CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It wasn't the weakness of Europe that precipitated all of this. And it wasn't Obama's flinching on Syria. When Putin had to make a calculation whether to go into Ukraine -- and Ukraine isn't Georgia, a small republic that is sort of on the fringes of the west, Ukraine is at the crossroads, a huge country. To go into Ukraine and to take over, to invade Crimea, is a huge step. And he would only have done it with a president who has shown from the very beginning that he is living in a fantasy world.



Remember the speech he gave at the U.N. when he started his administration? He said no nation can or should dominate another. I mean, there's not a 12-year-old in the world who believes that. And he said the alignment of nations rooted in the cleavages of the long ago Cold War make no sense in this interconnected world.



As our Secretary of State said today, or yesterday, after all this, this is a 19th century action in a 21st century world. As if what he means his actions where governments pursue expansion, territory domination, no longer exist in this century, as if that hasn't been a constant in all of human history since Hannibal.



They imagine the world as a new interconnected world where climate change is the biggest threat and they are shocked that the Russians actually are interested in territory.