Strong Vladimir Putin

Barack Obama must stop talking about calculus (see examples below). Compared to strong Putin, it makes Mr. President sound pedantic and professorial, a philosopher king playing with abstract concepts, fiddling while Rome burns and barbarian Russia runs roughshod over Ukraine. This is Mr. Obama’s idea of tough-talking, bare-knuckles diplomacy:

“…a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus,” Obama said. “That would change my equation.”

-August 20, 2012

“When I said in a press conference that my calculus about what’s happening in Syria would be altered by the use of chemical weapons, which the overwhelming consensus of humanity says is wrong, that wasn’t something I just kind of made up.”

September 4, 2013

“I understand that additional sanctions may not change Mr. Putin’s calculus,” Obama said during a joint news conference in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “How well they change his calculus in part depends on not only us applying sanctions but also the cooperation of other countries.”

- April 24, 2014

Calculus! Equations! Somebody get that man a slide rule. I am concerned that this weakens the standing of the United States in the worldwide  pecking order. When strong Putin, the bare-chested ex-KGB colonel, hears language like this, he just chuckles at our impotence and sends a few thousand more troops to the Ukrainian border.