While it might have been nice to hear the Secretary of State say on Meet The Press Sunday that “you just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text,” that characterization of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine is not the kind of aggressive military response that’s going to reassure those who see this as an issue of strong Putin versus feckless Obama. To people inclined to condemn American “weakness” in the face of Russian aggression, John Kerry’s condemnation of Russia’s military incursion into Crimea might sound like more empty words.
But that entire frame is mistaken, and not because Kerry also said “all options are on the table.” The fact is that Russia’s Ukraine move is an act of weakness, not strength — an act, as Kerry aptly characterized it, anachronistic in both moral and strategic terms. The fact that Russia is trying something like this exposes the country’s global strategy as fundamentally mismatched to 21st century realities. There isn’t a new Cold War.
There are basically two reasons, one practical and one ideological, behind Russia’s aggressive play to keep Crimea and Ukraine in its orbit. First, Russia has military interests in Ukraine, particularly in the Crimean city Sevastopol. Sevastopol is a critical Russian naval base, one that allows it easy access to the Mediterranean that it otherwise wouldn’t enjoy. Note Sevastopol’s location on this map:
