Ukraine: a local crisis with global repercussions
If international relations are a seamless web, then the crisis over Russia's actions in Ukraine risks entangling other knotty current issues – from efforts to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, through the continuing carnage in Syria to wider disarmament ambitions.
For all the echoes of cold war days in the standoff over Crimea, its repercussions could affect some of the toughest problems of today's multipolar world, in which US power is perceived as being in retreat and Barack Obama has been criticised at home and abroad for a reluctance to use force and failure to act decisively.
Given the current tensions, it seems highly likely that wider US-Russian co-operation will become harder. That matters: without agreement between Moscow and Washington, a deal would not have been possible after last year's Syrian chemical weapons crisis, which briefly threatened a dangerous escalation of the war. And Syria's agony is still far from over.
Looking ahead, without Vladimir Putin's goodwill Obama may well find it far harder to manage the complex logistics of the long-awaited withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/17/ukraine-crisis-repercussions-crimea-russia
