Obama clearly wants to pull the U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan, which under Bush were big parts of the U.S. empire.
Clearly. And for a good reason, given how Afghanistan has always been resistant to external aggression and Iraq was Bush and Cheney's pet project, unrelated to 9/11.
Lots of Republicans think that Obama wants to greatly reduce U.S. military power
What do they think his motivation would be, other than possibly financial?
I take it you don't have much experience talking with leftwing college professors.
Some. The ex-hippie Berkeley types are rather annoying. Krugman is annoying. But to me any ideologically-motivated argument is annoying, because of its anti-rationality.
It's far from implausible to think that deep down Obama believes that U.S. military power has, with the exception of WWII, been a force for evil.
Eh, I don't see the connection. The leftwingers rarely hide their views. Obama has never expressed anything close to what you are describing and hasn't worked for any radical leftwing organizations (beyond a tenants' rights organization during his college years). He certainly supported left-leaning causes, like healthcare and welfare reforms, in the past, but he still does so, pretty openly. I grant you that his expressed views and actions have shifted rightward, and his actual views might be closer to what he held 15 years ago, but still solidly within the spectrum of DNC views. The odds of him considering the US military power being (a force for evil), given that he never expressed views like that, are pretty slim. Not that I personally approve of his policies and actions, the man has been a disappointment in terms of his competence level. But inept does not mean malicious.
Some of the comments on the link by James_Miller exactly six months ago provided very specific estimates of how the events might turn out:
James_Miller:
Me:
"Russians intervening militarily" could be anything from posturing to weapon shipments to a surgical strike to a Czechoslovakia-style tank-roll or Afghanistan invasion. My guess that the odds of the latter is below 5%.
A bet between James_Miller and solipsist:
I will bet you $20 U.S. (mine) vs $100 (yours) that Russian tanks will be involved in combat in the Ukraine within 60 days. So in 60 days I will pay you $20 if I lose the bet, but you pay me $100 if I win.
While it is hard to do any meaningful calibration based on a single event, there must be lessons to learn from it. Given that Russian armored columns are said to capture key Ukrainian towns today, the first part of James_Miller's prediction has come true, even if it took 3 times longer than he estimated.
Note that even the most pessimistic person in that conversation (James) was probably too optimistic. My estimate of 5% appears way too low in retrospect, and I would probably bump it to 50% for a similar event in the future.
Now, given that the first prediction came true, how would one reevaluate the odds of the two further escalations he listed? I still feel that there is no way there will be a "conventional battle" between Russia and NATO, but having just been proven wrong makes me doubt my assumptions. If anything, maybe I should give more weight to what James_Miller (or at least Dan Carlin) has to say on the issue. And if I had any skin in the game, I would probably be even more cautious.