Did Diplomacy Win in Ukraine?

Not with a bang but a whimper, international tensions appear to have shifted away from the Ukraine, leaving regional powerhouse Russia and the interim government in Kiev to deal with what are most-definitely-not-but-kind-of-look-and-talk-like Russian forces in the east. Though the conflict certainly is not over, it looks like it will not be the likely cause of World War III anytime soon.

Russian-speaking troops are still occupying several areas in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea is firmly in Russian hands, but the US, EU, and Russia as well as Ukraine’s interim government came to an agreement to peacefully “defuse” the situation last week in Geneva. Yet Russia has not yet fulfilled one of its primary commitments to call on separatists in the East to surrender the buildings that they’ve occupied, and is now contemplating further military action.

Crimean War Redux

By Guest Contributor Joel Klein
MA Candidate in International Affairs, Boston University

Kerry and Lavrov face off

Recently my fellow graduate student at BU and editor of this blog Vicky wrote an excellent piece on Russia’s invasion of Crimea. While a self-admitted non-expert on Europe or the Former Soviet Union her piece has some excellent analysis and is well worth the read. However as someone who aspires to be an expert on Russia and the Former Soviet Union I wanted to add my 2 cents partly as rebuttal but mostly to inform especially considering our media’s awful coverage. In many ways Vicky and I agree on the many of the United States foreign policy failures and problems in President Obama’s second term. I agree with Vicky’s Meta analysis, our grand strategy is non-existent and the second term National Security process is a disaster. I blame much of this on Obama’s poor second term national security team which possess few independent strategic thinkers.

What many are accurately calling Europe’s most dangerous crisis since the Cold War is a direct result of issues unsettled after the end of that particular “War”. This process along with recent blunders by the EU in particular, but also the United States and Russia, has brought us to this point. For this article I do not comment on these wider international relations issues but analyze the interests of Russia in initiating the Crimean crisis and the potential Western response.

Obama's No-Good-Very-Bad Week

As the crisis in Ukraine enters its fifth month since ousted President Viktor Yanukovych turned down an EU association deal in November, Russian troops have left their bases in Crimea and occupied the peninsula. Russian President Vladimir Putin claims the move is essential to protect ethnic Russians, who are allegedly at risk from militant nationalist, anti-semitic, and otherwise violent groups. While this claim is shaky at best, given Crimea’s strategic importance to Russia (whose Black Sea fleet is stationed at Sevastopal), it is not altogether shocking that Russia would move to secure the region in the face of growing instability in Ukraine.

What remains less clear are the options now open to US President Barack Obama in responding to the crisis. Wishy-washy and inexact condemnations and threats have left much to be desired, and many are already claiming that foreign policy is at an all-time low in Obama’s second term. One side of the aisle points out his weakness, while the other calls attention to the irony of this rhetoric. Yet few of these voices offer any tangible actions the President could take to diffuse the crisis, if not end it altogether. The following are some of the options the Obama administration has when it comes to confronting Russia on its recent incursion.