The End of the Beginning

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is.. ..the end of the beginning”. So said Winston Churchill in 1942. Crimea is gone; the question is “what next”. There is a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. Calls for adherence to international law and threats of 'dire consequences' are falling on tin ears. Can the West get what it wants on its current path?

Competing narratives  

Where the West sees a justified popular uprising, Putin sees the undemocratic overthrow of an elected government. The West characterizes the unrest that led to Yanukovych's departure as spontaneous; Putin charges it was provoked by intentionally destabilizing overtures from the UE and possibly by clandestine activity on the ground (a change lent some credibility by Robert Gates' account of his time a the CIA).  And while the justification for invading the Crimea was trumped up and supported by an ideologically and politically motivated Russian media, Russia isn't the first country to go to war on spurious grounds supported by a biased and fact-free media.

Realpolitik  

Past

Crimea was until 1952, part of Russia. Many there still consider themselves Russian. They have lived in a deteriorating economy whose trajectory has continued downward since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. For this, with some justification, they blame the Ukrainian government.  

Present

In Crimean, the choice for the Ukrainian Russophiles is not between the old Ukrainian government and the new, both of which they distrust equally. It is between the Ukrainian and Russian governments. Whatever the legality or otherwise of the referendum and the wisdom or lack thereof of their choice, the majority of those in Crimea have expressed a preference to return to Russian rule; and Putin is happy to accommodate them. Nothing the West will do, aside from going to war, will change that. And the West will not go to war over the Crimea.   

Future

The only question is what will Russia do in Eastern Ukraine. The most optimistic scenario is nothing. Here, the West maintains the sanctions it imposed on Monday for a while; then in a few year Europe relaxes them and goes back to buying Russian energy and banking Russian oligarchs' money. New players in Russia replace the old and the individually targeted sanctions cease to be relevant. In five years, the entire episode will be a vague memory for most of us.

A second scenario is that Russia invades Eastern Ukraine. The West then faces a difficult decision; three courses of action seem possible. The first is that it does nothing but make speeches, none of which will have much impact except at the margins. Here, the risk is that Putin will see this as green light to invade the rest of Ukraine and rebuild something like the old empire. To annex the east and leave the West leaving a divided West Ukraine to form stronger ties to Europe would be something Putin would be unlikely to countenance. He may be seeming this endgame as similar to a divided Germany, which ultimately worked out fairly well for West Germany.

The West's second option is to dramatically increase economic and diplomatic pressure. This will be a long game; sanctions against Iran have produced some results but it has taken years and the game isn't over by any means. The efficacy of this course of action is uncertain. At best it will prevent further Russian incursions; but it will never turn the clock back.

A third possibility, but one for which the West likely has no stomach, is to move Nato forces into the threatened areas. While this may be the only way to guarantee a change of course in Putin's odyssey, the risks inherent in such an escalation are almost unimaginable; with the fall of the USSR, the threat of mutually assured destruction was, we thought, behind us; to go this route would put all of that back on the table. If we get there, it will be by accident rather than by design.

China

China has can't be seen to support a  region's self-proclaimed independence, so it cannot support Russia in this. At the same time it has been calling attention to some double standards in international relations. But if there's one thing China needs domestically it's a stable or growing export market. If Russia and the West come to blows, economically or militarily, China's exports will suffer and its own growth, on which the legitimacy and support of the Party depend, will be eroded. So China has a stake in keeping the peace. Indeed some in China are calling for their country to take an active role in mediating between the two side. Were that to happen it would signal a monumental shift in the world order.