The West responded with phone calls. The Kremlin said Mr. Putin spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Secretary of State John F. Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Mr. Lavrov protested that Russia was not violating its commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and Mr. Kerry was not ready to contradict him. “The question is whether or not what is happening now might be crossing a line in any way, and we’re going to be very careful in making our judgments about that,” he told reporters. Again, hardly likely to alter Mr. Putin’s calculations.
As I write this, I'm hearing John Bolton on television say that it was a real bad idea to ever bring Russia into the G8, and that it ought to be a priority of Europe and the US to reverse that. Only problem: the US no longer, in effect, exists, and post-America could never muster that kind of assertiveness.
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