I’m also amused by the Republicans publicly stating that their number one goal was to make Obama a one-term President…and then they whine that he appears weak.
That ol’ pine tree out back looks awful rickety. ‘Course, I been choppin’ at it for the past six years…
Obama:
Weak on ISIS. Waffled for 6 months with his thumb up his ass. ISIS grows in military, financial, and geographic power and becomes a regional nightmare.
Weak on Putin. Offered to “reset relations” with Russia, only to be continually provoked by Putin. Putin, seeing a man of no military resolve, takes what he can reasonably get by invading a foreign country and fomenting civil unrest.
Teddy said it best: speak softly but carry a big stick.
Obama only understands the first half. Bullies respond only to a foe that clearly outmatches them and is willing to back it up. Obama is weak on foreign policy.
Sweden was one of the initial members in NATOs Partnership For Peace program when it was created in 1994 and still is. Most partners pursue membership which Sweden hasn’t. Other join that program as a formal method of maintaining a relationship with the alliance as a whole. Sweden has been a very active partner though. They’ve been involved in NATO missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya. Basically if there’s a big NATO mission they participate.
That could be construed as less than strict neutrality if you’re Russia. 
So, should we nuke them? Send troops to protect a country right on Russia’s border which was a part of the Russian empire for centuries?
I know, we haven’t started a war in nigh on a decade, and the righties are getting antsy.
You might also read the very good analysis in several posts already in this thread.
Just to be clear, we sent troops to assist Ukraine with it’s defense in April. They are there in a training role not direct combat. They are there though.Cite.
Moscow was, unsurprisingly, not pleased.
1814 to be precise, the whole kerfuffle with Napoleon.
Currently Sweden is as close to NATO as you can get without actually joining. As it is we are unlikely to remain neutral in the event of Russian…adventures in the baltics, at the very least we would allow NATO to use our airspace and quite possibly our airbases as well.
Additionally, if Sweden were to join NATO then Finland would probably join as well, giving NATO another long land border to Russia, something Putin really don’t want.
Of course Putin’s strategy for convincing us to stay away from NATO is counter productive, public opinion has been getting increasingly NATO friendly ever since the situation in Ukraine started.
I don’t see a lot of stories about U.S. allies in western Europe, Asia, or the U.N. complaining that we’re holding them back.
Engaging militarily on the ground with ISIS would make us weaker and them (or folks like them) stronger. The less we engage, the better… fighting them is giving them exactly what they want.
Putin weakens his own country with bluster and foolishness, and we mostly ignore him. Our economy is strengthening and his is weakening.
We killed Bin Laden. No American soldiers are dying. The economy is stronger. We are much more popular overseas in most countries then under the previous president. Obama is strong on foreign policy.
Generally, this sort of thing is done mainly for internal purposes – to appeal to your own voters back home, or to distract them from the fact that things back home aren’t really going so well for most of them.
Putins actions seem to fit into this pattern quite well.
Perhaps a kindly mod will come along and repair JerrySTL’s spelling error. Provide a KBG Patch, as it were.
This. Totally this.
The issue with Sweden vs. Russia is the strategic importance of the island of Gotland. It commands the Baltic Sea routes to St. Petersburg. Gotland is the closest part of any western European country to Russia (apart from Norway’s land border with Russia on the Arctic Ocean, but the Baltic is obviously much more important for Russia strategically). Sweden remilitarized the island this year after having demilitarized it ten years previously. The reason for this is obviously Putin’s recent saber rattling. So if Sweden were to join NATO now, from Russia’s viewpoint it would totally look like a shot across their bow. Putting NATO forces on Gotland would be the surest way to poke a stick at the bear.
Huh. For some reason, I’d assumed Sweden was already in NATO. Checking wiki, I see that of the Scandinavian countries, Sweden’s the only nonmember (unless you count Finland, which I understand is not strictly correct).
How is that? It is not Russia’s land. If Putin attacked it he would clearly be the aggressor.
This idea that the world should sit back and let Putin do whatever he wants only empowers his aggression…isn’t that obvious??
Au contraire; Putin is an appalling asshole and I would enjoy seeing Sweden stick a thumb in his eye (metaphorically). They have the same colors on their flag as Ukraine, after all, so it might give Ukrainians that much more of a vicarious satisfaction. But I’m not much for geopolitical military strategy and reserve my real enthusiasm for Pussy Riot, who have already tweaked Putin more than Sweden probably could.
I was just offering an answer to
I really love No Drama Obama, and think he’s handling such situations better than anyone I can ever think of. I’m proud before the world that he’s my cool calm president.
And Cuba is not US land, so we shouldn’t object when the USSR put ICBM’s missiles there. Yet it caused a big international crisis, and several of JFK’s advisers were suggesting a United States attack.
No
We can object, and voice our disapproval.
But, of course, we didn’t attack Cuba, and the USSR knew better than to attack us.
So you kinda proved my point…
But we did. We sent warships to blockade the country, which is an act of war. And our ships intercepted, and turned back cargo ships headed for Cuba. (British warships doing that to American ships was one of the reasons we gave for the War of 1812.)
But blockading rather than invading was a limited response, and a clear signal to the USSR that we didn’t want to go to war over this, and were open to negotiation. And the Soviets response of turning the ships back, rather than sending warships to escort them was also a signal that they too were open to negotiation. So this crisis didn’t escalate into a full war.