Rrerku

Over the past few years, Russia seems to have been slipping back towards an authoritarian system of government, with Putin seemingly cementing his control of the country more and more. Along with this, Russia appears to have become increasingly hostile towards the West and emboldened/aggressive internationally. Some examples (not exhaustive) include:

• Annexation of Crimea


• Alleged use of cyber attacks to disrupt Western powers


• Military assertiveness to assist the incumbent regime in Syria


• Military assistance to prop up Maduro in Venezuela

So, why hasn't the US been more assertive in confronting and pushing back against this new period of Russian aggression?

It seems to me that, during the Cold War, the US was much more willing to confront the Soviet Union, which at the time was much more powerful than Russia currently is. It was also a nuclear-armed state, so the argument that the US is afraid of Russia's nukes doesn't seem to explain it.

Numerous reasons. For start, the United States has been in a state of war since September 2001, and Obama was characterized by an avoidance of further war during his presidency (He is to date, the only U.S. President to have served his total presidency at War). There are many sentiments on both sides of the aisle that just want to avoid wars and strong anti-interventionalist movements (The Libertarian Right tends to be opposed to war for reasons other than defense of self or allies, the left just tends towards no wars period). This played a part in the Ukraine situation.

With the Syrian Civil war, the United States never loved the Syrian Government and by the time the idea was considered, the anti-government forces included terrorist organizations including remnants of Al-Quadia. The political sentiment moved from fighting a Russian backed Syrian Government to a policy more akin to the old man from the recent Godzilla movie "Let them fight." There's not much to be one by propting up an anti-U.S. rebellion movement fighting against an Anti-U.S. government forces.

The Maduro thing is relatively recent and the U.S. policy is to support the opposition leader over Maduro, so we'll have to wait and see. It doesn't help that Russia's active involvement occurred around the same time as a hurricane of domestic stories hit the U.S. (The Mueller Report's findings, the Avenatti arrest, and the Jessui Smollett charges being dropped) which have occupied most news network's general reporting.

The Cyber Security issues are hard to peg down, as they tend to be covertly dealt with so as to not reveal the new protections and better investigate. Because of this, it could be a great many battles are fought on this issue, but the battles are not discussed (The First Cold war was a very busy time for intelligence communities and could be said that it was a war of spies more than anything else... a great deal of winning that conflict was just gathering information on what the adversary was doing).

The American electorate is extremely divided over ideological lines at the moment. During the Cold War there were still divisions, but we could generally all agree that Americans were always better to deal with than the Soviets. Now that is not the case. A substantial portion of the President's base aren't at all upset (in some instances even gleeful) that the Russians interfered in the American elections since they view that as helping "their side", while folks at the far end of the other side of the spectrum have made statements equating it to an act of war. In your question there is an underlying assumption: that Americans want to do something.

On that note we can't agree that anything should be done. Not in Ukraine, and very little agreement on Syria. Venezuela currently does have a bit more support for something to be done, which I believe is because the United States has historically regarded all of the Americas as under their sphere of influence. But the U.S. track record there has hindered our ability to build consensus with other regional partners (this Wikipedia article is also a pretty good read for this point).

I don't think the U.S. is becoming more tolerant of Russian hostility, our deep political divisions are keeping us from doing much about it and Russia is taking advantage of the circumstances. Combine this point with two long wars, and there's just not any support for using military options to act as a counter balance. The current U.S. mood is much more introspective at the moment (as a whole, definitely not on an individual level).

This is a pretty broad question. If we ask more pointedly why Obama didn't intervene more in Ukraine... He told us that himself.

As Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, wrote in the Obama Doctrine: “Obama’s theory here is simple: Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there.” Indeed, Obama told Jeff: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.” Despite their criticism of Obama, the Republican platform ahead of the 2016 presidential election didn’t call for U.S. weapons to be sent to Ukraine to fight Russian-backed rebels.

Now instead of vague comparisons with the cold war, I think a better one would be to ask why Roosevelt and Churchill gave up Eastern Europe to the Soviets. The answer is pretty similar, they didn't think they couldn't do much about it anyway nor did they have that much strategic interest there, unlike in Greece, where the opposite happened:

British interest in Greece was of long historical standing and
connected with its imperial foothold in the Near and Middle East, [...]
Moscow was prepared to abandon
Greece for the sake of tightening its grip on the rest of the Balkans. As
a result, the communist rebellion in Greece was doomed.

And of course, the US never gave up Latin and Central America (supporting coups there), which is not too unlike what Trump does now in Venezuela.

As for Syria, I'm not sure I can find an appropriate parallel during the cold war. (Lebanon maybe?) But after the Arab Spring in Libya, the West had lost appetite to support "moderate" islamists, only to find out that they weren't so moderate or hardly influential on the ground. And US strategic interest in Syria appears limited, compared to that of Turkey etc. At least public opinion seems to be that

President Barack Obama reiterated that the U.S. has “both a moral obligation and a national security interest in, A, ending the slaughter in Syria,” and in “ensuring that we’ve got a stable Syria that is representative of all the Syrian people, and is not creating chaos for its neighbors.”

But a New York Times/CBS opinion poll showed that almost two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. has no responsibility to address the fighting in Syria.

We'll see if the more pragmatic Trump sticks with the Kurds now that the main reason to support them (fight against ISIS) appears gone.

Congress has very limited powers in international affairs:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations...

To declare War...

Compare to the President's powers:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States...

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties...

...he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers...

In short, Congress has one thing they can do in response to Russian actions: they can impose economic sanctions. They've also got the power to declare war on Russia, but they don't have the ability to prosecute that war -- commanding the military is a power reserved for the President.

Compare that to the President's powers. He can negotiate diplomatic agreements either with Russia or with third parties. He can engage in military action short of war, including dispatching troops to countries threatened by Russia. He can cut off (or threaten to cut off) diplomatic relations.

The Constitution places almost all the power to confront a country in the hands of the President. With Trump favorably inclined towards Russia, that greatly limits what the rest of the country can do.