“We must protect the Russian speaking people in Crimea” and the Ukraine…Putin.

“We must protect the German speaking people in the Sudetenland”  and Czechoslovakia…Hitler.

Look familiar? 

Gambit.  Definition, “an opening in which a player seeks to obtain some advantage”.  A term closely associated with the game of Chess.

House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers likened the situation and the matching of wits to an arrangement where in Obama plays Marbles whilst Putin plays Chess.  Perhaps we can fine tune that to Putin playing three level Chess.

As John Kerry shoots his mouth off as if setting up some type of tough guy Secretary of State/ Presidential candidate resume, one must wonder if his oratory is calculated for his political benefit or executed as a wise and proper foreign policy.  At first blush, it appears to be the former.  Nothing appears ‘wise’ and calculated here.

The Russian authorities suggest that the troop movements were a previously planned exercise.  What a remarkable coincidence.  Does Secretary Kerry truly subscribe to this, really?  Perhaps Pearl Harbor was merely a whimsical extension of those Japanese carrier exercises in Kagoshima Bay off the island of Kyushu?

As noted in this article from zerohedge.com, Russia has a long and storied history with Crimea. 

“In 1783 the Crimea was annexed by Catherine the Great, thereby satisfying the longstanding quest of the Russian Czars for a warm-water port. In fact, over the ages Sevastopol emerged as a great naval base at the strategic tip of the Crimean peninsula, where it became home to the mighty Black Sea Fleet of the Czars and then the commissars….For the next 171 years Crimea was an integral part of Russia”

An impromptu history class may be in order for the Obama foreign relations team.  Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, to his credit, took the effort to read “Paris 1919”, a book detailing the treaty after WWI and the random line drawing in the mid east that created the nations with which he was forced to deal.  Powell stated he learned much from the book. What should John Kerry’s next read be? 

James Longstreet