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Mar 25, 2014 03:00 am | Klaus Larres, Peter Eltsov
On
March 18, the Crimean peninsula became part of the Russian Federation.
So far Russian President Putin has shrugged off global protests about
his flagrant violation of international law. He has decided to simply
ignore the warnings of leaders such as President Obama and Germany’s
Chancellor Angela Merkel. Greeted by thousands of people on Red Square
in Moscow, Putin said “Crimea and Sevastopol are returning to ... their
home shores, to their home port, to Russia”.Many foreign-policy experts in the United States and elsewhere are pronouncing that negotiations and engagement with the other side don’t work and are useless. Putin needs to be stopped immediately and punished. The imposition of severe sanctions on Russia and individual senior office-holders in the Kremlin, it is argued, is the least the US and the EU should do to force Putin and his clique to see reason and respect international laws and norms. Putin has to give in, is the mantra heard everywhere in Washington, DC, but much less so in Angela Merkel’s Germany.
In the U.S. it is not only foreign policy hawk John McCain but Secretary of State John Kerry and even the President himself who resort to this sort of demonstration of manliness and verbal muscle. French President Hollande, hugely unpopular in his own country, and the British in the form of Foreign Secretary Hague and beleaguered Prime Minister Cameron are not far behind. While Moscow points to the Western-supported separation of Kosovo from the Serb Republic in early 2008, which continues to be deeply resented in Russia, to explain the legitimacy of its takeover of Crimea. But many in the Western world feel reminded of an entirely different historical parallel.
read morehttp://nationalinterest.org/commentary/merkel-putin-the-lessons-history-10116
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