“Probe with bayonets,” Soviet ruler Vladimir Lenin famously said. “If you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, stop.”
Like his late predecessor, Russian President Vladimir Putin will advance until he meets steel. Until this week he met mush in, of all places, the United States government thanks to Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky who used an arcane senate rule to block a vote on the accession of tiny Montenegro – the former Yugoslav republic on the Adriatic between Albania and Croatia – from joining NATO.
