Often challenges are opportunities in disguise. The bigger the challenge, the greater the opportunity.
Did the U.S. and NATO just blow an excellent opportunity?
Here is a CNN summary (September 29, 2012) of latest developments in Ukraine:
"President Vladimir Putin is set to sign agreements Friday that will absorb into Russia thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory in what will be the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.
The agreements will be signed at a ceremony at the Kremlin, three days after hastily-conducted referendums concluded in the four areas of Ukraine that Moscow will now consider Russian territory.
Putin will deliver a speech and meet with Russian-backed leaders of the four occupied regions, according to the Kremlin.
Ukraine and its western allies have categorically rejected the planned annexation of the four regions – Donetsk, Luhansk and much of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, a swathe of Ukrainian land that contains heavy industry, rich farmland and a critical freshwater conduit for Crimea.
Donetsk and Luhansk are home to two breakaway republics that Moscow has backed since 2014, while Kherson and parts of Zaporizhzhia have been controlled by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began in late February.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asserted that if the Kremlin presses ahead with annexation, any negotiation with Putin will be impossible."
What if the U.S. and its allies had proposed the following measure to the United Nations:
Hold U.N.-sponsored and supervised - legitimate - referenda in the four regions in which Russia held sham referenda and will annex. Maybe also Crimea.
A period would be designated - say three months - during which the interested parties could put forth their positions for debate. To secure legitimacy, during that time no soldiers - Ukrainian or Russian - or other military action would be permitted in the area.
The electorate would be defined as residents of the regions on February 23, 2022, the day before Russia invaded Ukraine. Residents who fled the region during the war would be eligible to vote. Old voter registerations would be a starting place for defining the electorate. Other questions, e.g., residents coming of voter age after the February cut-off, would be deciided on a case-by-case basis. The purpose would be stop any stuffing of the area with nonresident partisans.
Of course, Russia would never agree to U.N.-sponsored referenda. What is latent would then become manifest: the majority of residents in the area do not want to join Russia.
A French expression captures best the ultimate result of the what if U.N. referenda proposal: "damer le pion â."
To surpass, dominate. Outdo. To steal a march on.
#ukraine #ukrainwar #ukraineannexation #donetsk #Luhansk #kherson #Zaporizhzhia