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| Soldiers without insignia guard buildings in the Crimean capital (Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Robert E. Kelly
There is little evidence that China (or anyone else) views Russian aggression as a model for action in Asia.
Since Russia’s invasion of Crimea, there has been a lot of panicked talk: annexation is redefining international relations, violating established international law, and throwing the post-WWII/post-Cold War order in Europe into chaos. Putin has been analogized to Hitler by no less than Hillary Clinton, and both Zbigniew Brzezinski and Madeleine Albright were quick to bring up the specter of the 1938 Munich conference. There has been a steady drum-beat from U.S. conservatives that Obama is weak, appeasing, and lacks resolve.
Some of this is true. Certainly ethnic irredentism smacks of Hitler’s ploy at Munich, but the implication of the “Munich analogy” is that this is but a first step, unseen by weak, appeasing Western statesmen, toward future invasions. This is almost certainly not true for Putin. The U.S. and NATO are vastly more powerful than Russia, and without the rest of the old Soviet empire, there is no possible way Putin could launch a second Cold War against an expanded NATO. Putin’s thuggery is more a local challenge to the European order and the European Union, a desperation move from panic and paranoia. We should not lose perspective.
So out of hand did this hawkish exaggeration of Crimea become, that a backlash set-in. Micha Zenko noted the obvious hypocrisy of U.S. officials suddenly praising international rules and sovereign non-interference. Fred Kaplan pointed out that NATO does in fact retain the ability to defend itself. And Fareed Zakaria usefully reminded everyone that the “Long Peace” and gradual decline in war violence are in fact real secular trends not debunked by one event.
Read the full story at The Diplomat