Foreign Policy Analyst: Putin Acting As Obama Talks
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Foreign policy analyst Ed Turzanski criticized President Obama's speech before the United Nations as well as administration policies that he sees as giving too much room for rogue states to exert their influence around the world.
Turzanski, the John Templeton Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, that he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin is acting while the President waits for the world to catch up.
"Facts on the ground beat rhetoric at the podium every time. So, while the President was giving a lecture to the Parliament of Man about the arc of the history and being on the wrong side of history, which is a favorite theme of his, Vladimir Putin was standing up and telling everybody how things are. More to the point, 2000 Soviet troops, with some of their most sophisticated aircraft and munitions on the ground, are changing the arc of events, or the arc of history, as the President would recognize, in ways that aren't helpful to his narrative."
He feels the Obama White House is leaving a power vacuum that is being filled by the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians.
"The President has, as the keystone of his policy, the thought that I will keep American ground troops out of any situation, regardless of how bad it is. He calls this leading from behind. He'll go to the international community and that together, we'll come and solve big problems. Instead, Vladimir Putin is someone who understands the cold calculus of hard power. He says while you're talking, I'll take Crimea, I'll take eastern Ukraine, I'll start to menace the Baltic states. The Chinese will push their claims on territories in the Pacific. The Iranians will continue to do what they're doing."
Turzanski fears that if policies are not adjusted, the US will lose key allies to the Russians.
"The Russians are building an arc of influence that is moving through entire region where people who are desperate for the principled use of power recognize that if the United States isn't going to use its power, they had better make their peace with whoever does."
