[March 06, 2014] At least that is what Time Magazine’s Simon Shuster / Kiev wrote just 10 days ago. I wrote about violence in the streets two days before this article and said that since the U.S. had no strategy, policy, or leadership on the Ukraine, that a zone of gray is developing on what we allow to be acceptable [read violent] behavior.
I predicted more violence and more deaths. Now, that Russian troops have invaded the Ukraine and both our State Department, Time Magazine, as well as our intelligence community have been caught flat-footed on something anyone could see coming, we are left with a budding democracy crushed.
Just a few years back we saw a similar uprising of people to seek freedom in Iran and then a heavy handed crackdown by the socialist Islamic regime there. The U.S. lack of leadership failed the citizens of Iran as it is failing the people of the Ukraine now. Why? Because there is no strategy and when we lack strategy we lack both the vision and the will to do the right thing.
Leadership is about many things but one thing that senior leadership demands is a vision and strategy on how to “see” the future and provide the tools and resources to accomplish it. We don’t see the future because we wear “rose colored glasses” of an ideology that says if we are just nice to people, they will like us.
Well, that certainly did not work. Perhaps I misread the reset button with Russia. One person, however, has shown leadership in spades is that is Vladimir Putin. How sad.
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Time Magazine: http://time.com/9826/russia-ukraine-putin-intervene/