| Summary/Abstract |
CRIMEA WAS UNIFIED with Russia so fast that the U.S. intelligence community was caught unawares. According to the normally well-informed The Wall Street Journal, "the Obama administration is 'very nervous,' says a person close to the discussions. 'This is uncharted territory'."1 This was more than a one-time failure to predict what the Russian special services had been planning: it was a huge political flop of American strategy in Ukraine. Russia demonstrated that the degree of its readiness to stand opposed to any challenges of the West was unprecedented since the end of the Cold War, something what the United States did not expect.
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