The National Journal quotes Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center Director John Herbst on the crisis in Ukraine, big power politics, and Russia’s national security threat:
Ukraine by itself isn’t important to America’s national security interests, says John Herbst, a former ambassador to Ukraine during the George W. Bush administration who helped write the report recommending arming the country. “But Ukraine in this crisis is critical. It’s critical because, right now—and this is something the [Obama] administration does not seem to be aware of—the Kremlin has turned Russia into the principal national security danger globally.”
[…]
“I am an admirer of President Obama’s restraint in the Middle East,” Herbst says. “But I don’t think he understands big power politics. Big power politics is all about needing to restrain powerful actors whose actions might be dangerous.”