By Shang-su Wu
The Russian takeover of the Crimea offers a possible blueprint for non-Western powers.
Although the outcome of Russia’s rapid military deployment in the Crimea is not yet certain, this incident and Russian military action against Georgia in 2008 may offer non-Western powers a potential formula for the use of force. Neither diaspora nor fait accompli are new concepts for statecraft, but this combination may gradually become more workable in the shifting power structure of the international community.
During the Cold War, the tight relations between the West and East Blocs made either diaspora or fait accompli salient in the main areas of confrontation, such as Europe, as any action involving force had the potential escalate into all-out nuclear war. Thus, fait accompli was merely for military operation with a bloc, such as the Soviet Union’s assault on Prague in 1968. In other areas of rampant proxy wars and conflicts, diaspora was less attractive than ideological goals for belligerents seeking to obtain external aid from either of the two blocs, and fait accompli was not durable in lasting combats, whether conventional or insurgency.
In the first two decades of the post-Cold War era, the balance of power between Western powers and non-Western powers heavily favored the former. As a result, the Western powers, principally the U.S. and the EU, were generally able to shape the international order to their liking, despite several major disagreements such as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Non-Western powers, namely Russia and China, were often challenged, for instance with NATO’s eastward expansion, and repelled, as in the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996. However, the occupation of the Pristina Airport in Kosovo by Russian airborne troops in 1999 demonstrated the political effect of fait accompli. Since the financial crisis of 2007, the ongoing economic struggles of the Western powers and the comparatively stronger performance of non-Western powers create a suitable environment for non-Western powers to develop the formula.