La Repubblica published an article by Federico Rampini devoted to the ongoing Crimean crisis and possible economic sanctions against Russia.
According to the author, the White House has already suggested American gas deliveries to Europe in order to "deprive Vladimir Putin of his main weapon - energy blackmailing." The idea was first voiced by the Republican Party, but the Barack Obama administration is now seriously considering such a move, Rampini writes.
Putin's threats to "stop gas deliveries" are the main reason for the very cautious position of Germany, Italy and Holland, who are now debating economic sanctions against Russia. However Western Europe and Ukraine do not have to depend on Russian gas forever, La Repubblica writes.
The time has come for Washington and Brussels to discuss existing possibilities in detail, the author underlines.
The Daily Beast published an article by Robert Shrum headlined "Obama’s All Eisenhower On Russia."
"A regime in thrall to Moscow is forced out by a popular uprising; the Kremlin promises not to intervene, and even announces a troop withdrawal. Within days, Russian forces stealthily begin to move in, then pour across the border. A whole swath of territory is reincorporated into what Ronald Reagan called "the evil empire," the article begins. "The place was Hungary; the year was 1956; the American president was Dwight Eisenhower, who expressed "shock and dismay" at the Soviet invasion, but refused an armed American response. It was simply too dangerous, too unthinkable, in the atomic age—unless the most vital of U.S. interests were at stake."
"But whatever mistakes his administration may have made, at the heart of the matter, the fundamental question of intervention against the Soviets, Eisenhower was restrained—and eminently right. Barack Obama has followed that path in Ukraine, and so has every other American president confronted with a similar move from Moscow. And while sanctions today may have more bite, even they are unlikely to last. There are too many vital issues on the table—from Iran to Syria to arms control—just as there were when Ike's Vice President Richard Nixon visited Moscow in 1959, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was invited to tour the U.S. a few months later and just 15 months after Imre Nagy was hanged," the author writes."It isn't pretty, but it's realpolitik. To Eisenhower, and his successors, the bottom line has been the same: increasing the chance of nuclear conflict is unacceptable when Soviet or Russian misconduct, however shameful or egregious, affects the near periphery of Moscow's influence and the less urgent bounds of America's interests," the article reads.
"But whatever mistakes his administration may have made, at the heart of the matter, the fundamental question of intervention against the Soviets, Eisenhower was restrained—and eminently right. Barack Obama has followed that path in Ukraine, and so has every other American president confronted with a similar move from Moscow. And while sanctions today may have more bite, even they are unlikely to last. There are too many vital issues on the table—from Iran to Syria to arms control—just as there were when Ike's Vice President Richard Nixon visited Moscow in 1959, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was invited to tour the U.S. a few months later and just 15 months after Imre Nagy was hanged," the author writes.
"It isn't pretty, but it's realpolitik. To Eisenhower, and his successors, the bottom line has been the same: increasing the chance of nuclear conflict is unacceptable when Soviet or Russian misconduct, however shameful or egregious, affects the near periphery of Moscow's influence and the less urgent bounds of America's interests," the article reads.
