Too late

For those who don’t remember the run up to WW 2, it began slowly with Nazi Germany taken over German speaking areas of adjacent countries and then Poland which triggered England to go to war. Russia today is following a similar path. They took over Crimea and now are threatening all of Eastern Ukraine. Neighboring countries like Belarus and Moldova also have Russian speaking minorities and they may be next. The Europeans could place severe sanctions on Russia and bring their economy down but they are so dependent on oil and gas from Russia that it would also cause them severe hardships, so they are hesitant. If Russia expands into the above mentioned countries, not much will be done but if they then move toward the Baltics, which were part of the old Soviet Union, the United States will be forced to step in since the Baltics are part of NATO and both Europe and the United States have obligations to protect their members and the Baltics are members. This move would be the equivalent of the Nazi move into Poland. The question keeps coming up as to what NATO can do about it and the answer is very little. But looking back just a few years exposes a situation that could have been prevented, if President Obama had seen the world differently. Recall when Candidate Romney said that Russia was our biggest threat and the President along with most of the press ridiculed him. If at that time President Obama had been interested in expanding our oil and natural gas industries, we would be huge exporters by this time and could have replaced these fossil fuels that Europe now depends on Russia for and thus this whole conflict may well have been avoided. President Obama’s hesitancy once again has led to a situation where our hands are tied. The same thing happened in Syria when The President declined to help the rebels and is now considering it but too late. It happened in Iraq when we were warned that terrorist were moving into Iraq from Syria but we watched and waited. It happened at the border where he was warned in advance of a pending crisis but chose to ignore it. On a lesser bases, we were late getting to the embassy in Benghazi when they asked for additional protection. On each of these problems people all ask what can be done about these various troubled areas and the answer is nothing less than threatening military action and the people do not want that. This absolves The President from doing nothing because it is too late. I once again quote Dwight Eisenhower when the said that every battle lost can be explained in two words, too late. Our President is a following instead of a leading on too many occasions.