It comes from the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin:

Our next president must be the anti-Obama

It’s instructive to see what a coherent alternative to the Obama-Hillary Clinton-John Kerry foreign policy might look like.

First, it would get the values and the rhetoric right. While Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objects to tweaking a brutal aggressor such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) was taking swings at the despots in our hemisphere. On the Senate floor he declared, “This is the moment to point out that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s abuse of his fellow citizens is intolerable to the United States. If he wants better relations with us, he should start by listening to the demands of his own people. He should lift the cloud of censorship that he is using to isolate Venezuelans from each other and from the rest of the world. And the United States should do all it can to help the people of Venezuela as they choose a different path, a path of freedom and prosperity, that will return this one-time enemy to its traditional role of our partner and friend. It would benefit them, it would benefit us, and it would benefit the world.” It is entirely apt that we make clear that good relations with the United States requires respect for basic human rights. (Cruz also called specifically for the release of opposition leader Leopoldo López, elucidated the noxious connection with Iran — and hence the need to proceed with sanctions — and made a clever proposal to deprive Venezuela of oil revenue. This is a model of cold-eyed realism and fidelity to American values.)

Second, a not-Obama foreign policy would not savage our military budget. The Foreign Policy Initiative outlines the array of threats we face and argues:

In the face of these threats, the United States is preparing to enter a third year of forced cuts that will reduce the Defense Department’s budget by almost a  trillion dollars this decade. At $496 billion, the proposed sequestration-level  defense budget for fiscal year 2015 is $45 billion below what President Obama had previously recommended for FY 2015 in April 2013 — and a whopping $95 billion below what Obama had recommended for FY 2015 in February 2011. As a result, the Pentagon’s base budget will fall from nearly 3.7 percent of gross domestic  product (GDP) when President Obama entered office in 2009 to just 2.8  percent — roughly the same GDP percentage level prior to al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks.

Even with partial sequester relief, real damage will be done to readiness, force structure and modernization. FPI cautions: “Even if the Pentagon avoids the worst budgetary outcome, Secretary [Chuck] Hagel and General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the cuts that they’re now proposing mean that ‘our future force will assume additional risks in certain areas.’ In fact, they used the word ‘risk’ some 23 times over the course of their briefing on Monday.” In  short, in a world that even the administration concedes is riskier than ever, we need a military budget that anticipates and can deter or, if need be, defeat those threats.

And, third, sober commanders in chief must abandon the notion that their own personal charm, earnestness or background is the key to resolving conflicts. We’ve seen time and again how Kerry foolishly anticipates “diplomacy” will work — in Syria, Iran or in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — if only pursued with diligence, as if no one who preceded him has ever tried to sway the Iranians, implored the Russians or cajoled the Palestinian Authority. It’s an egocentric and naive leader who would invest so much importance in personality. As Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies puts it: “President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convinced themselves that it was Mr. Bush’s cowboy swagger — not conflicting geopolitical interests — that were the root cause of Russo-American tensions. Their solution: ‘Reset’ relations with the Kremlin. That this was a misguided policy became evident when Mrs. Clinton, with elaborate fanfare, presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with a button inscribed with the Russian word ‘peregruzka.’ She believed it meant ‘reset.’ In fact, it means ‘overcharge.’”

More on this in our next post.

Have you been paying attention to the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine?

If not, maybe you should, because the Washington Post reports:

Think that’s bad? The London Daily Mail reports:

A treaty signed in 1994 by the US and Britain could pull both countries into a war to protect Ukraine if President Putin’s troops cross into the country.

Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine – agreed to the The Budapest Memorandum as part of the denuclearization of former Soviet republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Technically it means that if Russia has invaded Ukraine then it would be difficult for the US and Britain to avoid going to war.

Putin installed 150,000 troops along Ukraine’s borders after the overthrow of Moscow ally Viktor Yanukovych by pro-European protesters. …

Sir Tony Brenton, who served as British Ambassador from 2004 to 2008, said that war could be an option ‘if we do conclude the [Budapest] Memorandum is legally binding.’

It promises to protect Ukraine’s borders, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.

Today Kiev has demanded the agreement is activated after insisting their borders had been violated. …

Moscow has been sending mixed signals about Ukraine but pledged to respect its territorial integrity. Putin has long dreamed of pulling Ukraine, a country of 46 million people considered the cradle of Russian civilization, closer into Moscow’s orbit.

More on the treaty:

Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances was a international treaty signed on February, 5, 1994, in Budapest.

The diplomatic document saw signatories make promises to each other as part of the denuclearization of former Soviet republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It was signed by Bill Clinton, John Major, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma – the then-rulers of the USA, UK, Russia and Ukraine.

The agreement promises to protest Ukraine’s borders in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.

It is not a formal treaty, but rather, a diplomatic document.

It was an unprecedented case in contemporary international life and international law.

Whether is it legally binding in complex.

‘It is binding in international law, but that doesn’t mean it has any means of enforcement,’ says Barry Kellman is a professor of law and director of the International Weapons Control Center at DePaul University’s College of Law told Radio Free Europe.

You may recall that the Clinton administration’s favorite military engagement was an engagement in which the U.S. had no actual strategic interests — to name two, Somalia and Kosovo. Twenty years later, we do have an actual strategic interest because Bill Clinton signed that treaty, unless you don’t think the U.S. signature on a treaty, or “diplomatic document,” should mean anything. (In which case we should immediately reinstitute the Monroe Doctrine and the Platt Amendment and eject the Castros from Cuba and the Chavezistas from Venezuela.)

One comment observed that such entangling alliances are what started World War I. The more apt comparison is to a smaller-scale version of the Cold War, the original of which was fought in Vietnam formally and Central America and Africa informally. Cold War II wouldn’t (or perhaps isn’t) between the U.S. and its allies and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact. But Putin would love to reassemble the Soviet Union without Communism. This isn’t about ideology; it’s about power.

You’ll notice that Putin has become expansionist during the Obama administration. That’s because Putin has concluded the U.S. won’t do anything about it. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 because Japan thought the U.S. was weak. Osama bin Laden planned 9/11 because he thought the U.S. was weak. What do you think Putin sees when he observes Obama, Joe Biden and John Francis Kerry?