Barack Obama playing risky game of Russian roulette over Vladimir Putin's Crimea invasion

[bemildred]

Unfashionable though it is to say so, Russia's military incursion into Ukraine's Crimean peninsula does not represent a second Cold War. Instead, it is a rational reaction of a great power into the affairs of an unruly state in its neighbourhood.

That may sound insensitive, but hyperventilating pundits and politicians ignore an old truth about international relations: great powers are determined to protect what they deem as vital interests in their ''near abroad.'' Indeed, a sphere of influence is a key characteristic of any great power, authoritarian or democratic.

Many Americans, guided by a sense of exceptionalism, think they are immune to the historic tendencies of power politics. But when liberals and neo-conservatives slam Russia's behaviour, they should recall the many US military interventions in the Caribbean and Central America since the Monroe Doctrine in the 19th century. None of this is extraordinary; it is the way the world works, and always has.

Since the end of the Cold War, however, a new orthodoxy has emerged: a belief that power politics no longer works in an era of globalisation. We had arrived at the End of History: the universalisation of market democracy, the triumph of national self-determination and perpetual peace.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/barack-obama-playing-risky-game-of-russian-roulette-over-vladimir-putins-crimea-invasion-20140305-347fe.html

[pscot]

1. It took the Russians 250 years

to push the Turks and then the Brits out of Crimea. They're like a pit bull with a beef bone. They aren't going to give it up.

[bemildred]

2. Yep, no hurry. nt