Tensions are rising over Russia’s threat to Ukraine. NATO has outlined a deterrence plan, America is considering a military deployment, and the US and UK have withdrawn family members of embassy personnel. According to Fiona Hill in the NYT (Gift Article) Putin Has the U.S. Right Where He Wants It. “In the 1990s, the United States and NATO forced Russia to withdraw the remnants of the Soviet military from their bases in Eastern Europe, Germany and the Baltic States. Mr. Putin wants the United States to suffer in a similar way. From Russia’s perspective, America’s domestic travails after four years of President Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency, as well as the rifts he created with U.S. allies and then America’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, signal weakness. If Russia presses hard enough, Mr. Putin hopes he can strike a new security deal with NATO and Europe to avoid an open-ended conflict, and then it will be America’s turn to leave, taking its troops and missiles with it.”