Careful what you wish for in Ukraine
Western governments are jubilant over the fall of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, a Russian ally. They may be underestimating Vladimir Putin: Russia has the option to hasten Ukraine's slide into chaos and wait until the hapless European Union acquiesces to - if not begs for - Russian intervention.
That leaves the West with a limited number of choices. The first is to do nothing and watch the country spiral into chaos, with Russia as the eventual beneficiary. The second is to dig deep into its pockets and find US$20 billion or more to buy near-term popularity for a pro-Western government - an unlikely outcome. The third, and the most realistic, is to steer Ukraine towards a constitutional referendum including the option of partition.
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The fall of Yanukovich is an embarrassment to Russia, and a well-deserved one, but that does not leave Russia entirely without options. Russia most likely will adopt the same stance towards pro-European Union politicians that the Egyptian military and its Saudi backers took toward Egypt's the Muslim Brotherhood: let the opposition take the blame for economic and social chaos, and then move in when the country is on its knees. The Brotherhood ruled Egypt for a year, and then the food and fuel ran out, 30 million Egyptians, more than half the country's adult population, demonstrated to oust it. The military obliged in August 2013 and immediately obtained emergency loans from the Saudis.
The IMF meanwhile offered Egypt small amounts of money in return for big cuts in government subsidies and got nowhere. It is possible, to be sure, that the European Union and Washington will cough up $15 billion for Ukraine, but this seems most unlikely given aversion of all their governments to further bailouts. As Walter Russell Mead put it, the West brought a baguette to a knife fight; the problem is that even the baguette comes with IMF conditionality.
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Russia will not abandon Russian-speakers cut off from the Motherland by the collapse of the Soviet Union. One may assume that when local officials in Eastern Ukraine urge the local population to form militias, they may count on some professional assistance. Time is on the side of whomever has the highest pain tolerance, and that is Russia, not the West...
http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-240214.html