For the next thirty-odd months....there’s nothing much to challenge Putin, and he knows it. The idiots at the Noble Prize Bureau had this dim idea that peace was near at hand, and awarded their beloved prize on nothing. Now?
If the US simply opened the ballistic missile defense option, and said it’d have one in place and operational in 100 days...it’d cause some reflection. The next day? Opt for a US deployment of a dozen naval vessels to be permanently based in the Black Sea and ported out of Romania. The third day....start letting the cyber guys grab billionaire Russian funds. The fourth day....announce natural gas sales via US produced companies....discounted less than what the Russians can deliver. By the fifth day.....we ban all US congressmen and Senators from traveling into Russia...for any reason (lose your passport for a year if you try it). Somewhere around the tenth day...someone will tell Putin from his inner staff...that this is a severe pain and there needs to be some end to the whole game.
And on the eleventh day, Crimea would be forced back into an unwanted union with Ukraine, which is currently in political and economic chaos.
Sounds like a great bargain.
If a majority in Crimea wants to join Russia - and 60% are Russian - why should the USA threaten war to stop them?
If Putin took over Norway and awarded himself the Peace Prize he would have more legitimacy than Obama.