(IISS) (Co-authored with Jeremy Shapiro) The Ukraine crisis poses vexing policy challenges for Washington. President Barack Obama has sought to strike a balance between the imperative of responding to Russian actions and the equally important need to avoid an all-out confrontation with Moscow. As he put it in July 2014, ‘it’s not a new Cold War … [It] is a very specific issue related to Russia’s unwillingness to recognise that Ukraine can chart its own path.’1 The problem is that the administration’s balancing act cannot last long. As the deterioration of conditions in Ukraine in recent weeks has demonstrated, forces beyond the president’s control are pushing him toward the very new Cold War that he wants to avoid. He will eventually face a choice between that outcome, which would be hugely dangerous and costly, and negotiations on a revised regional order in Europe, which might hurt him politically but would be far better for the United States and for the world. He should move toward the negotiated outcome now. […]
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