To me (and I acknowledge that I am no expert on foreign affairs) the US response to events in the Ukraine and Crimea seem to be completely wrong-headed. I'd love to hear what others think in response to this proposal.
Russia has direct political and strategic interest in the region. After all, it's only warm-water port, giving access to Mediterranean trade routes, is there. Having suffered from three tremendously damaging invasions onto its territory since 1812, the strategic defense ideal developed under the communist regime was to put buffer states between itself and potential invaders. Putin came of age while that was the dominant thought process.
As such, the US and European nations should have welcomed the Russian intervention in its sphere of influence as a means of protecting the interests of Ukraine and its own investment in Crimea. Once the situation had stabilized, with elections held in Ukraine on a new national government, the Russians would have been encouraged to withdraw. They could even have been given assurances that Nato nations would allow for a referendum on whether Crimea would stay with Ukraine, become independent, or go to Russia, but only after Russian troops returned to pre-crisis positions.
This sounds a little bit like the appeasement doctrine that allowed Hitler to take over Czechoslovakia, but I do not think it is. This faces realities in the region. Russia is just too strong for Ukraine to resist. The US is not going to go to war over Ukraine and Russia knows it. By proceeding in this way the force in Putin's moves would have been removed. His power and interests in the region would be acknowledged, but he would also need to adhere to the rights of nations and people in his region. And, this would put the processes of democracy, the processes we claim to value so highly, into the hands of the people on the scene.
But then, we could just be engaging in a continuation of the "Great Game" of European history that made lesser powers the pawns of others.
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