THE RUSSIAN OBSESSION : MR PUTIN'S REVENGE FOR UKRAINE

"Don't get between a sow bear and her cub". Scrawled on piece of birchbark tacked to tree along the Appalachian Trail  near Bondville, VT.

It has been six months of constant media and government obsession with the Russian intervention in our electoral system.  The nation.has had it up to "here" (a hand-slash across the neck).  But not one of the media outlets or commentators has bothered to explain the causes or motives for this foreign "intervention".  Americans seem to prefer to claim their own purity of motives and blame any untoward events on the "evil" intentions or "jealousy" of their many and varied enemies.  That does no go down well with analysts, physicians and scientist..who need to ascribe causes to social and political phenomena or disease.

The following is a much needed hypothesis for the cause of this obsession.

In 2014, President Obama and his interventionist-prone State Department decided to goad the Russian bear ( getting between it and its "cub" neighbor) by intervening in the Ukraine, a state with many historic and cultural ties to Russia. That was a terrible mistake in 'bear' etiquette.   For some still unclear reason the Obama White House decided to  destabilize the legally elected and generally mid-of-the-road, and perhaps a bit pro-Russian- leaning president Victor Victor Yanukovych.  The CIA and State Department (and the now infamous anti-Russian State Department Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland) spent millions of US taxpayer  dollars and $1billion loan-guarantee to encourage unrest, plant anti-Yanukovych propaganda, initiate and sustain anti-Russia riots and to generally destabilize and encourage "regime change" in a fragile Ukraine.  The result was a major political, and foreign policy disaster. The Obama team effort (like in other areas of the world)  led to a civil-war, a fractured and divided state, thousands of dead and displaced Ukrainians, and the eventual annexing of the Crimea  by the the Russians, as well as a sharp deflection downward in the Russian-USA curve of  relations.

To get the sense of what a threat this foreign policy blunder was to Russia, recall the immediate response of a very similar incident on our side of the Atlantic during the Cuba missiles crisis during the Kennedy administration.  In that incident World War III was just barely avoided.   But in the Ukraine crisis  try to imagine the agita that would ensue were the Russians to intervene with a billion dollar loan to help destabilize a pro-USA Mexican government.  Then succeed in nstalling a new Mexican president who held anti-American and pro-Russian sentiments. This right on our doorstep.   It would be and understatement to claim that our leadership  would be very much concerned and angered.

As I have written before...actions have consequences...Newton's Third Law of Physics stating that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  I believe that Newton's Law apples in politics too.  For every policy action there is a corresponding and opposing policy response.

Vladimir Putin was threatened and angered by Mr. Obama's actions in the Ukraine.  This was a brazen, unthinking policy decision that was a clear existential threat to Russia.  Mr. Putin  must have decided then and there that he would make any future actions by the likes of  the Victoria Nulands of the US and Mr. Obama very, very costly indeed.

A direct attack was unthinkable.   But a cyber attack on the fragile, unwieldy, soft underbelly of the US, especially while it was engaged in its quadrennial madness of elections might be an easy mark.  Mr. Putin's plan was hatched as a response and to get revenge on the Obama administration.  In hindsight we can appreciate the extent to which he  achieved his goal--and then some.

Putin's goal could not have been to HELP ELEECT Mr Trump, because when this plan was hatched no one knew who would be Mrs. Clinton's (the heir apparent--awaiting a coronation) opponent.  So the idea that Trump and Putin somehow were in collusion is a red herring dragged across the trail by discomforted post-election Democrats.  No,  Mr. Putin's cyber attacks on the DNC and other attempts were simply saying to Obama "keep your nose out of Russian internal and local affairs" or suffer the consequences.

Mr. Obama and his party suffered the horrible consequences of his Ukraine intervention in the election outcome.   Mr. Putin made his point and in spades.  Obama's unpalatable candidate lost the election, Obama lost a chance to pick a Supreme Court justice, his legacy is in tatters, his Party lost "bigly", his legislation is being picked apart and discarded like post parade ticker tape on a Manhattan street. His fear is that he would suffer the fate of  the 14th c BC Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten,   whose cult of Aten, his city, and his artwork, were defaced and forgotten by subsequent pharaohs and  buried by the drifting sands..

There is a lesson here.  All our government's actions, both foreign and domestic have CONSEQUENCES.  A wise administrator and leader must understand and measure the expected responses of their actions BEFORE they forge ahead into the unknown.  The unpredictable blowback against our actions often have undesirable  or even disastrous reactions.  We must anticipate the likely response and then act only if there is the hope of a worthy outcome...not the "F---k the UN" .Nuland type response.   Think of the invasion of Iraq, the attack on Afghanistan, the Libya fiasco...etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....Many of those horrible and costly Obama and Bush disasters were avoidable.

Was it worthwhile for Mr. Obama to intervene in the Ukraine?  The post game analysis says that intervention was a horrible disaster for the Democrats...and for our nation too.

Mr. Putin made his point and then some.  He has come out of this with the reputation of being a  a great chess player and a powerful player on the world stage.

 The Russian bear, gave Mr. Obama a severe clawing that will scar him permanently.  Can we please learn something from this?