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Perhaps the most surprising thing about Russia's two-week-old invasion of Ukraine is that it surprised so many people.

On the eve of Moscow's incursion into the Crimean Peninsula, the U.S. intelligence community apparently concluded that Putin's military mobilization was nothing more than a bluff. So did CNN's esteemed foreign policy czar, Fareed Zakaria, who judged the possibility of a Russian invasion to be exceedingly unlikely, despite convincing signs to the contrary. In truth, however, the writing had been on the wall for quite some time.

Russia has shattered the presumption that we can take European security for granted. In the past two weeks, President Vladimir Putin has committed outright acts of war by invading Crimea and threatening to invade eastern Ukraine. It now appears that Russia will annex Crimea and perhaps go further unless confronted with a stronger resolve than visible so far from the United States and Europe.

The United States and the international community are rightly outraged by Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine. However, the Kremlin maintains that Russia has acted within the bounds of international law, and the case against Moscow is complicated when Russian president Vladimir Putin employs arguments that sound very much like Obama administration talking poin