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I agree that any restrictions limiting use of the global financial and banking system (which I mentioned as similar to the sanctions Iran is subject to), would immediately affect Russia's industries exposed to foreign trade, and indirectly all others, including consumer market. Russia is much less self-sufficient and far more integrated into the global economy than the USSR ever was.
As for deploying NATO contingent in Ukraine, I see multiple issues with this. First of all, the alliance doesn't have a mandate for the presence of its troops in the country. Setting up a legal basis for this may take significant amount of time, and I'm not sure all member countries will get on board. Second, what government would be willing to commit its troops that are, for all intents and purposes, unable to even defend themselves?
Besides, Russian military would make its move into Ukraine at first signs of NATO potentially coming in there.
NATO, relying on US assets in Europe, could have US airborne forces deployed in key transit sites within about 3 hours, which is how such an operation would likely go, with a secret request from Ukraine announced only afterward. Russia would not be able to react in time to a US deployment without actually having to risk shooting US troops already in place, in which case it would be "game over" for Putin (and potentially for a lot more than him), just as it would have been "game over" for Ukrainians if anyone had shot Russian troops in Crimea (or, vice versa, if Russians had shot Ukrainian troops). That's the gamble of that strategy.
Neither the US nor Russia has ever, historically, seriously relied on legal mandates for anything determined important enough to use military forces, so legal issues just aren't a serious factor here. Laws are a discursive, diplomatic tools, not a actual restrictive impediments, at the level of world powers like the US and Russia.
Putin risked the possibility of nuclear war in Crimea already, as well as the lives of his undefended and unmarked troops. That means, strategically, using simple Prisoner's dilemma game theory, only a similar willingness to risk such a thing on the part of the US can secure Ukraine from Russian tanks. Because Ukraine really isn't very important to the US, however, it's unlikely that Obama would sign off on that gamble, and all appearances are that the US would rather risk losing at least the eastern part of the Ukraine in an effort to satisfy Putin's needs, at least being able to claim the partial success of having installed a government hostile to Russia in Kiev, which was a major defeat for Putin from which he partially recovered with the invasion of Crimea. A unified Ukraine is less important to NATO, and Russia, than a buffer state Ukraine at this point, so I don't expect to see NATO forces deployed there, and I do expect to Russian forces entering eastern Ukraine at some point if the current set of Ukrainian Ukrainian leaders remain in Kiev.
Yes, unlike NATO, the U.S. government can fast-track decisions on use the military to "protect national interests". But making a case that Ukraine falls into this category in a war-weary country requires Houdini skills.
Putin risked the possibility of nuclear war in Crimea already, as well as the lives of his undefended and unmarked troops. That means, strategically, using simple Prisoner's dilemma game theory, only a similar willingness to risk such a thing on the part of the US can secure Ukraine from Russian tanks.
But that wouldn't have been true of President Palin, or some other future president of a similar stripe.
I wouldn't be surprised if Putin considered the US election cycle in his calculations.
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