Robert Zaretsky in the Chronicle of Higher Education goes back to the Crimean War and Tolstoy's Sevastopol Sketches to make some parallels. He sees Tsars in Putin. But then he goes on to compare Napoleon in the early 19th century to Putin. But he makes no comparisons of any current western leaders. Maybe one could find Obama or Merkel in these past events as well.
But Zaretsky is a professor of literature and does not seem to have much awareness of the West's role, especially in the Crimean War. Maybe Europe "overreacted" in 1854 just like it could today.
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