As I ruefully detailed back in 2008, the Bush administration delusionally regarded Russia as a “strategic partner,” notwithstanding Putin’s quite calculating strategic cooperation with Iran (you know, the “Death to America” guys) on nuclear-power development and ballistic-missile technology. Then, as I observed in late 2010, two years after the Georgia invasion, with Putin defiantly occupying Abkhazia and South Ossetia, GOP support for Obama’s wayward New START treaty with Russia was mustered by such foreign-engagement masterminds as former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice (architect of Bush’s strategic partnership with Russia) and Senator Richard Lugar (who in 2006 had partnered with then-senator Obama to disarm Ukraine). The treaty would not have been ratified without the familiar machinations of Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham — then on a respite between supporting Qaddafi against jihadists and supporting jihadists against Qaddafi. McCain and Graham strongly urged their colleagues to take up consideration of New START . . . then voted against it once its approval was assured.

Russia is on the march because it was treated like a friend while it acted like an enemy. As usual, the bipartisan transnational-progressive clerisy convinced itself that our adversaries, who thrive on instability, have an abiding interest in international stability — that they are best seen as trusted “partners” in the pursuit of American objectives rather than aggressors pursuing their own very different objectives.