If Russian President Vladimir Putin continues his current policy in the Ukraine, he should have no illusions about the political price he will pay, writes Robert G. Patman.
US Secretary of State John F. Kerry recently characterised Russia's incursion into the Crimea as ''a 19th century act in the 21st century'' while US President Barak Obama described it as a move that put Moscow ''on the wrong side of history''.
But for many critics in the West such statements only confirm that the Obama Administration does not ''get it'' and is largely to blame for Mr Putin's aggression.
According to this perspective, President Obama has pursued a foreign policy for five years based more on how he thinks the world should operate rather than on reality.
Among other things, it is argued Mr Obama's reset policy towards Russia - consisting of muted responses to Mr Putin's human rights abuses, aggressive policies towards Moscow's neighbours and Russian support for murderous regimes like the one in Syria - emboldened Mr Putin's foray into the Ukraine.
But such criticism falsely assumes America can single-handedly run the world in the 21st century and largely keep the likes of Mr Putin in line by projecting military toughness.
The notion that Mr Putin's attack on the Ukraine is somehow the Obama Administration's fault reveals foreign policy thinking is still stuck in the era of the Cold War.
If Mr Putin insists on making a disastrous misjudgement in relation to the Ukraine, there is little the United States or any other major player can do to prevent such mistakes.
But the Obama Administration and its allies can and should harness the links of a globalised world to ensure that the costs of Mr Putin's brazen attempt to force Ukraine into a satellite status are prohibitive. Mr Putin's belligerent stance cannot but have negative consequences both internationally and nationally for Russia's stability.
Russia is too weak and vulnerable economically to project strength in today's world. Economic growth is currently less than 2%, the population is falling fast, and the economy is dangerously dependent on oil and gas exports.
Almost half of Russia's exports go to the EU, and three-quarters of its total exports consist of oil and gas.
If the EU sanctioned Russia's gas supply to Europe, for instance, Moscow would lose about one-fifth of its export revenues and the Russian economy would be devastated.
At the same time, Russia has become increasingly integrated into the global financial system and cannot escape market judgements on Mr Putin's military and diplomatic actions in the Ukraine.
In a single day last week, the Russian stock market plunged by more than 12% and wiped out nearly $60 billion in asset value. That was more than the cost of the Sochi Olympics.
While the Russian stock market partially rallied, the Russian central bank has nevertheless been forced to raise interest rates by one and a-half percentage points to defend the faltering position of the ruble on currency markets.
Mr Putin's Russia is far more vulnerable to market fluctuations than many countries because the State owns a majority stake in a number of the country's largest companies.
Gazprom, the energy giant, is a case in point. The involvement of Gazprom's majority stakeholder - the Russian State - in the Ukraine crisis hit investor confidence in London, Berlin and Paris, and contributed to an almost immediate downturn in the trading value of the company.
The declining image of Mr Putin in the West will also affect the perceptions of Russia's neighbours and other significant rising powers. Neither China nor Kazakhstan support the deployment of Russian troops in Crimea. It is striking that a recent commentary in the China state news agency, Xinhua, warned the Kremlin ''an independent, complete and stable Ukraine best serves the interests of all, including China''.
Further, BRIC countries India and Brazil have also clearly distanced themselves from Mr Putin's Ukraine gambit.
So while the autocratic Putin regime found the threat by ''ultra nationalists'' and ''fascists'' in Kiev intolerable, Russian intervention raises a much greater risk - the political and economic isolation of Moscow.
Mr Putin may be ''living in another world'' as German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted recently. But he is not alone in failing to recognise the world has fundamentally changed since the 1960s and 1970s. The same is true for some observers in Washington and the West.
In the 21st century, controlling territory or so-called areas of influence is no longer as important as in the past. It is not that today's great powers like the US and China lack national power. Rather, in a globalising world, the ability of great powers to unilaterally project power is increasingly constrained by an international environment in which there is greater vulnerability and greater interdependence than in any previous era in history.
Russia is no exception to this trend and if Mr Putin continues his current policy in the Ukraine he should have no illusions about the political price he will pay.
- Robert G. Patman is a professor of international relations at the University of Otago.
