Clock ticking on war in Ukraine: Column

• The pieces are rapidly falling into place for Russia to act.
• Ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych refuses to accept his removal.
• The Russian navy is present in Crimea at the nearby port of Sevastopol.

The United States has warned Russia not to intervene militarily in the political crisis in neighboring Ukraine. But if Moscow moved troops over the border, there is little the international community could do to stop it.

Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that "any kind of military intervention that would violate the sovereign territorial integrity of Ukraine would be a huge — a grave — mistake." His statement came after Russian troops commenced a previously unannounced large-scale military exercise close to Ukraine's border. Moscow views the upheaval in Ukraine as part of an East-West struggle, a clash over whether Kiev will gravitate towards the European Union or Russia. Kerry tried to tamp down this argument by saying "this is not Rocky IV," a confusing cultural reference to Russians and Ukrainians alike, and hardly reflecting the seriousness of the crisis.

Russia has important strategic and economic interests in Ukraine, an area that has frequently been under Russian control. Southern and eastern Ukraine have large numbers of ethnic Russians, and the militarily important Autonomous Republic of Crimea on the Black Sea is majority Russian. Russia's president Vladimir Putin, who described the breakup of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century, may see an opportunity to partly turn back the clock.

The pieces are rapidly falling into place for Russia to act. Ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, reportedly now in Russia, refuses to accept his removal, and Moscow still recognizes him as the country's legitimate ruler. If Yanukovych called for Russian troops to support his government, Putin could claim that intervention was a legitimate peace enforcement operation instead of an illegal act of aggression.

Putin used a similar playbook when he attacked the Republic of Georgia in August 2008. There the issue was Russia's support for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Moscow had recognized since the 1990s but the international community did not. When the Georgian government sought to reclaim these areas, Russian troops crossed into unoccupied Georgia and the Russian air force bombed the capital Tbilisi. During the five day war, over 2000 people were killed on both sides, and over 150,000 were displaced. The war caused a temporary diplomatic kerfuffle, but the international community responded weakly and Russia paid no long term price for the intervention. Russia claimed this was a legitimate humanitarian intervention at the request of friendly governments. Moscow used the same argument to intervene in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979.

Crimea may provide the catalyst for another brisk war. An armed band has seized control of the parliament building in Crimea's regional capital Simferopol and raised the Russian flag. Kiev is attempting to reach a solution to the takeover, but Yanukovych has warned that since he is still the head of Ukraine's armed forces, any use of force in Crimea or elsewhere would be "unlawful and criminal." If acting Ukrainian president Olexander Turchinov ordered troops to break up the Simferopol occupation, it could establish a pretext for Russian intervention. The Russian navy is present in Crimea at the nearby port of Sevastopol, which it holds under a controversial lease. Turchinov has warned Putin that any military movements outside of the base "will be seen by us as military aggression." However Ukraine's military would be overmatched if it came to open conflict.

Putin can take threats from the west lightly. If the United Nations Security Council tried to adopt a resolution condemning armed intervention to restore Yanukovych to power, Russia would exercise its right as a permanent member to veto it. Neither the United States nor the European Union would intervene militarily should war break out in Ukraine. They lack the available capacity to mount a sizeable operation and more importantly no western country would be willing to have their troops engaged in combat with the Russians. Threats of post-conflict economic sanctions would not be credible, since Russia could respond by cutting off the natural gas that is currently keeping many European cities warm. And the United States has no clear leverage over Russia, no way to bend Putin to Washington's will. No, this is not Rocky IV. This time Drago will win.

James S. Robbins is author of Native Americans: Patriotism, Exceptionalism and the New American Identity, and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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