The Crimea is a special case - after all, the territory IS mostly ethnic Russian and Russia does have a case in protecting its interests and the people who live there.
A Russian attack on Ukraine itself would be a completely different matter but the West would be powerless to respond - its decadent, flabby and weak. People who want to be its friends are advised not to repose a great deal confidence in it.
That was the Maidan revolutionaries and the Western Ukrainians big mistakes - for which they’re now facing Russian wrath. Moscow’s not too subtle message is reject us and face the consequences. Join with us and you will have influence, peace and security.
Its one not being lost on the Ukrainians. In the end, they may have to capitulate to the Bear because they have no real options and the West isn’t going to be there for them. But the reason they would want to choose a future with Russia is because Russia is the only country that can protect as well as punish them. In a dangerous world - an enemy as good as his word is also the kind of ally you want to have as a friend.
What does the West offer Ukrane really? And Moscow’s other side is it can offer a lot of money, inducements and trade to sign up with them. Poor Jonathan Tobin and a lot of Westerners who wax high on platitudes need to go back and read their Machiavelli. “Its better to be feared than to be loved.” The bottom line is Vladimir Putin knows exactly how win respect for his country.
We should give it a try sometime.
But all-out invasion of Ukraine appears unlikely at present given that even if Russia were to win, it would face years of costly and bloody insurrection.
Taking over just Crimea appears, at least initially, to be less risky given that more than half the population is ethnic Russian. As a peninsula, Crimea would be theoretically easy to defend.
But a Russian takeover of Crimea could be disastrous in the long run. The Kremlin would be underestimating the impact of the sizeable population of Tatars who were forcibly deported from Crimea by Josef Stalin in 1944 and not allowed to return until the beginning of political and economic reform in the 1980s.
Sutyagin, who is at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said: "The Tatars are very anti-Russian. They will do anything not to be under the Russians. They will be determined to fight for Ukraine. It would be a second Chechnya."
Many of the soldiers fighting in the Ukrainian army are ethnic Russians but Sutyagin said loyalty to the idea of an independent Ukrainian state would top their ethnicity. "The entry of Russian troops would be a deep humiliation for Ukraine. Ukrainians do not want to be occupied. It is a mistake by Russian politicians who think ethnic Russians are Russian," Sutyagin said."