The year is 2012, Barack Obama is running for a second term and his challenger is Mitt Romney.
Obama was crushed in their first debate. The second debate was a draw. So, the Obama charm machine was fueled up and well-oiled for debate number three.
Backing up…
Mitt Romney had written an article for the esteemed Foreign Policy magazine where he summed up a very sophisticated article saying this: “For three years, the sum total of President Obama’s policy toward Russia has been: ‘We give, Russia gets.’”
Obama did not like that. His first four years as president were highlighted by a foreign policy that was marketed as the “Russia Reset” wherein the USA would get over the Cold War hangover and instead recognize Russia as a modern nation that was welcomed as a valuable contributor to the new world order and the global economy.
Obama was very proud of that. It’s 2012 and Obama is all buddied up with Medvedev as the whole world anticipates the 2014 Sochi Olympics in Russia which was being treated as Russia’s wonderful coming-out party by the Obama administration.
Obama’s intimacy with Russia and his passionate desire to be in good favor with President Medvedev’s replacement - Vladimir Putin - was undeniable because of an open-mic incident that went like this…
Obama: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him (that would be Putin) to give me space”
Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand”
Obama: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility”
Medvedev: “I understand, I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”
So, in the big 3rd debate, the moderator sets Romney up with a question about foreign policy wherein Romney needs to articulate what he believes are the most dangerous nations threatening the USA. Romney tried to cover all of his bets by mentioning Iran and North Korea but ultimately, Obama cornered him and he was forced to own up to his long-held opinion that was expressed repeatedly throughout his campaign:
“Russia is without question our number one geopolitical foe. They fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that he (Obama) has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed.”
On a personal note, I remember thinking that this was incredibly brave and wonderfully accurate but, boy-oh-boy, did it seem like a bad debating sword to fall on.
Even as that thought crossed my mind, Barrack Obama replied with this brilliant and well-rehearsed zinger:
“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Ronald Reaganesque!
Every elite liberal inside the beltway and outside the beltway and all of the journalists who write for them fell out of their chair with belly laughs of glee. The laughter went on for two years.
In the moment, I remember thinking, “yup, when Obama is done with his ‘last election’ our foreign policy is truly fucked.”
(As a voter in 2012, I was so afraid of the Tea Party that I knew I would vote for Obama for a second term. I liked Mitt Romney’s skill set and insights better than Obama’s but I did not think that Romney could win the election and stop the Tea Party movement at the same time. At the time, I was very much focused on the importance of a national healthcare program. Mitt Romney’s healthcare model that he instituted when he was Governor of Massachusetts was best-in-class. The Barrack/Hillary version of national healthcare was so deeply in bed with big-Pharma, that I wanted a Republican with Romney’s experience to clean the mess up. Even so, the link between Romney as a great presidential candidate and a GOP party that was starting to frighten me was just too strong. I voted for Obama. Little did I know that I was setting myself up to be forced to vote for Hillary Clinton four years later. My god, I wish I had known in 2012 what I would come to rue in 2016. Looking back, if Romney had won in 2012… my god, think of the calamity our nation would never have faced in 2016.)
Anyway…
Obama wins. The liberal elites enjoy a love fest with Russia at the Sochi Olympics and two weeks after the Olympic flame is doused, Putin annexes Crimea. Easy peasy. (This time around, why wait a whole two weeks?)
The free world turns to America’s leader and we get… we get… oh, look over here… the Iran Nuclear Treaty. (A treaty I support but it was two years of sleight of hand taking our eyes off of Crimea that made the political artfulness of the Iran treaty so disheartening.)
Seriously, we turned on a few sanctions against Russia while we all sat around saying things like, “oh well, the people of Crimea were Russian anyway.” - I shit you not, that’s what we were saying in 2014
Romney was spot on and Obama was painfully wrong and the liberal elites and their journalists just smoothed over the biggest foreign policy mistake since the appeasement of Poland to Germany.
But hey, Obama’s zinger in that third debate was just so good, how could we Americans unwind such a cute soundbite? Obama’s soundbites about Russia for eight years were so smooth and so soothing that all of the critical NATO nations in Europe decided to place very long-term bets on Russia as their critical pipeline supplier for oil and natural gas.
Today, 40% of Europe’s oil and natural gas comes from Russia. For Italy, I think it is 90%!!! - Does anybody believe that those deals done a decade ago would have been done the same way if Barrack Obama had even a clue about Russia’s geopolitical role in the world?
In the next presidential election, the Republican candidate was attacked because he seemed to have been deeply in bed (almost literally) with the Russian oligarchs and Putin for a very long time. This Republican candidate hero-worshipped Putin and he wasn’t even shy about it. And why not, really, Obama had been the same way for the previous four years but Obama just worshipped Putin with a sophisticated charm that this uncouth new guy lacked.
The American voters, of course, had no reason to be concerned about a presidential candidate who seemed to be in bed with the Russians because the guy in the White House for the past 8 years had told us all that this was a very good bed to be sleeping in. Am I wrong? Did I miss something here?
I feel very sorry for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the good people of Ukraine but this image of an America that is “shocked” to learn that Putin has the power to do whatever the hell he wants with their country is disingenuous.
America began the process of letting Russia take whatever it wants when Barack Obama laid out his foreign policy vision in his political campaign against George W Bush in 2008.
This might be hard to believe, but the most sophisticated American voters (conservative and liberal) used to prioritize foreign policy skills when deciding who they would vote for to be president. Domestic stuff was for Congress but protecting our nation from foreign threats - that’s what we wanted from our president. We drifted for a moment but four years of a peanut farmer as president shocked us into doubling down on presidents with strong foreign policy skills. That only ended when Bill Clinton beat George HW Bush.
Bill Clinton, remember, was the only presidential candidate to have ever visited Moscow as a student while also dodging the draft. The voters didn’t care because, ironically, Reagan and George HW Bush actually did end the Cold War so the American voter figured “who cares about foreign policy skills anymore?”
The only question is did Ukraine’s government hold out for longer than it took to read this article. I hope so.
DEBATE ZINGER
Good perspective Mark. And here's the larger concern I have about our misguided foreign policy. We had no problem sending hundreds of thousands of troops to defend a tiny, desolate, kingdom (literally) and spending hundreds of billions of dollars to defend Kuwait. Not a NATO member state. Not a democracy. Simply a repository of black gold where BIG OIL had substantial interests. I could argue for or against that decision. Fast forward 30 years, and we have lost our way. If there was one war to fight aggressively, this is it. We are showing our weakness by implementing useless sanctions, and demonstrating we care more about our economic well-being than long-term geopolitical reality. The West needs to sacrifice, and take a stand. If Ukraine wants to move to the West, and join NATO, we should support that move. If that means a conflict with Russia, so be it. Let's get it over with - because its going to happen at some point. The sooner the better.
This one scares me because there are so many consequences to what Putin is doing right now, and as much as I like to believe he’s just a crazed dictator, I just can’t help but fear he instead has something very bad up his sleeve. And I’m really hoping this rude awakening brings national politics down a few notches. We really need solidarity here and abroad to weather what’s ahead.