Students should know word usage is important. The right phrase can transform the mundane to the exciting, and the horrifying to the justifiable. Let’s say you want to break up with your significant other and sleep around for a while; all you have to say is you “want to keep your options open.” If you’re going out and drinking every night, you’re “experiencing college,” and if you illegally annex foreign territory, it’s “democracy.” Naturally, this last example is for later in life if you should decide to become an expansionist autocrat.
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea held a vote to secede from Ukraine on Sunday, in a move that could be called anything but democratic. Since late February, Crimea has been under occupation by unmarked Russian forces in response to the ousting of the Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych. These troops have seized Ukrainian installations and equipment and disarmed local Ukrainian soldiers.
The invasion and subsequent occupation happened without a shot fired, mostly due to Ukraine’s uncertainty on whether the West would intervene on its behalf. According to the Russian Duma, the action was taken to protect the “Russian-speaking people” in Crimea.
That’s funny; I seem to recall an Austrian with a funny mustache making the same argument about German speakers in the Sudetenland. And the rest of Czechoslovakia, the Free City of Danzig and Poland.
The vote came in at more than 97 percent in support of secession, all under the watchful eye of the Russian troops that Moscow claims totally aren’t Russian. They instead refer to them as “pro-Russian self-defense forces.”
Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to annex Crimea, the United States government decided to follow through on its repeated warnings of “heavy costs,” and imposed sanctions on seven individuals close to Putin.
Yes, you read that correctly, seven. The irony is that this actually caused Russian financial markets to swell.
The West, particularly the U.S., has an obligation to take more severe action than pitiful sanctions against this aggressive move by Russia. We cannot reasonably expect Europe to do anything, because they depend on Russian oil and natural gas for a good portion of their energy. Besides, the U.S. is a hegemon, and it is time America started acting like it again.
This is one of those rare moments when international law does not actually stymie our interests. Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, Ukraine exchanged its nuclear stockpile for assurances of territorial integrity and sovereignty within its existing borders by the U.S., the United Kingdom and Russia. It also prohibits all signatory nations from the use of force against Ukraine.
It seems our friends in Moscow had their fingers crossed behind their backs.
What is needed is strong, concrete action against the Russian government, not the targeting of seven oligarchs. Russia should be isolated from the international community and global markets, and every economic action should be taken to effectively destroy the ruble. Or, more diplomatically, the Russian Federation must be compelled to stand by its treaty obligations and obey international law.
If that does not convince Putin to withdraw, then military action of some degree should not be counted out. Russian conventional forces, at this moment, are a paper tiger. They can bully Ukraine with near impunity, but they pale in comparison to NATO forces. The fall of communism was not kind to the Russian military.
At the very least, we should position troops in Ukraine proper to ward off further aggression against Kiev, and while we’re at it, how about we speed up that anti-ballistic missile defense program in Poland in tandem with some war games.
It is clear that Putin does not hold the U.S. in very high regard, much less fear any significant repercussions for his actions. As a former KGB lieutenant colonel, he respects strength above all else. President Barack Obama is acting like Neville Chamberlain, when we need Winston Churchill.
Ryan McGehee is a 21-year-old political science, history and international studies senior from Zachary, La.