Liberals and Democrats might be wailing now about how President Donald Trump is upending U.S. relations with its traditional European allies and being too assertive internationally, but Trump’s supposed belligerence seems like an improvement over the days of former President Barack Obama, for whom the Russians had outright disdain.
According to Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert and member of the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, Russian lawmakers basically mocked the leader of the world’s only superpower during Obama’s years in office.
Their disrespect ran so deep, in fact, that they often “made fun” of him for having been “too soft” on Russia after it forcibly annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine three years ago, Benitez said.
“The U.S. and the international community had a lot of powerful non-military options to raise the cost to Russia and make it more willing to stop killing Ukrainians,” Benitez told Business Insider. “Obama’s sanctions are so soft, some Russian legislators made fun of him and begged the U.S. to sanction them.”
Benitez added, however, that Russia’s increasingly violent actions in Ukraine stemmed in part from the caution displayed by former President George W. Bush, who was in office when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008.
As reported by Politico two years later, Bush considered — but ultimately rejected — a military response so as not to provoke a conflict with Russia. Instead, he reportedly sent humanitarian aid to the former Soviet republic, though it remained unclear if Obama ever did the same for Ukraine.
But what is clear is that when Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to redraw the map of Europe by invading Ukraine, Obama merely slapped some sanctions on Russia and Russian officials that did nothing to deter Russia from continuing its occupation of the Crimea, and supporting separatists in other parts of Ukraine as well.
“What we did at the time was, I think, a more robust response,” former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News in 2014, comparing his administration’s response to the Georgian crisis to Obama’s response to the Ukrainian crisis.
“We flew in a brigade of Georgian soldiers that had been involved in supporting our efforts in Iraq, flew them back into Georgia,” he added. “We tried to provide some support there, as well as sent U.S. ships into the Black Sea and provided various kinds of supplies.”
In other words, at least Bush tried, whereas Obama essentially curled up into a ball and sucked on his thumb like a feeble child — ergo why the Russians often “made fun of” him.