As in the past, however, they exhibit heightened concern over their vital national security interests at their periphery, or what Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partner in their presidential game of Round Robin, coined as Russia’s “sphere of privileged interests.”

Thus, regime change or its prevention has uniformly constituted the Kremlin’s underlying motive for all the military interventions at Russia’s periphery since Budapest 1956. The periphery, however, dramatically changed with the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

Rather than much of Eastern Europe, it now includes Ukraine but also the Baltic states, those of the Caucasus, Moldova and Central Asia.

“We swear that we will never be slaves.”

The words of the Hungarian old national anthem, sung by the Budapest revolutionaries on Oct, 23, 1956, underpins the basic cause of all the Eastern European revolutionaries and Caucasian Georgia — 1956 Hungary, 1968 Czechoslovakia, 1980-81 Poland, 2008 Georgia and 2014 Ukraine.

All desired more freedom, the political and economic reforms and prosperity of their Western neighbors and not to be governed by Kremlin pro-consuls.

In July 1968, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger advised the late Czech Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek “not to repeat [Hungarian leader] Imre Nagy´s mistakes” and declare neutrality because this would “disturb European equilibrium.”

The Czechs followed Kissinger´s advice. Nevertheless, precisely because of U.S. hands-off policies and military non-resistance, the invasion came anyway.

In Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, the threat to the Kremlin was not that these countries would leave the Soviet camp, but that their revolutionary change would “infect” the Soviet bloc,( now the post-Soviet space) from within.

By 2008, joining NATO was out of the question for Georgia and Ukraine because of German and French veto.

Yet Putin still tried to bring regime change in both countries to procure leaders more palatable to the Kremlin.

The Russian president well understands the lessons of the past, embodied in the credo of the late Boris Nemtsov and his mentor, Andrei Sakharov: The transcendence of Ukraine to genuine democracy with a viable, less corrupt economy, could encourage regime change — not only in Kyiv, but even in Russia.

Kremlin decision-making, despite all differences since the Soviet era, still consistently revolves around three factors.

The first is cost, associated with anticipated resistance, and Russia likes its interventions as low-cost as possible.

Second, and much neglected in the West, is the calculation of the Russian military´s ability to achieve strategic surprise.

Third is the presumed reaction of the United States.

Avoiding a large war is something the Russians have perpetually sought at all cost!

Invasion is thus more likely if America displays hands-off policies and /or is involved in another crisis or war elsewhere.

Putin has also learned the folly of large, costly, and unsustainable invasions and occupations in non-Russian speaking countries.

The novelty under him is low-cost military interventions aimed at protecting Russian speakers.

By encouraging separatism, Russia is thus able to carve out and occupy small pieces that further enable her ability to influence the political process in the target country.

The Russians still, as in the past, seek to gain their objectives through deception or maskirovka.

Yet the Russian term has a much broader meaning than the Western one — active measures, disinformation, traps, psychological pressure and diplomatic cunning. Maskirovka is also used to enable strategic surprise , or what World War II master of it, Marshal Georgiy Zhukov, posited as what will “stun the enemy,” thus ensuring the success of the mission.

Intelligence analysts were stunned or taken by surprise by the “little green men” who invaded the Crimea.

Yet in 1968 Czechoslovakia, the invasion was accomplished by an unexpected Aeroflot landing full of “fit young men” or “tourists” on vacation.

Like the greenies, they accessed pre-prepared weapons at the Russian embassy, took over the airports and called in the invasion forces. To ensure its success Russia has simply married marry new forms of maskirovka with old ones.

Thus has the Kremlin continued to take each new generation of U.S. analysts by surprise. Under undisputed leader Putin, the Kremlin has again become a riddle wrapped in mystery, but some things are clear. Putin invaded Georgia and the Crimea only after concluding that doing so would not lead to a large war. He is also continuing military intervention in the eastern Ukraine while exploiting Obama’s own obsession with his legacy.

What Vietnam War peace negotiations and the summit with the USSR were to President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, the nuclear agreement with Iran is to Obama.

Thus Obama’s refusal so far to arm Ukraine is perhaps rooted in fear of war with Russia, a country that can also be helpful in clinching the Iran deal.

After all, Russia was designated as the safe-keeper of nuclear material shipped from Iran. Didn´t Putin help him to avoid war in Syria by aiding with removal of Assad ´s chemical weapons? To Obama, Putin was helpful again by supporting the U.S. interpretation of the nuclear deal with Iran. But at the same time, Putin´s regime has just lifted the restriction on export of an anti-aircraft missile system to Iran and earlier signed an agreement with the Iranians on their “joint struggle with the intervention of outside forces in the region.”

In short, given Russia’s double role, the Iran issue should be decoupled by the U.S. from Ukraine and Ukraine should be armed. Obama must finally demonstrate he is not a paper tiger. Unfortunately, our president, mired in “strategic patience,” has preferred to wield a wet noodle in lieu of the big stick.

By contrast, ex-President Jimmy Carter’s and ex-President Ronald Reagan’s preemptive policies during the 1980-81 Polish crisis, helped to avoid the Kremlin´s direct intervention and both presidents made the Afghan war very costly for the Russians.

Reagan not only upgraded Carter’s military aid to the resistance with Stinger missiles, but also extended aid to other anti-Soviet insurgencies.

The much maligned 1983 Grenada intervention was viewed in the Kremlin as a first turn in America´s post-Vietnam syndrome.

Most importantly, Reagan Doctrine became in the words of one of its drafters, Richard Pipe, “a double-pronged strategy: encouraging pro-reform forces inside the USSR and raising for the Soviet Union the costs of its imperialism.

”Going forward, we must declare our firm commitment to our NATO allies, backed up by deployments of small NATO units in Estonian and Latvian regions with large Russian populations. It also behooves our Baltic allies to deny strategic surprise by guarding airports and railroad hubs. At the same time we must encourage the Balts and Moldovans to preserve and uphold the civic and language rights of their sizable Russian minorities. Putin must be denied any reason or justification to intervene, either with force or by a cyber-attack, such as he launched in 2007 against Estonia and likely against the Obama´s White House in 2014.

Clearly, those who objected to arming the Ukraine out of fear that Putin would invade, should finally realize the reverse proved true. Not arming the Ukrainians under the guise of “strategic patience,” only serves to encourage Putin´s blackmails in Europe and his double role in Iran. Indeed, even the satellite intelligence we share with the Ukraine is edited so as not to offend Russia; a process which also delays its delivery.

Meanwhile, our lack of resolve, is only being exploited by Putin and Iran´s mullahs. “Remember Pipes, they will do everything but go to war. They are blackmailers.”

Boris Souvarine, former French Comintern leader, so advised Richard Pipes, adviser to Reagan, at the peak of the October 1981 Polish crisis.

To prevent the U.S. from arming Kyiv, Putin is using Khrushchevian nuclear blackmail, sending his obsolete planes with nuclear weapons over NATO and even neutral countries, while his tottering navy ships stalk America´s shores.

His image makers have labored to present him unpredictable and dangerous, mirror imaging the Kremlin´s earlier views of Reagan. But let’s call Putin’s bluff and arm Ukraine!

Even if he goes on nuclear alert he will not risk nuclear holocaust. If he is not willing to seek a genuine diplomatic solution then our statecraft, must choose an Afghan one for him — bleeding Russia by military assistance to Kiev.

The Reagan course could eventually help in setting in motion what Ukrainian general- turned dissident Petro Grigorenko foresaw in 1968 letter to Czech leader Alexander Dubcek, and what actually happened in the 1980s.

Our backing the Afghan resistance helped to unleash, in Grigorenko’s words, the kind of “destructive anti-imperial forces” that assured “the defeat of the invaders” and produced regime change in 1991 Moscow.

Thus our course henceforth, must be strategic courage instead of “strategic patience.” Reflecting on the 1989 East European revolutions, a friend of ours, prominent Russian writer Stanislav Kondrashev wrote.

Whenever violence is done to history and the people’s will, it will sooner or later have to be paid for and the later this happens, the harsher the settlement.”

Jiri Valenta, president of the Institute of Post-Communist Studies and Terrorism ,is a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and author of the best-selling “Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia 1968; Anatomy of a Decision.” He was co-editor of “Soviet Decision-Making for National Security.” Leni Friedman Valenta is a writer and editor for their website, jvlv.net, and has written for the Georgian Messenger, The National Interest and the Kyiv Post among other publications. This article is excerpted from the manuscript of their forthcoming book on Russian interventions.