By Jonathan Power
Two mistakes, committed on President Barack Obama’s watch, were the triggers for the end of the long post-Cold War period of good relations with Russia. They were the attack on Libya by the US, France and the UK and the subsequent killing of its long-time dictator, Muammar Gaddafi.
The second was the crisis in Ukraine.
Russia was very angry about the first. Having been persuaded by Western diplomacy that the reason for their would-be intervention was essentially humanitarian to forestall any more mass killing in the Libyan civil war, the US and NATO double-crossed Russia.
After having gained Russia’s abstention in a UN Security Council vote on a resolution authorizing military intervention the Western powers set about hunting Gaddafi.
With the second, Ukraine, Russia felt undermined. This was the result of the twin policies of NATO expansion up to Russia’s border—which the US, Germany, France and the UK had promised would never happen—and EU enlargement.
NATO declared that Ukraine would be a NATO member. For its part, the EU had pushed too early and too hard for an association agreement with the corrupt government of President Viktor Yanukovych. When demonstrations erupted in Kiev, the US and the EU lent support and assistance to........