History repeating, both times as tragedy

Oh for the days when Ukraine was only beset by a House of Cards-type scandal of the Ukrainian president being tape-recorded ordering the death of a prominent journalist.  Leonid Kuchma was seen as a pro-Moscow puppet with authoritarian tendencies who groomed his protégé, Viktor Yanukovych, to succeed him before being thwarted by the Orange Revolution after allegations of poisoning against opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko and mass voter fraud.  Yanukovych pressed Kuchma to inaugurate him on the spot but Kuchma, showing a curious deference for the constitution not unlike Vladimir Putin, refused, despite claiming Yanukovych was the rightful victor.  For the 2010 election, he compared Yanukovych and challenger Yulia Tymoshenko as choice between 'bad and very bad', praising Arseniy Yatsenyuk (who was eliminated in the first round.  Yatsenyuk is now prime minister but the situation could not be worse.
After losing its feet in the Crimea, the Ukrainian duck is now threatened with having its tail feathers plucked in the east of the country.  Russia views the Ukraine as its backyard and none of the west's business, in much the same way that the USA enforced the Monroe Doctrine in the post-1945 world, especially in Panama when it deposed former pupil General Manuel 'Pineapple Head' Noriega (played convincingly by Bob Hoskins in a dramatised history).  Moscow cites the bombing of Kosovo and the 2003 invasion of Iraq as justification for its own action but it might just as well cite Panama in 1989 as the Cold War wound down.  the big difference being that all three were under dictatorships while Ukraine has been set back on the path to democracy after the Yanukovych tenure and Russia cannot allow that to spread.
The West's powder-puff reaction to another democracy and the post-Cold War settlement has been disgraceful.  There are some useful idiots who believe that the 1990 Peace of Paris was unjust to the USSR/Russia, just as appeasers in the 1930s felt guilt about the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles for Germany.  Yesterday, President Obama said new sanctions were ready to roll within days but was hesitant about doing anything really effective until Europe made matching commitments - reminiscent of France only prepared to drive back Germany's militarisation of the Rhineland in 1936 if Britain joined it; London chose to stand aloof with disastrous consequences given Hitler had ordered his generals to flee with their tails between their legs at the slightest hint of outside intervention.  Instead, all was quiet on the Western Front, emboldening the dictator.
During August 1938, the German press was full of stories alleging Czechoslovak atrocities against Sudeten Germans.  In the same month, Berlin sent 750,000 soldiers along the border of Czechoslovakia, officially as part of army manoeuvres.  After internal violence and disruption ensued in Czechoslovakia in early September 1938, with the Sudeten German leadership under orders from Hitler to be as provocative as possible.  Fast forward to 2014.  The Russian media is full of stories of 'fascists' in charge in Kiev, attacking ethnic Russians.  Moscow has sent hundreds of thousands of troops along the Ukranian border, officially as part of army manoeuvres.  As a result of pro-Russian provocateurs, internal violence and disruption has ensued in Ukraine.  If it wasn't so sad, the similarity would be hilarious in how obvious it is.  Karl Marx said history repeats itself, the first time is tragedy, the second time is farce, but this is far from the ridiculousness of Louis Napoleon (III) and the only farce are the bare-faced lies spun by the Kremlin.  And once again, the West is prepared to throw a fellow democracy under the bus.  The first time was through fear of war, this time through fear of economic conflict.  Excessive psychosis in both instances led to moral exhaustion.  After the Sudetenland fell into German hands, the West sat back as it watched The Third Reich swallow up Bohemia and Moravia - where there were few Germans - in March 1939.  Crimea is now lost forever to Russia; will Donetsk, Kharkhiv and other cities go the same way.
I think the proper response was that of the anti-appeasement activist F. L. Lucas of King's College, Cambridge, where follows an excerpt of his letter to the Manchester Guardian on 15th September 1938 (before the Sudetenland was snatched from Prague):
"Many honest folk feel it hard to deny the Sudetens self-determination, if they want to belong to the Reich. But then, can we deny it to the Czech areas among the Sudetens? Then what about Sudeten pockets in the Czech areas? Self-determination must stop somewhere. In politics, as in physics, you come to a point where you cannot go on splitting things. You cannot have self-determination by villages. You may split Czechoslovakia now. In a few years it will be one again. Only it will be German [a very prescient observation]. That is all.... You cannot by any juggling with frontiers abolish racial minorities in Europe. And you cannot totally ignore geography. It follows that where you cannot move mountains you must move men. If the Sudetens are irrevocably set on being in the Reich let them go to the Reich instead of expecting the Reich to come to them. The Germans are the later comers in Bohemia."
If the ethnic Russians are irrevocably set on being in Vladimir Putin's Russia, then let them go there - they are even more late comers in this area of the Ukraine than the Germans in Bohemia.  Russia is in many ways a very recent creation.  China could get tough on its claim to the Maritime Region which Russia acquired in 1875.  Previously under Manchu control for nearly three centuries, it easily outstrips the time Crimea and Russia were one.  To gain Sevastopol but lose Vladivostok.  Would that be worth it?
The West's disgusting acceptance of Moscow's fait accompli in Crimea must not be repeated.  The USA and Europe must move in firm agreement to resist the aggrandiser.  The corrupt and sometimes brutal days of Leonid Kuchma, when Ukraine was far from the centre of world politics, must seem now like a relative paradise to many Ukrainians.