Obama's lack of appreciation of the instability of the nascent democracy in Ukraine led to a strategic miscalculation. Sevastopol's Black Sea fleet is a key component of Russian power in its "near abroad", as well as being its Mediterranean fleet. The idea that Putin would accept the loss of that base or Nato breaking the promises made in the 1990s of limited expansion was fanciful. It was an error to allow the possibility of Nato membership to become a de facto step towards joining the EU. It distorted Nato's strategic shape while antagonising Russia's military sensitivities. Obama should not have allowed the co-mingling of Nato and EU expansion, particularly leaving it to European allies who were, at best, uninterested in their collective security. The Reset missed the opportunity to engage Russia in the democratic and economic development of Ukraine, even if that had to be based on the promise of clearly delineated Nato borders.

At the time of going to press it is not clear how the crisis will be resolved. Putin was correct in calculating that Nato was weak, its members divided and lacking the will to counter his zero-sum view of territorial expansion. It seems most unlikely that the situation will be resolved in favour of Western interests. America has one guided missile destroyer and an aircraft carrier heading towards the region and has sent a small contingent of fighter jets to Poland — both pointless gestures and far too late. Even as Obama and the European allies argue over how to tackle Putin's incursion, Obama does not appear prepared to reassert the one strength Nato has, the Article V pledge of mutual defence. The point about such a declaration is that it removes the element of miscalculation from the activities of both sides.

Obama's relations with Russia, Nato and the EU are symptomatic of the problems caused by the president's desire to pass regional obligations to local allies and his unwillingness to think about the prudent, limited exercise of American power. Earlier this year, he publicly disavowed the need for strategy. "I don't really even need George Kennan right now — but, rather, the right strategic partners." The reference was to the father of modern American strategy, George Kennan, whose analysis of the Soviet Union and the US in the 1940s led to the grand strategy of "containment" of Communism. What Kennan's idea reveals is that grand strategy allows the state to link ends, ways and means in order to plan and direct all the instruments of national power at their disposal. Obama's hubris is to deny the importance of having any such worldview, while simultaneously trying to avoid the hard choices necessarily brought about by America's pre-eminent position of global power.

Since his presidential campaign Obama's use of American power has often appeared contradictory. While pandering to the Left he has also expanded the use of drones and launched a vigorous defence of the National Security Agency. This mismatch between public rhetoric and presidential action, without debate or explanation of strategic rationale, has resulted in Obama reducing conventional military commitments while increasing covert security activity.

Obama's ambivalence about the role of American power became evident in his address to the nation about Syria in September 2013: "For nearly seven decades, the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements — it has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world is a better place because we have borne them." Close followers of American foreign policy would not be surprised by this snippet of American exceptionalism, reaffirming the belief that America is a qualitatively different kind of state to others, with a unique mission.