Scholars hosted by the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) on October 27 discussed the lessons of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and its relevance for understanding the current Israel-Hamas war.

The seminar, “1973 Yom Kippur War: Lessons to Remember,” was moderated by Larry Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at FSI who is also leading the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at FSI. 

In his opening remarks, Diamond said, “Our hearts go out to the people of Israel and this struggle they have now in the wake of one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in anyone’s living memory, maybe the most horrific. And to all of the people in Israel and Gaza, who are innocent people who’ve lost their lives.”

Speakers included Or Rabinowitz of the International Relations Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a visiting associate professor at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC); Gil-li Vardi, a former visiting scholar at CISAC and Stanford history lecturer; Professor Emeritus Meron Medzini of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s spokesperson during 1973–1974; and Ron Hassner, the Chancellor’s Professor of Political Science and Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies at UC Berkeley. 

Israel’s Nuclear Question

On October 6, 1973, an Arab alliance of Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur – the Jewish holy day of atonement. The three-week conflict was one of the deadliest Arab-Israeli wars. It ended with an Israeli victory, shaping inter-state relations in the region for years to come.

Rabinowitz addressed the nuclear dimension of the Yom Kippur War, quoting Richard Nixon, who said in 1972, “The Israelis have nuclear weapons. I’m not going to tell you how I know, but I know that.”

She said a “partial picture” exists of Israel’s nuclear capabilities during the 1973 conflict, and more research needs to be done. Back then, Israel and the U.S. had reached an understanding about Israel’s “ambiguous nuclear posture,” as well as an agreement that any U.S.-made fighter jets would not be used to deploy nuclear weapons. Regarding nuclear-equipped missiles, “we have to take it into account that this was probably a political signaling which wasn’t backed by an actual ability to put in a nuclear warhead on the ballistic missile, but we just don’t know,” Rabinowitz said.

She added, “I am convinced that Golda Meir would have shown nuclear restraint, even if a bilateral understanding had not been in effect with the U.S. – because it made sense, there were moral clouds, and the Israeli objective was to align itself with the U.S. and guarantee further collaboration, and that would have just backfired.”

An Evolving Military Strategy

Vardi said the Yom Kippur War generated a huge incentive for the U.S. military and others to later develop the “AirLand Battle Doctrine,” which emphasizes close coordination between land forces acting as an aggressively maneuvering defense, and air forces attacking rear-echelon forces feeding those front-line enemy forces. 

“It also taught the military leadership in Israel that their instincts are the right ones, that they should always be on the offensive. If war is coming, then they should always be very active about it – active to the point of aggression,” she said.

As for Egypt, Vardi said, they weren’t planning an all-out war against Israel if they didn’t receive help from the Soviet Union or elsewhere, and their tactical goals were therefore limited.

She also noted Israel’s battle doctrine, which rests on three pillars – deterrence, intelligence, and military decision-making, as well as a defensive strategy to be executed offensively, by transferring the battle to enemy territory.

This doctrine failed on October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,400 people in Israeli territory. “Israeli security perceptions will need to change,” Vardi said.

Confronting Hamas

On October 7, Medzini said, Israel was dealt its worst blow since 1948. “Totally unprepared, wrong intelligence, the army in disarray, leadership, very poor response. And, parts of proper Israel were occupied by Palestinians with a huge number of casualties.”

He said, “The entire country was stunned. How could this happen to us?”

The Yom Kippur War was totally different than today’s conflict between Israel and Hamas, Medzini said. In 1973 it was launched by mostly secular governments in Egypt and Syria, whereas Hamas is a religious organization. 

“We thought in terms of Western thinking or Arab thinking. We did not take into account that Hamas is a religious organization. If you read their covenant, if you look at the logo, it’s not only to destroy the Jews of Israel, it’s to destroy the Jews” everywhere, Medzini said. 

Hassner said Israel’s opponents erred during the Yom Kippur War by believing the Israelis would be unable to mobilize quickly. 

“Mobilization turned out to be very easy,” he said, “because everybody was in the same place. Everybody was in the synagogue. And so, unit commanders just went to the nearest synagogues and told all the young men to come out. The roads were empty, which the Egyptians seemed to be unaware of. Mobilization to the front may have happened at twice the speed at which the Israeli military had planned to mobilize, because nobody else was on the road.”

Also, Hassner said, a backlash effect can exist if one is attempting to exploit their opponents’ religious holiday – “you are going to unleash a certain amount of religiously motivated anger.”

Regarding Israel’s security situation today, Rabinowitz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies reflect a deep miscalculation of Hamas since the terror group rose to power in 2007 in the Gaza Strip. After Netanyahu took office in 2009, “he went on the record saying that his main mission is to strengthen Hamas” by favoring it over other Palestinian groups.

Medzini said Israel has to conduct a major operation in Gaza to make sure that Hamas loses its military and political capabilities. “You can’t kill an ideology. You can’t kill a religion. But you can certainly destroy a military capability and capacity,” he said. But, Medzini also noted, “Where do we go from here? What’s the end game?”

Diamond spoke of reigniting the peace process and bringing back the two-state solution in a very actual manner. “I’ll note what I think everybody in the room knows that if Hamas is removed from Gaza, something else needs to go and fill that gap.”

The following commentary has been edited for clarity and length, and does not represent the full extent of the panel’s discussion.
 

Rethinking Assumptions about Russia and Putin

Kathryn Stoner

Right now, Putin is the most vulnerable he's ever been in 22 years in power. But I don’t believe he's under so much pressure at this point that he is about to leave office anytime soon. Autocracies do not usually die by popular mobilization, unfortunately. More often they end through an elite coup or turnover. And since the end of WWII, the research has shown that about 75% of the time autocracies are typically replaced by another autocracy, or the perpetuation of the same autocracy, just with a different leader. So, if Putin were replaced, you might get a milder form of autocracy in Russia, but I don't think you are suddenly going to create a liberal democracy.

This means that we in the West, and particularly in the U.S., need to think very hard about our strategies and how we are going to manage our relationships with Putin and his allies. This time last year, the U.S. broadcast that we basically wanted Russia to calm down so we could pivot to China. That’s an invitation to not calm down, and I think it was a mistake to transmit that as policy.

We need to pay attention to what Russia has been doing. They are the second biggest purveyor of weapons globally after the United States. They will sell to anyone. They’ve been forgiving loans throughout Sub Saharan Africa from the Soviet period and using that as a way of bargaining for access to natural resources. They’re marketing oil, selling infrastructure, and building railroads. Wherever there is a vacuum, someone will fill it, and that includes Russia every bit as much as China. We need to realize that we are in competition with both Russia and China, and develop our policies and outreach accordingly.

Confronting Autocracy at Home and Abroad

Anna Grzymala-Busse

Why is Putin in Ukraine? Because the fact that there is a democratic country right next door to Russia is an affront to him. Putin doesn’t care that much about NATO. The fact that nothing happened when Sweden joined is some evidence of this. That’s something to keep in mind as people are debating NATO and Ukraine and Ukraine’s possible future as a member.

NATO membership and EU membership are both wonderful things. But more fundamental that that, this war has to be won first. That’s why I think it’s necessary in the next six months to speed up the support for Ukraine by ensuring there’s a steady stream of armaments, training personnel, and providing other military support.

There’s been incredible unity on Ukraine over the last seven months across the EU, NATO, and amongst our allies. But our recent history with President Trump reminds us how fragile these international commitments can be. In foreign policy, it used to be understood that America stands for liberal democracy. But we had a president of the United States who was more than happy to sidle up to some of the worst autocrats in the world. That’s why we can’t afford to leave rising populism around the world unaddressed and fail to engage with voters. When we do that, we allow far right parties to grab those votes and go unopposed. Whatever happens domestically impacts what happens internationally.

The Consequences of Nuclear Sabre-Rattling

Scott Sagan

We have to very clear-eyed when we’re talking about the threat, however improbable, of the use of a nuclear weapon. When it comes to the deployment of a tactical nuclear weapon, its kinetic effects depend on both the size of the weapon, the yield, and the target. Tactical weapons range in yield from very low — 5-10% of what was in the Hiroshima bomb — to as large as what was used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If that kind of weapon was used on an urban target, it would produce widescale effects. In a battlefield or rural area, it would have a relatively small impact.

But in the bigger picture, what any use of a weapon like this does is break a 70+ year tradition of non-use. Those seventy years have been dicey and fragile, but they have held so far. A tradition that is broken creates a precedent, and once there’s a precedent, it makes it much easier for someone to transgress the tradition again. So even if a decision was made to use a tactical weapon with little kinetic importance for strategic effect, I think we still need to be worried about it.

Personalistic dictators surround themselves with yes men. They make lonely decisions by themselves, often filled with vengeance and delusion because no one can tell them otherwise. They don't have the checks and balances. But I want to make one point about a potential coup or overthrow. Putin has done a lot to protect himself against that. But improbable events happen all the time, especially when leaders make really, really bad decisions. That’s not something we should be calling for as official U.S. policy, but it should be our hope.

Cycles of Conflict, Climate Change, and Food Insecurity

Marshall Burke

The estimates right now project that there are 350 million people around the world facing acute food insecurity. That means 350 million people who literally don’t have enough to eat. That’s roughly double what it was pre-COVID. The factors driving that are things like supply chain disruptions from the pandemic and climate shocks, but also because of ongoing conflict happening around the world, Ukraine included.

There was an early concern that the war in Ukraine would be a huge threat to global food security. That largely has not been the case so far, at least directly. Opening the grain corridors through the Black Sea has been crucial to this, and it’s critical that we keep those open and keep the wheat flowing out. Research shows that unrest increases when food prices spike, so it’s important for security everywhere to keep wheat prices down.

What I’m worried about now is natural gas prices. With high global natural gas prices, that means making fertilizer is also very expensive and prices have increased up to 300% relative to a few years ago. If they stay that high, this is going to be a long-term problem we will have to find a way of reckoning with on top of the other effects from climate change already impacting global crop production and the global economy.

Ukraine After the War

Francis Fukuyama

I've been more optimistic about the prospects for Ukraine taking back territory for more of this war, just because of the vast difference in motivation between the two sides and the supply of modern weapons that Ukraine has been getting. But I don’t know what the conditions on the ground will look like when the decision to negotiate comes. Will Russia still be sitting on occupied territory? Are they kicked out entirely? Or are the frontlines close to where they are now?

As I’ve observed, Ukraine's demands have shifted depending on how they perceive the war going on. There was a point earlier this summer where they hinted that a return to the February 23 borderlines would be acceptable. But now with their recent successes, they're saying they want everything back to the 2014 lines. What actually happens will depend on what the military situation looks like next spring, by my guess.

However the war does end, I think Ukraine actually has a big opportunity ahead of them. Putin has unwittingly become the father of a new Ukrainian nation. The stresses of the war have created a very strong sense of national identity in Ukraine that didn’t exist previously. It’s accurate that Ukraine had significant problems with corruption and defective institutions before, but I think there’s going to be a great push to rout that out. Even things like the Azov steel factory being bombed out of existence is probably a good thing in the long run, because Ukraine was far too dependent on 20^th-century coal, steel, and heavy industry. Now they have an opportunity to make a break from all of that.

There are going to be challenges, obviously. We’ll have to watch very carefully what Zelenskyy chooses to do with the commanding position he has at the moment, and whether the government will be able to release power back to the people and restore its institutions. But Europe and the West and our allies are going to have a really big role in the reconstruction of Ukraine, and that should be regarded by everyone as a tremendous opportunity.

Victory in Ukraine, Victory for Democracy

Michael McFaul

Nobody likes a loser, and right now, Putin is losing strategically, tactically, and morally. Now, he doesn’t really care about what Biden or NATO or the West think about him. But he does care about what the autocrats think about him, especially Xi Jinping. And with reports coming out of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that Xi has “concerns” about what’s happening in Ukraine, Putin is feeling that pressure. I think that's why he has decided he needs to double down, not to negotiate, but to try and “win” in some way as defined by him.

In my view, that’s what’s behind the seizure of these four regions. If he feels like he can unequivocally claim them as part of Russia, then maybe he will sue for peace. And that’s exactly what President Zelenskyy fears. Why? Because that’s exactly what happened in 2014. Putin took Crimea, then turned around to the countries of the world and said, “Aren’t we all tired of war? Can’t we just have peace? I’m ready to end the war, as long as you recognize the new borders.” And, let’s be honest, we did.

We keep hearing politicians say we should put pressure for peace negotiations. I challenge any of them to explain their strategy for getting Putin to talk about peace. There is no doubt in my mind that President Zelenskyy would sit down tomorrow to negotiate if there was a real prospect for peace negotiations. But there's also no doubt in my mind right now that Putin has zero interest in peace talks.

Like Dr. Fukuyama, I don’t know how this war will end. But there's nobody inside or outside of Russia that thinks it’s going well. I personally know a lot of people that believe in democracy in Russia. They believe in democracy just as much as you or I. I’ve no doubt of their convictions. But they’re in jail, or in exile today.

If we want to help Russia in the post-Putin world, we have to think about democracy. There’s not a lot we can do to directly help democracy in Russia right now. But we should be doing everything to help democracy in Ukraine.  It didn’t happen in 1991. It didn’t happen in 2004. It didn’t happen in 2014. They had those breakthroughs and those revolutionary moments, but we as the democratic world collectively didn’t get it right. This is our moment to get it right, both as a way of helping Ukraine secure its future, and to give inspiration to “small-d” democrats fighting for rights across the world.

The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that Or Rabinowitz will come to Stanford for the 2022-23 academic year as part of the institute’s new Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies. Dr. Rabinowitz is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

During her time at Stanford as a Visiting Associate Professor, Dr. Rabinowitz will teach a one quarter long undergraduate course on “Israel: National Security and Nuclear Policy.” She will also organize and run an international workshop on “Deterrence and Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East” in the spring or summer quarters of 2023, and engage with Stanford pre- and postdoctoral fellows and FSI faculty.

Dr. Rabinowitz’s appointment will be based at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“Or Rabinowitz is one of Israel’s finest scholars writing about nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and national security policy,” said Scott Sagan, co-director of CISAC.  “Stanford is really fortunate to be able to bring her to campus for a year under this program.”

Dr. Rabinowitz’s current research lies at the intersection of nuclear and intelligence studies, with a focus on Israel’s nuclear program and the role of science and technology in its national security doctrine. Her book, “Bargaining on Nuclear Tests: Washington and its Cold War Deals” was published in April 2014 by Oxford University Press, and she has since published articles in International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, The International History Review and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others.

She holds a PhD degree from the War Studies Department of King’s College London, an MA degree in Security Studies and an LLB degree in Law, both from Tel-Aviv University. She is currently conducting a study on intelligence collaboration between allies in the realm of counter-proliferation operations, funded by the Israel Science Foundation.

“I am honored to be joining Stanford this coming academic year, and to share my knowledge about Israel with Stanford’s undergraduates,” said Dr. Rabinowitz. “CISAC is a global leader when it comes to producing new knowledge and insight about the challenges of nuclear proliferation, and being chosen as an Israel Studies Fellow is a true privilege.”

Dr. Rabinowitz’s many awards and honors include being named an Israeli Chevening Scholar by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and receiving The Scouloudi Award from the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. In 2018 she also won the Professor Ya’acov Barsimantov Best Article Award from the Israeli Association for International Studies.

The Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies was launched in September 2021 with the generous support of Stanford alumni and donors. The search committee included senior fellows from throughout the institute. In addition to bringing to Dr. Rabinowitz to Stanford, the committee selected Dr. Amichai Magen, a scholar of law, government and international relations, as the inaugural Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies. Dr. Magen will also arrive at Stanford in the 2022-2023 academic year.

Media inquiries about the Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies can be directed to Ari Chasnoff, FSI’s associate director for communications.

We are happy to share that Oriana Skylar Mastro, an incoming FSI Center Fellow at APARC, has been awarded the 2020 America in the World Consortium Prize for Best Policy Article on U.S. Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy for her article, “The Stealth Superpower: How China Hid Its Global Ambitions” in Foreign Affairs. The award is given annually by the Consortium — which includes the Kissinger Center and Johns Hopkins SAIS, Duke University, and the University of Texas at Austin — for research articles by pre-tenure scholars addressing a major issue of American foreign policy.

Mastro's winning article provides an insightful analysis of the careful, deliberate efforts the PRC has undertaken to obscure its growing global influence. “Although Beijing has pursued an indirect and entrepreneurial strategy of accumulating power,” she writes, “make no mistake: the ultimate goal is to push the United States out of the Indo-Pacific and rival it on the global stage.” Her research as an academic and a United States Air Force Reserve officer focuses on rising global powers and how perceptions of power impact the process and precursors to conflict, particularly in regards to China and East Asian security. As an FSI Center Fellow, she will be based at APARC and also work with CISAC. 

[Sign up for our newsletters to get the latest from our scholars and researchers.]

Mastro describes how the current administration in China epitomizes Deng Xiaoping’s counsel to “Hide your strength, bide your time” by exploiting gaps in international policy and American attention. Rather than compete outright, China leverages ambiguities in existing policies and practices in order to further its agenda and ambitions while still remaining within the rubric of international order. This strategy has allowed it to continue in its assertions in the South China Sea, establish rules on technology like AI that favor Chinese companies while stalling consensus on other issues like cybersecurity and “cyber-sovereignty,” and create a network of economic and political partnerships with nations traditionally outside the United State’s purview.

The result is that China is carefully cultivating a quiet but hugely impactful influence across the globe. To counter this strategy, Mastro urges the United States to lead out on the world stage by increasing its participation in international institutions and agreements, and through deepening and diversifying its relationships with allies and partners. In a time when international tensions are increasing and a pivotal election looms, these perspectives couldn’t be more timely.

Congratulations, Oriana, on the recognition for your excellent research and insight!

Read Oriana’s award-winning article here >>

On Feb. 12, White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien announced that the U.S. government has “evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world.” This represents the latest attempt by the Trump administration to support an argument that allied governments—and the businesses they oversee—should purge certain telecommunications networks of Huawei equipment. The position reflects the preferred approach in the United States, which is to issue outright bans against select companies (including Huawei) that meet an as-yet-unknown threshold of risk to national security.

Read the rest at Lawfare Blog

This article originally appeared at Brookings.

March 18 marks the fifth anniversary of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, which capped the most blatant land grab in Europe since World War II. While the simmering conflict in Donbas now dominates the headlines, it is possible to see a path to resolution there. It is much more difficult with Crimea, which will remain a problem between Kyiv and Moscow, and between the West and Russia, for years—if not decades—to come.

THE TAKING OF CRIMEA

In late February 2014, just days after the end of the Maidan Revolution and Victor Yanukovych’s flight from Kyiv, “little green men”—a term coined by Ukrainians—began seizing key facilities on the Crimean peninsula. The little green men were clearly professional soldiers by their bearing, carried Russian weapons, and wore Russian combat fatigues, but they had no identifying insignia. Vladimir Putin originally denied they were Russian soldiers; that April, he confirmed they were.

By early March, the Russian military had control of Crimea. Crimean authorities then proposed a referendum, which was held on March 16. It proved an illegitimate sham. To begin with, the referendum was illegal under Ukrainian law. Moreover, it offered voters two choices: to join Russia, or to restore Crimea’s 1992 constitution, which would have entailed significantly greater autonomy from Kyiv. Those on the peninsula who favored Crimea remaining a part of Ukraine under the current constitutional arrangements found no box to check.

The referendum unsurprisingly produced a Soviet-style result: 97 percent allegedly voted to join Russia with a turnout of 83 percent. A true referendum, fairly conducted, might have shown a significant number of Crimean voters in favor of joining Russia. Some 60 percent were ethnic Russians, and many might have concluded their economic situation would be better as a part Russia.

It was not, however, a fair referendum. It was conducted in polling places under armed guard, with no credible international observers, and with Russian journalists reporting that they had been allowed to vote. Two months later, a member of Putin’s Human Rights Council let slip that turnout had been more like 30 percent, with only half voting to join Russia.

Regardless, Moscow wasted no time. Crimean and Russian officials signed a “treaty of accession” just two days later, on March 18. Spurred by a fiery Putin speech, ratification by Russia’s rubberstamp Federation Assembly and Federation Council was finished by March 21.

ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY

Moscow’s actions violated the agreement among the post-Soviet states in 1991 to accept the then-existing republic borders. Those actions also violated commitments to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence that Russia made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine and 1997 Ukrainian-Russian Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership.

In late March 2014, Russia had to use its veto to block a U.N. Security Council resolution that, among other things, expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity (there were 13 yes votes and one abstention). The Russians could not, however, veto a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly. It passed 100-11, affirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity and terming the Crimean referendum invalid.

Russian officials sought to justify the referendum as an act of self-determination. It was not an easy argument for the Kremlin to make, given the history of the two bloody wars that Russia waged in the 1990s and early 2000s to prevent Chechnya from exercising a right of self-determination.

Russian officials also cited Western recognition of Kosovo as justification. But that did not provide a particularly good model. Serbia subjected hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians to ethnic-cleansing in 1999; by contrast, no ethnic-cleansing occurred in Crimea. Kosovo negotiated with Serbia to reach an amicable separation for years before declaring independence unilaterally. There were no negotiations with Kyiv over Crimea’s fate, and it took less than a month from the appearance of the little green men to Crimea’s annexation.

The military seizure of Crimea provoked a storm of criticism. The United States and European Union applied visa and financial sanctions, as well as prohibited their ships and aircraft from traveling to Crimea without Ukrainian permission. Those sanctions were minor, however, compared to those applied on Russia after it launched a proxy conflict in Donbas in April 2014, and particularly after a Russian-provided surface-to-air missile downed a Malaysian Air airliner carrying some 300 passengers.

Whereas Ukrainian forces on Crimea did not resist the Russian invasion (in part at the urging of the West), Kyiv resisted the appearance of little green men in Donbas. Before long, the Ukrainians found themselves fighting Russian troops as well as “separatist” forces. That conflict is now about to enter its sixth year.

Finding a settlement in Donbas has taken higher priority over resolving the status of Crimea—understandable given that some 13,000 have died and two million been displaced in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Moscow seems to see the simmering conflict as a useful means to pressure and distract Kyiv, both to make instituting domestic reform more difficult and to hinder the deepening of ties between Ukraine and Europe.

Resolving the Donbas conflict will not prove easy. For example, the Kremlin may not be prepared to settle until it has some idea of where Ukraine fits in the broader European order, that is, its relationship with the European Union and NATO. But Russia has expressed no interest in annexing Donbas. While the seizure of Crimea proved very popular with the broader Russia public, the quagmire in Donbas has not. The most biting Western economic sanctions would come off of Russia if it left Donbas. At some point, the Kremlin may calculate that the costs outweigh the benefits and consent to a settlement that would allow restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty there.

Moscow will not, on the other hand, willingly give up Crimea. Russians assert a historical claim to the peninsula; Catherine the Great annexed the peninsula in 1783 following a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. (That said, Crimea was transferred from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954, and, as noted above, the republics that emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1991 agreed to accept the borders as then drawn.)

Retaining Crimea is especially important to Putin, who can offer the Russian people no real prospect of anything other than a stagnant economy and thus plays the nationalism and Russia-as-a-great-power cards. He gained a significant boost in public popularity (much of which has now dissipated) from the rapid and relatively bloodless takeover of the peninsula. Moreover, it offers a vehicle for Russia to maintain a festering border dispute with Ukraine, which the Kremlin may see as discouraging NATO members from getting too close to Ukraine.

Kyiv at present lacks the political, economic, and military leverage to force a return. Perhaps the most plausible route would require that Ukraine get its economic act together, dramatically rein in corruption, draw in large amounts of foreign investment, and realize its full economic potential, and then let the people in Crimea—who have seen no dramatic economic boom after becoming part of Russia—conclude that their economic lot would be better off back as a part of Ukraine.

For the West, Russia’s seizure and annexation of Crimea pose a fundamental challenge to the European order and the norms established by the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. The United States and Europe should continue their policy of non-recognition of Crimea’s illegal incorporation. They should also maintain Crimea-related sanctions on Russia, if for no other reason than to signal that such land grabs have no place in 21st-century Europe.