Back in the Bush years, it was fairly obvious our ruling class had no idea how Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks thought about the world. America went into Afghanistan thinking Pakistan was an ally and that the locals would treat the invaders different than all the other invaders since Alexander the Great. The Bush people sort of understood that nation building in Afghanistan was a waste of time, but they thought they could be the baddest street gang on the block.

Then the parade of idiots known as the Obama Administration came along and tried to win friends and influence bronze age people, wasting lives and treasure for no earthly reason. Of course, this may be giving the Bush people too much credit. They went blundering into Iraq fully convinced they could turn Iraq into a democratic, multicultural democratic paradise. Instead they unleashed decades of ethnic hatred, resulting in a blood bath and a massive failed state.

It is one thing to have nutty ideas about backward people on the periphery. That’s somewhat understandable, if not defensible, but it appears our rulers have no idea how anything works anymore. The problems in Ukraine are an obvious example. The Russians have always had a sense of space that drives their national identity. Any threat to it, particularly from the West, is going to get a response.

The problem is that our ruling class is very insular. There’s no longer a bubbling up of talent based on merit. Instead we have a credentialed elite that likes to pretend they are at the top of a meritocracy, but in reality they just ticked off the right boxes in the secular exam system. Everywhere you look you see Ivy League grads who rode the coattails of other Ivy League grads. The American foreign policy establishment is looking more like a priesthood than collection of seasoned realists.

Stories like this are a good example of the sloppy work that is the result of this insularity.

A Russian loan to France’s National Front. Invitations to Moscow for leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party. Praise for Vladimir Putin from the head of Britain’s anti-European Union party.

As the diplomatic chill over Ukraine deepens, the Kremlin seems keener than ever to enlist Europe’s far-right parties in its campaign for influence in the West, seeking new relationships based largely on shared concern over the growing clout of the EU.

Russia fears that the EU and NATO could spread to countries it considers part of its sphere of influence. And it has repeatedly served notice that it will not tolerate that scenario, most recently with its Ukraine campaign.

Europe’s right-wing and populist parties, meanwhile, see a robust EU as contrary to their vision of Europe as a loose union of strong national states. And some regard the EU as a toady to America.

The fact that many of Moscow’s allies are right to far-right reflects the Kremlin’s full turn. Under communism, xenophobic nationalist parties were shunned.

Now they are embraced as partners who can help further Russia’s interests and who share key views — advocacy of traditional family values, belief in authoritarian leadership, a distrust of the U.S. and support for strong law-and-order measures.

Statements by leading critics of the EU, or euroskeptics, reflect their admiration of the Kremlin.

This is obviously a planted story. The idea is to discredit the dissenters in Europe and America, by connecting them to Hitler 3.0 or whatever we’re up to now on the Hitler chain of existence. Of course, Hitler Putin financing these dissenters is justification for continuing the cold war on Russia. That’s all fair game, but this is so ham-fisted and stupid it makes me wonder if it is not some sort of bad joke. Later in the story they claim Gerhard Schroeder and Italy’s former Premier Silvio Berlusconi were Putin clients.

That’s the insularity part. The true believers running American foreign policy seem to lack any sense of self-awareness. This makes it impossible for them to see the world through the eyes of their competitors. It also has led to foolish fights with Putin over Ukraine, an utterly worthless slab of land on the fringe of Europe. Their need for a bogeyman to explain any resistance to their weird secular religion has created enemies where none needed to exist.