One senior Obama administration official called Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in the Ukraine "outrageous." A second described them as an "outlaw act." A third said his brazen use of military force harks back to a past century.
"What we see here are distinctly 19th and 20th century decisions made by President Putin," said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity to a group of reporters. "But what he needs to understand is that in terms of his economy, he lives in the 21st century world, an interdependent world."
James Jeffrey, a retired career U.S. diplomat, said that view of Putin's mindset cripples the United States' response to the Russian leader. The issue is not that Putin fails to grasp the promise of Western-style democratic capitalism. It is that he and other American rivals flatly reject it.