RIP James Schlesinger + more on Ukraine situation

I wanted to open this post by paying my respects to James Schlesinger, who died today at the age of 85. I'll admit I knew little about him until now, besides the fact that he pissed off almost everyone at the CIA by cutting their manpower 10%, but he was also a major proponent of two of the best modern combat aircraft ever flown by the U.S.A.F.: The A-10 Warthog and the F-16 Fighting Falcon. (He was apparently ill for a while before his death, but I wonder what he thought about the Pentagon's recent steps towards retiring the A-10.)

Now it's time for me to eat some crow of my own: I've previously expressed skepticism that a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine would happen. And it looks like I was wrong (apologies to my roommate). The Russians are claiming that the 30,000 troops now on the border are just an exercise, and the Pentagon has called bullshit on them. The UN has officially declared the referendum leading to Crimea's annexation as illegal, which is always re-assuring just because - well, it's the UN, and non-binding resolutions are always welcome at times like these. Meanwhile, Obama called out Putin yesterday, and then, surprisingly, shot back at Russian accusations of U.S. hypocrisy by defending the Iraq War: "[E]ven in Iraq, America sought to work within the international system. We did not claim or annex Iraq’s territory, nor did we grab its resources for our own gain. Instead, we ended our war and left Iraq to its people, and a fully sovereign Iraqi state could make decisions about its own future." And now Russia Today has yet another rebuttal, calling Obama out for claiming that Kosovo's sovereignty, determined by referendum, was any more legitimate than Crimea's referendum. So that's that: Obama is flailing his arms angrily, Putin is sneering, China is sitting on the sidelines and watching, and meanwhile, Russia's troops are getting ready to take more territory away from Ukraine.

More worrying is that the discussion is now shifting towards other parts of the former Soviet Union that Putin might seek to bring back under Russian control. Gen. Breedlove, NATO's commander, has already pointed out that Transnistria in Moldova is a likely candidate for annexation. (The BBC has also put out a useful map of countries with Russian minorities to get one's imagination worked up over the possibilities, and it looks like the Washington Post is already following suit.)

Oh, and I love my boss' take on Obama's reaction: "U.S. says Russia is invading countries out of weakness. Europeans quietly hope it does not get any weaker."