The invasion of Crimea: What should we do?

In the Old Burial Ground on Barrington Street in Halifax there is a magnificent sandstone triumphal arch that commemorates the Crimean War, the only one of its kind in North America.

This war was a foolish 19th century conflict between the Russian and Ottoman Empires over the rights of pilgrims in the Holy Land. Both France and Britain felt compelled to enter the fray to foil Russia's expansionist designs in the Black Sea region. Serving in the British forces were a handful of Nova Scotians, two of whom, Major Augustus Welsford and Captain William Parker, lost their lives in the battle of Great Redan in 1855.

On top of the monument -- carved, incidentally from sandstone from a quarry in Mary's Point in New Brunswick where my family home is located -- stands a magnificent Crimean lion, and inscribed on the arch are the names, Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, Tchernaya, Redan, and Sevastopol -- all locales where battles took place. The monument is a dramatic one -- the second oldest in Canada -- and stands in a cemetery as a reminder of the dead hand of imperialism. Imperialism that incessantly meddled in the affairs of states, redrawing national borders, and claiming lives. It is surmounted by a noble lion, but in whose ambit lie only graves.

Now, I'm afraid of a new 21st century Crimean War, which would be just as foolish.

How should we understand what is transpiring? It's quite simply an invasion. President Vladimir Putin's "Russian Empire 2.0" has invaded Crimea -- a peninsula on the Black Sea -- ostensibly to protect Russian-speakers who make up 58 per cent of the population. It was a silly pretext since Russian-speaking people have been living peacefully in Crimea for the last 24 years since Ukrainian independence with no real problems or discrimination.

There are a substantial majority of ethnic Russians in Crimea, and far be it from anyone outside to interfere in their rights to self-determination. There are, however, valid constitutional ways of proceeding, and utterly fraudulent ones.

We have an exact parallel here in Canada where the sovereigntist Parti Québécois have called a provincial election, and the expectation amongst many pundits is that if the PQ win a majority mandate they will call another referendum on Québec independence. We will, of course, see what happens, but this bid for independence, whether it succeeds or not, is proceeding along legal and constitutional lines.

Imagine the outrage if we awoke one morning to discover that France had militarily occupied Québec, was calling a referendum in two weeks in which the choices on the ballot were "Yes" and "Sort-of Yes", where there was no voter's list, and the results in Québec City showed a 123 per cent voter turn out. This is precisely the situation that Ukraine finds itself in today.

It's important to underscore that Russia is not Vladimir Putin. By no means do all Russians share his imperialistic vision. On Saturday there was a massive March for Peace in which over 50,000 Muscovites walked through the city -- ethnic Russians and Ukrainians arm-in arm -- to protest the shameful conduct of their government. This by itself was an act of considerable civic courage, given how repressive the Putin regime has become in recent years -- jailing opponents, muzzling the press, and cowing the judiciary.

So, what do we do?

There should, of course, be no thought of military action against Russia. This would be a cataclysm. A military confrontation could easily spiral out of control, escalating from a cold war, to a very hot one, very rapidly.

Neither should we appease the militarism of Vladimir Putin. Crimea may seem very far away and hardly worth the risk of a confrontation, but exactly such military gambits have had disastrous results in the past. From Adolf Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland in 1938, ostensibly to protect ethnic Germans, to Slobodan Milosevic's invasions of Bosnia and Kosovo, ostensibly to protect ethnic Serbs. This is a slippery slope that we have slid down before with tragic consequences.

Economic sanctions are what are required. Some have already been introduced by Canada, the United States, and the European Union, but they need to be much stiffer in order to be effective.

In this regard, we in the west have quite a lot of leverage. While sanctions hurt both sides, 15 per cent of Russia's GDP depends on trade with the European Union, whereas only 1 per cent of the EU's GDP is dependent on trade with Russia. So, economic sanctions bite Russia, much, much more deeply.

In the short term, if Russia reciprocated and cut-off or slowed-down natural gas deliveries, this would certainly cause hardship in some European nations. However, 60 per cent of Russia's budget depends on oil and gas exports. So, a Russian gas embargo might make for a very cold winter in some European countries -- until alternative heating supplies were arranged -- but its economic consequences for Russia would be ruinous.

Why economic sanctions are important is that Vladimir Putin's political support is dependent, on the one hand, upon the super-wealthy pirate-capitalists known as "oligarchs" in Russia, and on the other, on the middle class, whose standard of living has improved significantly under his presidency. If sanctions bite deeply into Russia, both of these sources of support could rapidly evaporate.

We need to link arms -- artists and scientists, fisherman and farmers, academics and authors -- people from every walk of life. Canadians and Germans, Russians and Ukrainians, Americans and Armenians -- people from every country -- to make it clear that military solutions to civilian problems are unacceptable. That driving wedges between people, conjuring up racial and national hatreds, is not something we are prepared to permit. That finding peaceful solutions built on dialogue and democracy is the template of governance in the civil, and civilized, societies that we wish to build.

We live in what may be the most challenging epoch of human history. Global problems such as climate change, pollution, resource depletion, poverty, hunger, disease, strife, extremism, and insecurity are affecting every nation in developing and developed worlds alike. In the coming years and decades we must find methods of addressing these issues. They transcend nations and require and collective and coordinated responses. Vladimir Putin's military invasion of Crimea is a step in precisely the wrong direction. We need to stop such aggression in its tracks and find different pathways along which all of us -- not so much as citizens of nations, but first and foremost as human beings -- can travel. It's a tall order, but we can't afford to fail.

[For further information on this topic see, Ukraine on the brink, Crisis in Ukraine: Disinformation and Useful Idiots, and Faces of War on Moscow streets.]