Posted on 07/07/2014 8:15:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There are occasions in international diplomacy when the deal-making skills of an investment banker can creatively solve problems that are beyond the tool-kit of career diplomats and politicians. The crisis created by Vladimir Putin’s unilateral annexation of the Crimea qualifies as a situation that may have had a solution if American diplomacy had been able to think out of the box.
What if President Obama, in the famously long conversation he had with Putin before events escalated, had said: “We respect that Russia has legitimate security interests in the Crimea, as well as its ethnic and cultural ties to the majority of the Crimean people whose interests are not aligned with the Ukrainians in the west. At the same time, Ukraine has legitimate interests in protecting its sovereignty and we, the US, want to ensure that international law is respected and borders are not unilaterally rearranged by stronger countries. Therefore we propose that Russia offers to “buy” the Crimea for $100 billion to be paid over 10 years. We will persuade the leadership of the Ukraine to accept this proposal and voluntarily cede the Crimea to Russia.”
Instead, during that call, Putin went on about the Ukrainian “fascists” who were threatening the life and property of the Russian-speaking people in Crimea and his solemn duty to protect them. President Obama defended the new Ukrainian leadership and denied any such risks, threatening Russia with sanctions for violating international law. The two leaders talked past one another and there was no way of creating an agreement.
Since the US was not willing to go to war with Russia over Crimea, the consensus narrative is that nothing else could have been done.
(Excerpt) Read more at qz.com ...
Why buy it when your can steal it? Its cheaper.
They already own it, so why pay anything?
Brillllliant!!!
Throw in the Brighton Beach, NY.
Why don’t all those “brilliant” academics go and live in the commie paradises. No net to fight, convert, redistribute rotten capitalist countries.
per WIKI...
The transfer of Crimea in 1954 was an administrative action of the Supreme Soviet which transferred the government of most of the Crimean peninsula from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian SSR.
Why buy the cow?
When you can get the milk almost free!
Interesting idea, it could work (if there were sane heads), but Mr. Putin already has Crimea, I doubt he’d but up to purchasing something he already stole. He (nor Obama) have the conscience of our old time leaders (when we purchased our territories from Mexico, Spain, the UK and Russia).
And I forgot FRANCE, the big one, oops!~
If the Crimea is purchased maybe land access from Russia itself may be part of the deal.
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