cards and the specifics of the situation in ukraine rather than assuming because bush inviteded iraq he would defend georgia or because obama didn't invade syria he would do nothing about ukraine. politicians in washington are convinced that putin was encouraged by western weakness. it's actually quite possible that he, putin, felt he was acting to stop the west's growing strength. look at the situation from russian eyes. in 1991, moscow gave up its 75-year-old soviet empire. it also gave up large parts of its 300-year-old russian empire, including ukraine. since then, its historical rival, nato, has expanded closer and closer to moscow's borders and then the west encouraged ukrainians to take to the streets and depose their president who had close ties to moscow. none of this excuses aggression or justifies putin's response, but if we're going to find a political solution in ukraine