![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldToday's referendum in the Crimean peninsula has ended up producing an overwhelming majority in favour of Crimea's annexation by Russia. (I've been hearing figures like 93% approval of annexation by Russia on the basis of 80% turnout.)
What happens next? A Fistful of Euros' Doug Merrill has come up with a handy guide to 1930s analogies. To wit:
Much depends on the motives of Russia, and on the internal evolution of Ukraine. I suspect myself that the Crimean annexation was an improvised response to the recent Ukrainian revolution, and that the Russian government wouldn't want to risk a wider war in Ukraine. But would it, necessarily, in Kharkiv and Donetsk? If Ukrainians in those provinces did identify as Russian, or at least as non-Ukrainian, then if those provinces detached themselves from the authority of Kiev a Russian annexation--or perhaps protectorate--wouldn't be unimaginable.
What of events further afield? Would Russophone minorities elsewhere in the world be used to justify further annexations? (I suspect not; Ukraine is likely a case sui generis, neither closely integrated with the West like the Baltic States nor closely allied with Russia like Belarus or Kazakhsstan.) Will there be sanctions, and how strict will they be? (I suspect that there will be sanctions, though I don't know how strict they will be. I do suspect Russia could end up coming out worse: the European Union can buy its gas elsewhere, but if Russia cuts off the taps to Europe will its gas be saleable to third parties?) What will be the consequences for civil society in Russia? (I'm guessing "dire.")
Discuss.
What happens next? A Fistful of Euros' Doug Merrill has come up with a handy guide to 1930s analogies. To wit:
Crimea: Anschluss. Mostly wiling population, dissent shouted down or stamped out, stage-managed sham referendum. The main difference is that the troops of the larger, external power were already in Crimea, rather than just across the border in Bavaria.Kharkiv, Donetsk: Sudetenland. Some real tension, mostly trumped up and stage-managed confrontations. Pleas for “protection” from some parts of a particular nationality to the outside power. Not fooling anyone. In contrast to then, Kiev would try to defend the frontier region militarily. (The great powers will not intervene, should it come to that.) Whether that defense would succeed is rather an important question. There’s not a major defensible barrier until the Dniepr. Speaking of which…
Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporizhia: Poland. The great powers would not be able to overlook the dismemberment of a major European state. They wouldn’t be able to stop it, either.
Poland: France. It’s on
Much depends on the motives of Russia, and on the internal evolution of Ukraine. I suspect myself that the Crimean annexation was an improvised response to the recent Ukrainian revolution, and that the Russian government wouldn't want to risk a wider war in Ukraine. But would it, necessarily, in Kharkiv and Donetsk? If Ukrainians in those provinces did identify as Russian, or at least as non-Ukrainian, then if those provinces detached themselves from the authority of Kiev a Russian annexation--or perhaps protectorate--wouldn't be unimaginable.
What of events further afield? Would Russophone minorities elsewhere in the world be used to justify further annexations? (I suspect not; Ukraine is likely a case sui generis, neither closely integrated with the West like the Baltic States nor closely allied with Russia like Belarus or Kazakhsstan.) Will there be sanctions, and how strict will they be? (I suspect that there will be sanctions, though I don't know how strict they will be. I do suspect Russia could end up coming out worse: the European Union can buy its gas elsewhere, but if Russia cuts off the taps to Europe will its gas be saleable to third parties?) What will be the consequences for civil society in Russia? (I'm guessing "dire.")
Discuss.
