PRAGUE — America's power has been so overwhelming for so long that many think it has survived George W. Bush's presidency unscathed. That this is untrue is demonstrated by those, from Russia's Vladimir Putin and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who are exploiting America's loss of standing and influence. This is no cause for schadenfreude. On the contrary, it is high time for friends of the United States, particularly in Europe, to realize that America's weakness undermines their international influence as well.
The evidence of America's weakness is clear enough. At the height of America's power, Russia had resigned itself to the apparently unstoppable encroachment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the Soviet Union's former sphere of influence. President Vladimir Putin tolerated a U.S. presence in Central Asia to assist in the campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan and raised no serious objections when the U.S. trashed the Antiballistic Missile Treaty prohibiting strategic missile defenses. America, eager to bring both Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, felt scant need to consider Russian concerns, convinced that the Kremlin would have no choice but to bow to the inevitable.
That was yesterday. Today, Putin seeks to regain the influence Russia lost in previous years. He is skillfully playing the anti-America card across Europe while putting pressure on the Baltic states, a clear warning not to extend NATO any further. In Ukraine, political forces resisting closer strategic links to the West have gained ground. And the Kremlin is aggressively portraying the planned establishment of a modest U.S. missile defense installation in Poland and the Czech Republic as a threat to Russia's vital security interests.