Earlier this month, President Obama decided to throw in a good word for our NATO friends in the Baltics, in the event that Russia is tempted to try out its invasion shtick on another former Soviet satellite.  “We’ll be here for Estonia,” he avowed from that nation’s capital.  “We will be here for Latvia.  We will be here for Lithuania.  You lost your independence once before.  With NATO, you will never lose it again.”

Vladimir Putin lost no time in leaping over that red line by crossing the Estonian border and abducting a security official once Obama had hardly left town.

Since the leader of the free world can’t seem to persuade the leaders of the un-free world to stay on the right side of his red lines, he deftly responded by drawing one around himself.  His envoy, the indefatigable John Kerry, set loose again for another rousing globetrot, decided to unite the international community against ISIS by emphatically announcing what America is not willing to do to aid the cause – namely, put troops on the ground.  The only consistent talking point the administration has had will somehow reassure the homeland that our military will stay safe out of harm’s way, and simultaneously motivate our estranged allies to jump headlong into the fray.

The former jayvee crew has quickly become such an impermissible atrocity that they must be unequivocally “destroyed,” presumably at any cost but our own.  The president concurred with his secretary of state in his Wednesday speech to the nation by promising to stick to neat and tidy airstrikes, and find some others to get their hands dirty on the ground.

All this must be very inspiring to anyone tempted to pitch in and hop aboard the No-Strategy Express.  “Arabs give tepid support to U.S. fight against ISIS,” read Friday’s New York Times headline, which is hardly surprising, given Obama’s tepid support to his own fight against ISIS.  By vowing to destroy them with a hand tied behind his back, he makes yet another promise he will not likely be able to keep.

The last time the U.S. solicited the international community to clean up a reneged commitment in Syria, the only world leader willing to take us up on the offer was Putin.  Someone will have to go on the ground and pull a trigger if ISIS is to be dispatched – in lieu of American intervention, who else would step up to the plate this time around?  Britain and France might help out with the airstrikes, but Germany, Turkey, and Israel are sitting out entirely.  The only eager partner, Iran, has been denied, and the idea of “moderate” Syrian rebels just waiting to be suited up and thrown onto the front lines is but a comforting myth.

Obama may be perfectly disposed to give marching orders to his imaginary coalition, if only to forestall the ignominious release of another snuff film, but he is clearly unwilling to actually lead by committing himself to any course of action.  Small wonder no one wants to follow.  For the latest conflict in the Middle East is not merely another fight against terrorism, but a proxy battle for determining the director of the world stage.  As Putin’s Russia actively vies for a re-emerging position as world superpower, who wants to get caught on the wrong side of another half-hearted and ill-fated American endeavor?

Nor is an American military success or failure on the other side of the world even particularly relevant if a passport-bearing ISIS recruit can return to the states quite freely, or simply waltz across the porous southern border.  In spite of empty promises, Obama will not do what it takes to stop the red lines from being redrawn in Eastern Europe or the Middle East – nor, much more importantly, at home.