New Rules for a New Millennium: Russian Invaders Beware

At a joint EU-US news-conference on 26 March 2014, Presidents Barroso, Van Rompuy, and Obama discussed the problematic Russian invasion of the Crimea province of Ukraine.  The “chairman” of the European Council and the “chief executive” of the European Commission both responded to concerns that the European Union had not stood up to its business interests in order to enact economic sanctions capable of putting Putin back in his pen. Even though the two EU presidents sought to "puff up" the force latent in the sanctions already in place, Barroso insightfully made the more significant point that invading parties just aren't done in the new century. In this essay, my task is to sideline the debate over whether the EU had not stood up to its domestic commercial interests in favor of Barroso's much more significant point concerning a paradigm shift whose time of recognition has come in the new millennium.

(The remainder of this essay is now at the International Relations section of The Worden Report)