They can. I don't believe they did. That referendum was clearly a sham. Two weeks for it to be organized and voted for, Russian military forces already swarming the area, no vote for the status quo (options were to be annexed by Russia or declare independence -- no choice to stay), with a significant event (Russia's invasion) driving the people most likely to oppose Russian annexation out of the area, all point to the vote being completely illegitimate.

Was it more of a sham than the establishment of an interm government in Kiev with almost no input from Eastern Ukraine?

Yes, when a government starts killing innocent people because they're protesting, ousting that government is legitimate. That the interim government had little input from eastern Ukraine is very unfortunate, and this should be corrected immediately by bringing eastern Ukrainian leaders into the fold until elections can be held (which should be the absolute top priority aside from maintaining territorial integrity).

I'm not following the implied argument here. What does any of this have to do with the clear illegitimacy of the Crimean referendum?

My argument is this:

The entire situation is a massive cock-up for which Ukraine and the EU are largely to blame. It sucks that Crimea left Ukraine the way it did, but ultimately it will allow for the potential of a freer Ukraine, as Putin was never going to let go of his hold as long as Crimea was attached to Ukraine.

PE - don't forget embezzling money from state funds and sabotaging the military's ability to defend the country

"My argument is this:

The entire situation is a massive cock-up for which Ukraine and the EU are largely to blame."

Tsk tsk abge....speaking the truth -- the the Ukraine is responsibile for it's own shit -- will get all the psuedo-intellectual morons around here riled up. You know the ones...people like Thuc-a-dick (to name just one...the villians are out in droves though...), who loves to speak of people's freedoms while he condescends to everyone around him, and is unwilling to *truly* lift a finger to support or secure anyone's freedoms. It's easier than shit to blather on about how much wrong there is when your own ass isn't on the line to secure and defend freedom. It's also funnier (in a very sad sort of way) that these same silly apes get all pissed off on a fairly regular basis about how much physical violence and intimidation there is in the world...while demanding the "good guys" disarm themselves...

The only Ukraine government which scuppered their ability to defend themselves was the one that gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for the guarantee of the US, UK and Russia that their territory would be set in stone. Other nations with nuclear weapons (or nuclear ambitions) will take be taking note of how much weight the word of the Security Council nations carries these days.

There's no way there's a WWIII. It's just not possible. Ukraine is getting enough support and Russia's getting shamed pretty badly about it. The world will and is realizing what's happening in Crimea, and it's responding. Even if this does in Russian annexation of Crimea, it's not going to go for all of Ukraine. However, they could install a pro-Russian leader. But the world's going to make Russia pay. The UN won't let it go either.

Thucy, to use an perhaps inapt analogy, I think it's also important not to let people drive dangerously fast over the speed limit, but not to the extent that it's worth hitting them with my car to stop it.

Defending the principle simply is not worth the cost (remember that you are talking about killing at least thousands of people, including many Ukrainians, for a fight we're not even sure the majority of Ukrainians want to fight) in this extremely muddy situation.

Besides, there are much worse examples of international abuses of rights, including ones which make America's moral right to intervene in such events questionable at best.

Hey....I know, maybe Obama should divert a bunch of drones – you know, the ones he flies over Pakistan and uses to shoot hellfire missiles are villages and convoys to kill 15 people in order to *maybe* nab one “terrorist” (untried, unconvicted)….and he can just send them to Crimea instead. That’ll solve the problem. After all, the cowardly assassination of innocents in Afghanistan and Pakistan is working out just great!

Does no one care that the ousted government was murdering innocent protesters in scores before being ousted? Is that just not important when we discuss whether a state is a legitimate democracy or not?

Overthrowing a government that murders its own people for no just reason is not a "cock-up," it's a fantastic move that should be welcomed with open arms.

If you overthrow your government, no matter how corrupt, you don't have the right to force the entire country to follow you.

Exactly. Not like Putin doesn't agree with the old government.

Sure, and again, if there were a legitimate referendum on Crimean secession, great.

That referendum wasn't.

Right. And if Putin wanted to, he could do it to all of Ukraine, but his global reputation would suffer.

I think that's the first and most important lesson Mr. Putin is teaching the world. It doesn't matter how much verbiage world leaders put out about protecting the weak and moving beyond violence; when push comes to shove, force talks and bullshit walks. Never give up your nukes; if you don't have them, get them. And if you don't have them and can't get them, kiss ass and hope whatever sugar daddy you pick doesn't decide you're continued existence is too much of a hassel to maintain before you finish luting the national treasury.

As for Putin's global reputation, it will get exactly the boost he's looking for. Russia is a staunch ally to its friends, and god help you if you get in their way.

In the long run, international rule of law is more important than anything else in international relations, yes, even human rights violations. It is only *because* of international rule of law that human rights violations are even taken seriously (to the extent that they are) on the international stage.

I would prefer not to go back to the days where genocides were an "internal affair" and where international politics was a "great game" in which there were no rules except who could win at the expense of another.

We were closer to that world than ever just a few years ago - we should not let Crimea be the end of the postwar era. Syria was a mixed bag or maybe a pyrrhic victory but at least there was the semblance of international law enforcement. In the case of Crimea, the ONLY power that can enforce the law is the United States.

The blame for this ultimately falls on the US. We have been shirking our role as leader of the international system in a number of grievous ways for years. We aren't even members of the fucking ICC. But that being said, paradoxically, it is still our military dominance which has allowed this international regime to slowly become the norm.

Putin, by doing this is, is openly flouting the whole thing. Something we've always known he felt privately, just as Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un and many others always have, but until now our military dominance, the perceived credibility of our military to intervene, has kept them mostly in check and allowed systems like the UN, G8, WTO, and so on to gain credibility, even as the United States is a political bystander for much of it.

But with this annexation Putin is turning the fucking clock back to 1939, or 1914 if you prefer to take the longer view. It can't be allowed to happen.

Unless any of you actually *wants* to live in that much talked about "multipolar" world where the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have a free hand to "govern" their respective regions and pay literally no mind to the international norms that we in the West take for granted?

I understand that some of your are ethnocentrists, such as Octavious, and literally don't give a flying fuck what happens on the other side of your yard fence. But for the rest of us who care about the fate of our species, and planet, this is a catastrophe.

And to think that until that last paragraph I was agreeing with you. As much as you enjoy casting me as your stereotypical villain, Thuc, I do in fact care about people abroad. Putting a priority on your own countrymen and neighbours does not mean considering everyone else to be worthless. Quite how you could think so boggles the mind.

Besides which, even from a purely UK perspective, the world in which Russia et al are rightly challenged is better than the one in which they have freedom to act how they wish. I dare say Putin himself was never expecting to actually get Crimea, and was thinking more of using it as a bargaining chip to keep NATO and the EU out of Ukraine. Still, as Obama is showing even less backbone than usual I doubt he can believe his luck and has started believing he can pull it off. This is not ideal.

"the rest of us who care about the fate of our species, and planet, this is a catastrophe."

You think this is describing if Russia takes over Crimea, but it's actually describing the outcome of an American-led attempt to force Russia out of Crimea, when World War III happens.

I don't even know how to respond to all this. When is this mythical time when the Great Powers aren't abusing the sovereignty of other countries? Why is this particular event, a very muddy one (Russia's intervention and the referendum are clearly rigged, but that doesn't mean they don't reflect majority opinions (which is far enough down that hole, but which certainly means that this case is not the clear an unambiguous case you seem to think it is)), so important? What about the dozens of aggressive actions of stronger nations against weaker that have happened even in this allegedly improving time since the end of the Cold War?

In particular, why is US hegemony much better, for most non-western countries, than the multipolar world you posit? These international norms the West supposedly takes for granted are just paper niceties the western power of the moment spouts as it tramples the rights of marginalized people the world over. The USA needs to get the plank out of its own eye before we start worrying about specks in eastern Europe.

Recent America adventurism abroad has deeply eroded any claim the US might have as the moral leader of the free world; the kind of cowboy threats you're endorsing will only make that worse.

I, for one, am trying to look on the bright side of this. We've just created a whole generation of realists, and that is a good thing in my point of view.

It's not cowboyism - what Putin did is cowboy-ish (as is what Bush did in 2003 Iraq, but, tu quoque).

I think I should clarify myself to all of you. I am not in favor of just any old war. I am in favor of my country, and every country, instituting and obeying international law and human rights regimes. The facts on the ground are that the West has done much more on this count than other countries and regions, despite the fact that every single Western country is a massive hypocrite on those issues in one way or another. Again, tu quoque.

Obama shouldn't just order strikes on Moscow or something, he should forcibly tell Putin to respect international law, and say that if he doesn't he will face military consequences. Putin will not believe him. Next step is that Obama moves fleets in his direction. Obama continues to escalate as slowly but as credibly as possible until Putin backs down.

And back down he will, because he knows, as everyone knows, that he cannot beat the United States in a war, and has few allies. It seems doubtful that any other major power would join his side if indeed it came to war.

I doubt it would. The only reason Putin is doing this is because he thinks (rightly, probably, and sadly) that he can get away with it. If you are the US commander-in-chief the proper reaction is to correct this perception by credibly threatening Putin.

I can't account for the possibility that Putin is indeed a cowboy, but I doubt he is actually irrational or crazy. Russia backed down in the Cuban Missile Crisis at a time when it was far less clear who would beat who in a war.

This is like saying that the cops should not arrest pimps who pimp out child sex slaves, simply because the pimps are armed. The cops have guns for a reason - to force people with weapons to themselves back down. The same with nations - the military exists to enforce international order, at least it should, in 2014. It shouldn't be used for fucking conquest, or for funding your home district with jobs and bases.

Mark my words, if in the next few months or years the US and West eventually quietly backs down over Crimea and recognizes the annexation, historians will look back on this time as the day the international order post-1945 ended. Shit like Human Rights Watch? It will be seen as a historical anomaly.

That's no world to live in. That's a world to fight to prevent, if necessary.

Another, faster way of putting it is this:

If Putin can get away with annexing Crimea with no US response, why can't China get away with invading Taiwan, or India get away with invading Pakistan, or any other apocalyptic madness?

What is at stake is no less than the international order.

As for the realist/idealist debate, I have always sat on the fence in a particular way.

I'm a realist in that the theory accurately describes the international system's barebones - it is predicated on force.

And THUS, if you want international law to actually mean something you have to be ready to kill people who won't obey it. Same as with the law within a country.

Problems will arise when it's been so long since you've done that, that criminals start to think that you never will. It gets EVEN WORSE when a criminal pushes his luck and gets a way with a crime. Everyone starts to wonder if there even is any law at all.

As to the question "what is it about this time?"

There are two answers, one, it is now, and all that other shit is already in the past. If you are in power, what counts is what you do today, because you weren't in power yesterday.

Two, when is the last time a country annexed another country in whole or in part?

More importantly still, when was the last time the annexer was a country as huge and powerful and important to the international system as Russia? As far as I know, WWII. I could be wrong, but why do you think places like Western Sahara have been listed as "occupied" for years and years and years?

One major reason is that annexation is no longer considered, um, acceptable. Maybe that's not true anymore though, because of Putin and Crimea.

I hope you see what I'm getting at now.

As to the argument that Crimea wanted to join Russia anyway - that's cool, but you don't do it through a military annexation. You just don't. (Or, again, maybe you do, now, in the post-2013 world)

Thucy is now the biggest asstard moron in all of Webdip.

Thucy, you worthless piece of shit -- go join the fucking army and don the uniform of your country before you fucking advocate Obama try to force Putin to back down.

You are - again - one of the most disgusting people around her, you condescending, worthless piece of maggot shit.

Thucy,

What do you want us to do? Go to war? We're starting to apply sanctions, but Russia can probably hurt Europe in the short term much more than we can hurt them.

Where, in your fucking rush to get American soldiers killed, is the call for fucking EUROPE to stand up for European problems - it THEIR fucking petrol on the line. Where, more to the point, is your call for FUCKING UKRAINIANS to man the fuck up and defend themselves.

God...what a worthless piece of shit you are. How DARE you even suggest for a moment that *any* US soldier's life is worth putting on the line in a stare-down with an ex-KGB wanna-be reconstituted Soviet Dictator.

IT's the Rhineland, all over again, asshole. I know that history shit is beyond your psuedo intellectual asshole mind....but this isn't a fucking Diplomacy game -- this is real shit, and real lives are going to be on the line if some already-proven-to-be-a-cowardly-pussy asshole like Obama suddenly decides he want's to play Perfect General with soldier's lives.

FUCK YOU.

"What do you want us to do? Go to war?"

Gone over that already, please see post beginning "I don't want war."

Sanctions are a joke, that's simply the fact of the matter. Putin knows it and we know it. We are only applying some because we don't want to look like total idiots.

And krellin:

Shut the fuck up. And if indeed it is Rhineland all over again, wouldn't it have been better to stop Hitler in his tracks before he got started, rather than waiting till he decided to annex half of Europe?

Also, as someone who is a young man and eligible for my country's draft, as long as you are keeping this personal, I am the one who has a certain physical interest in the prospect of a genuine World War Three, not you.

And yeah, if it came to it, and Putin for whatever reason would not back down, I have already made clear a number of times that that's something I would fight on my country's side for. You heard it here first. I'm perfectly aware that not a large number of my countrymen would be in line with me... but that's no shocker. No one in this country wants to fight for anything, ever since fucking Bush spilled our blood for no apparent reason in Iraq.

Again, I'm not a fan of war. I'm also not a fan of shootouts between cops and gangs in New Orleans, but they do happen. And sometimes, they had to happen.

If any one of you thinks I'd LOVE to rush off to war, you're a fucking idiot. I don't want to die, but I also don't want my children to live in a world where it isn't safe to travel the world, or where there is no chance of a concerted effort to tackle issues like climate change, nuclear proliferation, multinationals, tsunamis.... on and on.

A lot of people, WebDip types especially, like to fancifully imagine a "World in 2050" kind of scenario in the "post-American" world. As if it were some kind of game. No, it's real. Maybe your old ass will be dead in 20 years, krellin, but I will probably be alive. Even if I won't see the end of the year though, it shouldn't change right and wrong.