During the 2012 campaign, Obama and his surrogates — using what they clearly thought was a clever talking point — enjoyed needling Romney’s Russia policy as a throwback to the Cold War era. Employing what can only be described as willful blindness, they skipped over the recent history of the Georgia invasion, Putin’s own declared nostalgia for the Soviet Empire and all the other clear indications of a strong revanchist streak inside the Kremlin. For the Obama campaign, history stopped the day the Soviet Union fell. Throughout 2012, it was perpetually 1991.

But Romney was clear-eyed about Putin, and about the divergences between the ex-KGB agent’s interests and America’s own. Putin has never been a natural partner of the United States, and gaining cooperation from him can only be achieved by applying well-placed pressure to manipulate his interests. Granting Putin concessions and raising his international prestige—as Obama did—only emboldens him. And now the world is dealing with the consequences of an emboldened Vladimir Putin.