On October 4, 2015, without any prior public warning, Putin started a major bombing campaign in Syria.  Around the same time he sent in cruise missiles from the creaky old Soviet cruiser Moskva – parked off the coast of Syria – and fired long-range missiles from naval vessels in the Caspian Sea.  Putin also sent in jet bombers across Iran, escorted pro forma by Iranian jets.

The world got the message.  Iran saw Russian jets flying over its territories and said nothing.  But they got Putin's message loud and clear.  So did Syria, Israel, and Turkey. 

But Obama did nothing.  I'm sure he lodged a very sincere protest, a one-day news story.  Nobody cared. 

Putin is a Russian nationalist, and when he can get away with it, he is a Russian expansionist.  Remember his invasions of Georgia, eastern Ukraine, and Crimea, all surprise moves, all low-profile, until the Big Demo in Syria.  Europe did zilch when Putin invaded Ukraine as a slap in the face of NATO and E.U. expansionism.  After all, Kiev used to be the capital of Russia, oh, about 500 years ago.  These things matter to Russians. 

Putin obviously understands the uses of serious signals.  Not phony-baloney red lines, appeals to the conscience of the world (which never heard of such a thing), the jihadophiles at the U.N., and other sly supporters of the jihad war against civilization. 

Like a certain president whose name starts with O. 

But you might not remember Vladimir Putin's Big Move into the Middle East, and you can bet that 50 million Democrat voters are scratching their pink fake fur hats, just trying to remember.  And then going back to whatever they're smoking today. 

Trump acted in a Putinesque fashion this week, and the world got the signal – including Assad, who has now been denounced even by his Russian ally, Vladimir Putin, for killing Syrian rebels, men, women, kids, and soldiers – with sarin gas, which was prohibited by international treaty right after WWI.  Lance Corporal Hitler had his lungs badly burned.  He entered international history a decade later running a stab-in-the-back campaign that led to mass murders and war deaths in the tens of millions. 

Hitler used poison gas on Jews in the concentration camps, but he did not use it on London because he knew how it felt to be bombed by sarin, and the Allies had big gas bomb supplies – which were never used. 

World War II ended when the U.S. used two nuclear bombs against Japan, the last Axis member trying to kill us. 

Vladimir Putin was thoroughly indoctrinated and (at times) educated in the Great Patriotic War that forced Stalin to appeal to Russian nationalism. 

Putin is a Russian nationalist.  He is not going to repeat the endless disasters of the Lenin-to-Gorbachev period.  Putin's KGB career teetered on the brink when the Soviet Union crumbled, and you might remember Dr. Johnson's thought about being hanged in a fortnight concentrating the mind wonderfully. 

Vladimir Putin is not suicidal, nor are his boyars in the Kremlin.  They will bluff straight across that red line, but they won't pull the nuclear trigger.  It's a MAD weapon. 

Notice that Hillary actually endorsed Trump's Big Signal?  There are at least three reasons for that.  First, she has thirsted for that kind of tough credibility.  Second, by immediately endorsing the strikes on Syria, she has now beaten her competitors on the left who are kneepad peaceniks, like Obama, Michelle, and Liz Warren.

The most important single effect – which is very good for peace in the world – is that we are now back at status quo ante, when the use of poison gas was strictly forbidden by international law, as backed by the constitutional treaty powers of the Senate. 

Peace through strength, baby. 

Putin understands peace through strength.  All the tsars understood it, just like all the Chinese emperors and the German kaisers.  Serious nations want stability, not war, not chaos, and not the Workers' Revolution that put Lenin in power to kill the last Romanoffs.

Trump just made a major stabilizing move in the language of power, and the Putins of this world sat up, took notice, and relaxed.  This kind of signal they all understand.  It makes the world predictable, which it wasn't before Trump struck Syria.

Naturally, some historically ignorant hysterics squeaked very loudly, but notice that Hillary did not. 

Because she wants to be taken seriously in the next election, if she lives that long, given her medical condition. 

This is not the last move of the Trump Doctrine.  A serious great power policy is not a one-day thing.  It puts the bad guys on notice, and we will go after the bad guys as often as needed. 

But we won't send large numbers of ground troops in.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, no more of that stuff. 

Former USMC commandant Gen. James Mattis ran Marine combat ops in Iraq.  The Marines learn the lessons of war, and one of them is called "Don't go into Fallujah twice."

Say what you have to say with cruise missiles, drones, whatever.  Cyber-war.  Don't put your folks' lives on the line except in extremis.