@wretchard

The ultimate Russian revenge on Ukraine would to splitting the country in 2, not merely taking Crimea. Although, there is presently no physical conflict or unrest of any kind in Ukraine, East and West are in a state of constant political war, Eastern party being constantly propped up by Russia. The ultimate danger is that Russia would catalyze a violent resistance from the Eastern half of the country against the Western part, who are not in control, thus bringing about civil war, which Russia will promptly “attempt to quell” by inserting it’s troops. There is no point to settle on Crimea, as they can with slightly more efforts and almost no downsides get the East as well. Most of the Ukrainian industria capacity and natural resources are located in the East. US is afraid to sign a treaty with Ukraine akin to one that it just signed with Poland, because the tripwire does not guarantee Russia not stepping on it, at which point US would not want to confront Russia directly. Hence, it is waiting to get Ukraine into NATO, so that any response can be international, but we can already see how effective NATO is. Given that membership action plan could be presented to Ukraine in December at the earliest, it might take a while for it to happen, even if there is no opposition within NATO. By that time, it might be too late.