Then there's the whole "Pivot to the Pacific" strategy along with the "Russian Reset" she advocated and led in Obama's first term, which basically abandoned Europe to Russian aggression since Russia obviously had no interest in resetting anything, and viewed the whole thing as severe American weakness, which we are now proving definitively in Syria for the whole world (especially Russia) to see.

Disagreed here. Our Syria policy was weak at first when we were focusing first and foremost on overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. Kerry's pivot towards cooperating with Russia in overthrowing ISIS was exactly learning from the failures of Libya. Assad is a brutal dictator, but he is a bulwark against Islamism. Now that ISIS are on the retreat, we've pivoted towards supporting the Kurdish independence movement, who have a much more legitimate grievance than "moderate Islamists" who are members of myriad Al Qaeda break-offs and actually represent liberalization in the region.

With regard to Eastern Europe, we're playing a game of chicken with Russia. The concern is pretty small over Eastern Ukraine, considering most of their population speaks Russian and supported Yanukovych. Fighting over that would get us bogged down in a guerilla war that we'd be unable to win, when the majority of the population would be fighting us. The concern is huge over Western Ukraine, where Russia is reviled. The tension is in the middle and you'll probably see a negotiated partition. The State Department actually fears undermining the Putin regime too much. While we have our problems, he's a rational and predictable actor, and without him you have a colossal power vacuum. Between that and Russia's sense of national humiliation going back to the end of the Cold War, that would be the ideal situation for a Hitler-esque strongman to jump into. If said strongman doesn't jump in, then you have a new leader who will not inspire the confidence Putin does, a situation which Chechen radicals would exploit.