Global Power: The U.S. hands over control of its only central Asia base to Russia's old ally, Kyrgyzstan, continuing our retreat from the world stage as Vladimir Putin patiently reassembles the "evil empire."
In something of an ironic trip, President Obama is in Poland, one of the countries he betrayed in 2009, along with the Czech Republic, by scuttling missile-defense plans in Europe to celebrate the country's 25th anniversary of its break from communism.Undeterred by this example of President Obama's "flexibility" with the Russians, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that the U.S. should open a major base in Poland.
Our advice to Sikorski, after our precipitate withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obama's decimation of U.S. military strength, is — don't hold your breath.
"For the first time since the Second World War, one European country has taken a province by force from another European country," Sikorski said, speaking of Ukraine and Russia's annexation of Crimea.
"America, we hope, has ways of reassuring us that we haven't even thought about. There are major bases in Britain, in Spain, in Portugal, in Greece, in Italy. Why not here?"
Perhaps because America under Obama doesn't want bases anywhere. Our commander-in-chief is neutering what he considers America the bully, while Russia and China happily fill the strategic vacuum we are creating.
The latest example is our exit from our air base in the former Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic.




















