Lowell Feld thinks that America needs to go to war against Russia for oil and regional stability:
In all seriousness, though, the sad fact is that the United States of America - bogged down in the Iraqi “double strategic mousetrap” (as Jim Webb calls it) - is completely powerless to stop Russia from invading an ally, overthrowing its government, occupying the country, taking control of its oil transit infrastructure, changing the balance of power in the region, etc., etc. Heckuva job, Bush/Cheney et al!
While I agree that we need to be stern against Russia (McCain style, not Obama “um, er, uh..” style - by the way, nice endorsement of the McCain policy, Lowell) I wonder why it’s OK to be strong against Russia and even seriously consider a military response for the sake of regional stability and oil when doing the same with, oh, say Dictators in Iraq, Iran, Syria and the like is bad.
But perhaps Lowell and others need to take a step back and realize that responses to situations such as this are heavily influenced by factors such as the size and strength of the sides and the potential to tip off World War Three. We need to be strong, but we don’t need to be crazy.
UPDATE: In the Washington Post, Asmus and Holbrook’s “Black Sea Watershed”:
This moment could well mark the end of an era in Europe during which realpolitik and spheres of influence were supposed to be replaced by new cooperative norms and a country’s right to choose its own path. Hopes for a more liberal Russia under President Dmitry Medvedev will need to be reexamined. His justification for this invasion reads more like Brezhnev than Gorbachev. While no one wants a return to Cold War-style confrontation, Moscow’s behavior poses a direct challenge to European and international order.
What can we do?