THE WEST MUST RESIST MR. PUTIN’S GAMBITS IN UKRAINE By Editorial Board Washington Post | Published: March 7 THE UNITED States and its allies have responded to Russia’s invasion of Crimea with a flurry of diplomacy aimed at persuading Moscow to accept negotiation and an eventual compromise, with a gently escalating sequence of sanctions as the alternative. Vladimir Putin’s answering strategy has looked something like the opposite: the embrace of extreme options that may allow him to present the unacceptable as a reasonable outcome. … … … The Obama administration and European Union are right to seek a diplomatic settlement of the crisis. The danger is that they will be bluffed by Mr. Putin into settling for the unacceptable — Russian annexation or de facto annexation of Crimea — without imposing penalties that would exact a meaningful cost and deter further aggression. Some argue that the West lacks the means to damage the Putin regime or that the United States cannot act without Europe, but neither claim is true. Banking sanctions — denying Russians and their banks access to the U.S. financial system — could deal a powerful blow. Mr. Obama must respond to Mr. Putin with measures that force the Russian ruler to rethink his options. washingtonpost/opinions/the-west-must-resist-mr-putins-gambits-in-ukraine/2014/03/07/6d3c3570-a61b-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 23:09:34 +0000
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