers? If Kremlin photo-ops are to be believed, yes.
But strategic super genius?
Well, we'll wait and see if we go back to business as usual with Russia.
And we'll wait and see if being the energy supplier of a far more powerful China is as good an idea as Putin thinks it is.
Unfortunately, I guess Putin only has to be less stupid than our side to look brilliant. We're the one that goes on about its self-proclaimed "smart diplomacy," after all.
So I can't rule out the history books speaking of Putin as a super genius.
