Crimea is home to a lot of pro-Russian sentiment. Russia would have an easy time getting locals to organize flower-throwing welcoming committees should the Russians send in more troops to secure their base there.
And with a narrow northern outlet to Ukraine and access to Russia via the Kerch Strait and by water in the Black Sea, Russia could hold the Crimean peninsula more easily than they can defend their Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic Sea.
So Ukraine's new government should confirm their intention to carry out the terms of the Sevastopol lease that Yanukovich signed with Russia.
At the time, I wasn't happy since it seemed like a step on the way to Russian control.
It was a step. But the Winter Revolt in Ukraine has tilted Ukraine back to the West. Now, that lease might be a means to keep the Russians at bay if the Russians judge that a lease going to 2042 in hand is better than conquering the Crimea and facing a never-ending opposition to that conquest.
Yes, a Russian base in Ukraine will prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, which doesn't allow member states to host non-NATO military bases on their soil, but there is another side to this coin.
If Russia occupies and annexes (or backs an "independent" government in) the Crimean Peninsula--or even just Sevastopol--all of a sudden Ukraine becomes eligible to join NATO because Ukraine won't own the territory that hosts Russian bases.
That, I think, is a threat we should hold over Putin to stay his forces currently exercising on Ukraine's borders.
I wouldn't mind if Ukraine joins NATO. But I can live without that as long as Russia doesn't become as dominant in Ukraine as Russia is in Belarus. I want to keep the Russians as far east as possible.
If Ukraine joins the European Union to integrate with the West (as odious as the EU is, it beats Russia's embrace), we can stick with the partnership process for NATO just to keep the threat of that move alive to deter Russian aggression.
I'm thinking this would count as smart diplomacy.
UPDATE: Ukraine's leaders need to hurry up with this. A welcoming committee is already forming:
Masked men with guns seized government buildings in the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region on Thursday, barricading themselves inside and raising the Russian flag after mysterious overnight raids that appeared to be the work of militant Russian nationalists who want this volatile Black Sea region ruled from Moscow.
Remember, a Ukraine without Crimea is eligible to join NATO.
UPDATE: You know, I'm going nuts here. I've found statements that a country can't join NATO if it has non-NATO bases on it. But going through the NATO site, I can't find anything that says that.
I'll go through the documents again more thoroughly, but so far all I can find is a statement that NATO states can't enter into relations that conflict with NATO's mission. Is that the key provision since one could reasonably conclude that a non-NATO base potentially conflicts with the NATO mission?
UPDATE: Seriously, I think we should respond to Russia by announcing that a Russian effort to strip Crimea from Ukraine will be met with an expedited NATO response to any Ukrainian request for membership.
The major choices for me are whether Russia tries to take all of Ukraine; seizes eastern Ukraine and Crimea; or just seizes Crimea. The constant is Crimea which is a major base that allows Russia to defend against threats to Russia from naval forces in the Black Sea and enables power projection into the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
I think taking all of Ukraine is beyond Russia's military capabilities.
And I think that just seizing eastern Ukraine is not much of a prize for Russia despite the ethnic Russians there. Is the old industrial base there really that useful for Russia? Without Crimea, too, eastern Ukraine is more of a burden for Russia, I think.
Crimea is the real and only alternative to all of Ukraine. So if we announce we'd expedite NATO membership should Russia invade in conjunction with a Ukrainian offer to abide by the lease to 2042 for the Crimean bases of Russia, I think we could keep Russia out of Ukraine.
