The relevant US interest is that of keeping Russia as weak as possible.
You don’t impose sanctions against “individuals” if you want to be taken seriously. That’s ridiculous. A couple of dozen people cannot enter EU and US, their assets are supposedly frozen (how much do you want to bet those assets have been moved prior to the supposed “freeze”). That’s laughable. And don’t write “banks”. You know it is one bank, and it’s a tiny one. Pure symbolism, no substance.
And no, there is not going to be “another, deeper round” as I pointed out to you, with a cite. Obama is telling it to you straight out - why are you denying it?
Prior to this month, why would the U.S care if Russia were strong or weak?
Ah I see I misposted the link. Here it is: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/26/3731541/in-europe-obama-warns-of-further.html#storylink=cpy
I disagree on two accounts.
- A weak Russia, or one that feels weak, is a dangerous Russia.
But more importantly:
- The US (and I think most of The West) would not have had a problem with an orderly and legal transfer of Crimea to Russia. So the question remains: What interest does the US have in Crimea?
We have no idea what Obama and European leaders are discussing in terms of sanctions.
It looks like the best approaches are to compete economically without sanctions. Most important is to continue to find a way to get Central Asian and Middle Eastern gas to Europe without involving Russia (the article provides a quick history of pipeline building in Eastern Europe and the Middle East). The other options are to increase natural gas supplies from sources other than Central Asia. These may play a part but will not solve the problem. Among these includes the proposal that the United Statesincrease its supplies to Europe. That proposal has many hurdles including domestic need for natural gas, better prices for natural gas in Asia versus Europe, and Europe has many suppliers that can make American natural gas less appealing if we do find a way to make prices competitive.
Short-term, bolstering Ukraine’s economy with IMF loans is in the works. We should bolster Ukraine militarily and do it fast.
To say something controversial, the first article points out how Iran has huge reserves. Perhaps we should just let them have their nukes; let them be a more easily manageable Russia-lite.
In general, Id assume there is an interest in such matters not being settled with military force. Now everyone is going to have to invest in their militaries.
This is unfortunate for Russia, who already collapsed once trying to keep up with western military spending. They are moving international relations towards a yardstick where thay have a very temporary advantage and no chance of keeping up. If this moves the EU to integrate their military spending and forces, Russia will be the “near abroad” of a far more powerful neighbour.
This of course presume that Russia’s current economic woes won’t worsen and that Ukrainians and Crimean Tartars don’t openly rebel against their new Russian overlords. After all, no one call for Russian intervention in Crimea and now that it has occurred, Russia (and not Ukraine) is going to have to figure out how to pay for the myriad infrastructure repairs and social programs that Crimea requires.
This also presumes that energy prices will remain high (Russia largest foreign export) that internal issues in Russia won’t begin to take precedence over the Crimea and that NATO nations don’t begin their own troop buildups or start importing US LNG in lieu of Russian gas. And it presumes that Ukrainian patriots don’t begin to make Russia’s export of gas to the West a truly difficult task by sabotaging the pipelines running through their nation (after all, the Russians can’t guard every miles of the pipeline even if they conquered Ukraine proper).
Again, Russia spun-off Ukraine in 1992 for a reason. While Putin and cronies seem to have forgotten this, they will be reminded of it fairly soon. The question then will be whether or Russian has the stones fight a protracted battle with Ukraine and opposing forces over Crimea. Or whether it will declare “victory” and then go home.
Did the Crimeans do anything wrong?
Does that mean you do not object to Crimean leaders declaring their intent to secede from Ukraine after Yanukovich was removed from power as a result of violent protests in Kiev at the end of February?
That would be unwise of them, since each group is a numerical minority within Crimea, and if they join forces they’re still a minority.
Since when has that stopped anyone?
Most of he West would, of course, have no problem with something that had practically and realistically no chance to happen. That’s a convenient way to deny Crimea self-determination without actually denying it. Back in the real world the Crimeans saw no path of a Western-backed orderly and legal separation of Crimea from Ukraine. So all this hindsight-driven Polly-Annish handwringing must be to divert attention away from the first link in the chain of events that enabled Crimea to break ties with Crimea. That was the violence and the breakdown of Constitutional law in Kiev in February.
Some did, yes, but it’s dwarfed by Russia’s wrongdoing.
Not if that’s how it actually went down. How are we to know, when the Crimean parliament was operating under seige, foreign troops were occupying strategic points, and the haste with which the highly suspicious referendum was carried out? Again, this is indistinguishable from Russia working with a hardline faction of Crimeans, to manufacture the outcome they wanted. Do you honestly have confidence that this was a legitimate exercise in self-determination?
Sure. Again, nobody is denying the USA has its list of sins. I certainly am not going to tell you the USA is brave and noble for kicking the shit out of hapless little countries like Iraq. There was nothing impressive about invading little Panama. The title of the thread is not “How should the world respond to U.S. aggression in Iraq?” It’s about Russia bullying Ukraine and what should be done about it. Do you have any opinions regarding that issue, or are you just going to continue with off-topic blathering about how you don’t like Americans?
Indeed, you still haven’t answered the question; why does the U.S. doing bad things to weak countries justify, in any way, Russia doing bad things to weak countries?
The sanctions were fairly slow in coming, and I’ll bet that this was deliberately done, to allow those people to remove any assets from the US or EU. This is all just political theater on Obama and the Europeans’ part. It would not surprise me in the slightest degree if it turns out NATO provided a list of people who were going to be sanctioned to Russia ahead of time, and Russia provided a similar list to the West as a courtesy.
This cannot be done fast. Half the military units have doubtful loyalty towards the Ukrainian state and would defect in a heartbeat should it come to a conflict with Russia.
Before you can build an effective military you need to build a strong national identity.
As for gas. Diversifiation is alway a good idea, but merely swapping Russia for crazy Central Asian or Middle Eastern suppliers would be like going from the frying pan and into the fire. We need to develop our own resources, mainly by fracking.
Over here, since about 1890.
It’s a scary thought, but maybe Ukraine *needs *to fight a war against Russia in order to define itself as a country. Most nation-states are born in war.
Do you have a cite for that?
Well, Russia is doing a good job of forging one for Ukraine.
The transfer was about as orderly and legal as you can expect in today’s world. I was rather impressed, really.