Where are Barack Obama’s ‘red lines’ in Crimea?

When Barack Obama warned Vladimir Putin that “there will be costs” for violating Ukrainian sovereignty, I doubt the Kremlin worried too much. The Syria crisis taught is all about Obama and his ‘red lines’. This is a president who recoils at the idea  of any new entanglement, whose attention is on the Pacific rather than Eurasia and is less worried than any of his recent predecessors about Russian aggression.

And that’s what makes this situation so dangerous: Putin wants to know where the new red lines lie, and may keep pushing until he finds out. His asking Russia’s parliament for the authority to use troops is, I suspect, is a ploy to see how Washington reacts.  If this Crimean crisis further exposes Obama as irresolute and distracted, it will suit Putin perfectly. His aim is to show that Obama’s words cannot be taken seriously – something that will further erode America’s standing in the world and drain its soft power.