So Crimea is once again Russian territory. Now what?

I'm still reeling in shock from a recent event that has truly rocked the world. It was something nobody could have seen coming, and it was the sort of thing most experts would have deemed impossible. I am talking, of course, about the stunning NCAA basketball upset that just took place on Friday, when Mercers' Bears managed to kick my Duke Blue Devils out of the tournament after beating them 78-71. Bear in mind that we were seeded 3rd, and the Bears were seeded 14th! This is the worst defeat we've suffered since Lehigh beat us in 2012, and as a Dukie, it's a loss that will take me some time to get over.

Oh, yeah, and the loss of Crimea to Russia is pretty bad, too (more for the United States, not so much for Duke). So, moving on...

The crisis in Crimea is finally settling, aside from continued rumors - mostly being promoted by the new Ukrainian government - of the Russians gearing up to move into southeastern Ukraine. At this point, nobody has any doubts that Crimea will return permanently to Russian control, exactly 60 years after Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine as a "gift". (Actually, Khrushchev mostly gave away Crimea for reasons of political expediency - such as winning the support of Kiev's elites to assist in his power struggle against then-Prime Minister Georgii Malenkov - but I am digressing.) Ukraine is pretty unhappy about the whole deal - the interim President, Oleksandr Turchynov, is ranting about how Ukraine "will never accept the annexing of our territory" in the vain hope that his nationalist cred won't be undermined too much by the Svoboda Party. In Russia, Putin and his buddies are laughing at the sanctions that Obama's administration announced last week. (I cast my vote for Deputy PM Rogozin's reaction as the most caustic so far.) And in the United States, pretty much everybody has given their take on what just happened, what it means for us, and who foresaw these events (and who dropped the ball in predicting them). I've decided to collect a sample of those reactions here, for future reference and my own reaction:

• The loudest crowing is coming from Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin and their supporters, who are all too happy to point out that they were right and Obama was wrong about Russia's significance as a rival. (Romney himself has also written an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on what he calls Obama's "failed leadership.") And they do have a point - Obama, a man known for arrogance, is going to have to eat crow, especially after the 2012 Presidential debates. But I'm also not sure if I agree with the conclusion that "Conservatives have a history of correctly predicting world events."
• I haven't been at all surprised to hear people reference the classic cautionary tale of consequences for unchecked aggression - Neville Chamberlain negotiating with Adolf Hitler to achieve "peace in our time", back in 1938. The only surprise here is that none other than Hilary Clinton is among the voices making this comparison, not just the usual people we expect to hear at times like this.
• Last week, The Atlantic had a really good article examining why a robust American response (and certainly an American military response) is fiscally and politically unfeasible. Choice quote: "in today’s dollars, according to one estimate, the Marshall Plan would total roughly $740 billion. That kind of money would certainly enable far-reaching economic reforms in Ukraine, and likely anchor the country in the West for years to come. But, of course, the suggestion is absurd. Today’s Senate can barely pass an aid package 740 times as small."
• On the conservative side, Henry Kissinger is still trying to play the voice of restraint. Although Kissinger lost a lot of credibility in realist conservative circles by supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, he's being a lot more sensible these days, observing in an op-ed for The Washington Post that the time has come to "avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught rules of conduct established by Washington" and that "[a] wise U.S. policy toward Ukraine would seek a way for the two parts of the country to cooperate with each other. We should seek reconciliation, not the domination of a faction." 
• Earlier this month, David Brooks got quite a bit of attention for describing the administration's policy as "The Leaderless Doctrine" in a piece for The New York Times. He laments that, "Americans have lost faith in the high politics of global affairs. They have lost faith in the idea that American political and military institutions can do much to shape the world. American opinion is marked by an amazing sense of limitation — that there are severe restrictions on what political and military efforts can do" A more optimistic rebuttal comes from Peter Munson at War on the Rocks, who concurs with Kissinger that a more hands-off approach is just right for Ukraine: "Putin’s desperate, losing move will ultimately be overcome by the tides of history. Far more important is helping Ukrainian leaders—and other leaders in similar situations—to thread the needle, channeling the blind passion of the people to a reasonable end."
• There are a number of voices in defense quarters asking whether it was really such a wise idea for the U.S. military to spend a decade becoming a COIN-centric force now that Russia has returned to the forefront of America's geopolitical rivalries. Former Air Force General David Deptula is happy to point out that maybe SecDef Bob Gates committed a gaffe by halting F-22 production and then firing everyone in the military's top ranks who disagreed with his vision for the force. (And on another note, maybe this means no more sequestration, or at least less sequestration...or so they hope.)