Paul R. Gregory: A 19th-century bully
The U.S. response to Vladimir Putin’s illegal annexation of Crimea and his amassing of troops on the border with Eastern Ukraine has been tepid, at best. Although the Obama-Kerry sanctions of Putin’s inner circle bit a little more deeply than Europe’s, Putin can shrug sanctions off as a minor inconvenience. Even though the invasion and Anschluss of Crimea violates the 1994 Budapest Agreement signed by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom that assured Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Kerry did not put it on the list of grievances in his discussions with the Russian foreign minister.