Alexandros Rex:
I am pretty surprised nobody has mentioned this in the Current Events section. This is pretty big all things considered. I'd like to see how people feel about the entire thing. For those who have not heard: Russia has occupied parts of Crimea after the ousting of a pro-Russian Ukrainian president and are attempting to annex that part of the country on account of their Russian ancestry.
I was just pondering the same point (that the Russia-Ukraine issue hasn't even been brought up here).
My brief analysis of the whole situation:
One one side we have President Obama playing the role of an even more inept version of Neville Chamberlain - Obama and the West have gone beyond appeasement and slid over the line into meaningless and inept actions, or rather a complete display of inaction and meaningless whining.
On the other side, we have Putin playing the perfect Von Ribbentrop in a 1936 Germany sort of way that directly mirrors the partitioning of Czechoslovakia.
Obama thinks that because this is the 21st Century, the world of diplomacy and war have somehow magically changed. Putin is playing by 19th Century Realpolitik and running rings around Obama. It's the Chicago 'Community Organizer' vs. The Former KGB agent. Guess who wins that bout.
Like Ribbentrop and Nazi Germany in the 1930's, Putin and his Foreign Minister are looking to partition Ukraine into even smaller 'autonomous' units this turning Ukraine back into a Russian client state.
Putin is trying to re-assemble the old Soviet empire and will go for the Baltic States, Poland and everything else controlled by the Soviets if he is allowed to have free rein.
Obama just wants to wave a blank sheet of paper in the air and pronounce, "Peace in our time". We've seen this movie before and it doesn't turn out well.
Had Obama not personally blocked the admission of Ukraine to NATO, this would have never happened.
What should be done to stop Putin and Russia in its tracks:
The Ukrainian military should position itself to destroy all of the gas and petroleum lines through the Ukraine if Russia invades. The simple threat of this and the will to carry such an action out would stop Russia in its tracks simply because enough damage to the gas/petroleum lines would take years to repair and would deny Russia of enough income that it would bankrupt Russia in a month.
Ukraine should immediately be admitted to NATO which means that if Russia invades, Russia severely runs the risk of instant war as a mechanical action should it invade.
The missile shield that Obama killed should be put in place ASAP.
Freeze all of Russia's assets in US and European banks until they pull out of the Crimea.
Embargo all trade with Russia including the millions of tons of grain we ship them from the US every year. Starve them out literally and economically to the point that even if they decide to invade western Europe, they can't feed or pay their army. Shamble their economy.
And to further strain the Russian resources and economy, you shut down the water supply canal and gas lines from the Ukraine leading to The Crimea and force the Russians to supply Crimea with everything or starve.
Have the US Supply Europe with enough natural gas and petroleum (after all, the US Exports more oil and gas than it consumes) so that if the Russians try to cut off gas and petroleum to Europe it won't matter.
Sink a few ship hulks in the Bosphorus and totally bottle up the Black Sea and render a Russian warm water port a moot point.
The economic strain and resulting chaos would result in such internal unrest and chaos in Russia that in six weeks time, Putin would have an Yekaterinburg moment*.
IOW, give Putin a dose of Realpolitik that will make his arse bleed for years. Putin is using plays from the 19th Century play book - which means we have a perfect opportunity to do what should have been done the first time around.
* Waits to see if anyone gets this historical reference.