Administration officials say the U.S. can punish Putin without the threat of force. Odds slim for U.S. military action

American military commanders have a sizable amount of firepower at their disposal in Europe as the crisis deepens over Russia’s incursion into Ukraine — but Washington has no plans to use it.

From Air Force warplanes in Great Britain to Army brigades in Germany to a Navy aircraft carrier strike group that happens to be on its way through the Mediterranean, tens of thousands of U.S. troops and ample high-tech weaponry are available for tasking. The risks associated with a showdown with Moscow, however, mean such orders probably will never come.


Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that “all options” were “on the table” as Washington determines how to respond to the Crimea crisis, but a senior administration official later told reporters he was describing the American “menu” of non-military options.

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“We are focused on political and economic and diplomatic and economic options,” the official said. “We do have a wide range of options to include isolation, potential sanctions, relationships between Russia [and other countries]. … Our goal is to uphold the territorial integrity and government of Ukraine, not to have a military escalation. I don’t think we’re focused right now on some sort of military intervention. I don’t think that would be an effective way to deescalate the situation.”

Administration officials say the U.S. can punish Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively enough without the threat of force.

“The Russians have badly miscalculated here,” a second senior administration official said. “What we see here are distinctly 19th and 20th century decisions made by President Putin to address problems, deploying military forces rather than negotiating, rather than talking. What he needs to understand is that in terms of his economy, he lives in a 21st century world, an interdependent world. As you may have noticed, his economy is not in the greatest of shape, the ruble is taking a hit. … He depends on trade relations with the rest of us. It’s going to be very difficult to maintain that kind of relationship with the outside world while he is using his military forces to threaten and intimidate a neighbor.”

(A lso on POLITICO: Kerry to travel to Ukraine)

The second senior official said that about 6,000 Russian airborne and naval troops had seized “complete operational control” of the Crimean peninsula and confirmed their positions were being strengthened by further reinforcements.

Even as it threatened to isolate and sanction Moscow, however, the administration said it wanted to leave the door open for Putin to resolve the crisis through diplomacy. Kerry planned to fly to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev for negotiations. And the second senior administration official said that Putin had not completely “closed the door” to diplomacy in his phone call with President Barack Obama.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters on Sunday that the Atlantic alliance had agreed upon a new statement condemning Russia’s incursion, but there seemed to be no urgency for anything more. Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Rasmussen called it “a valued partner” and said the alliance would “stand by the norms and principles of international law.”

Russia’s aggression in Crimea presents Washington and its NATO allies with a kind of Cold War deja vu, bringing back bitter memories of the Soviet crackdown in Prague in 1968 or its incursion into Budapest in 1956. The West denounced the Soviets’ actions both times, but ultimately concluded in both cases that intervention was not worth risking World War III.

President George W. Bush deployed American ships and aircraft to the Black Sea after Russia’s invasion of Georgia in an unambiguous message. And he sent a shipment of humanitarian assistance aboard a destroyer, the USS McFaul. But nothing along those lines seemed to be in the cards Sunday in Washington.

The aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush passed through the Straits of Gibraltar on Thursday. Its strike group includes at least two destroyers and one cruiser, in addition to the other Navy warships already present in the Mediterranean. American commanders could order the George H.W. Bush or some of its surface warships to pause their trip to the Middle East and remain in the area as another way to send a message to Russia, and American ships could sail up into the Black Sea.

There appeared to be very little discussion outside the administration about actually confronting the Russian troops that are said to have seized airports, government buildings and other important targets in the Crimea. Critics, both domestic and international, laid part of the blame for Russia’s incursion at Obama’s feet. The president’s willingness to accommodate Putin, they said, had made Putin confident enough to step out so boldly with what they described as an old-fashioned invasion.

“Looking for subtlety or grand vision in Putin’s grabs is foolish,” tweeted Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess legend turned political activist. “He’s simply like a drug kingpin expanding his turf whenever police relax.”

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, as well as a former delegate to NATO, was more blunt.

“As the president has sought secret deals with Russia, abandoned portions of our missile defense system, reduced our nuclear weapons capabilities and significantly cut our military through his sequester, Russia, China, Iran and North Korea see a weak United States,” Turner said. “This is a very dangerous message to send to the world and especially to Russia, [which] seeks to regain lost territories from the former Soviet Union. When the United States is weak, freedom around the world suffers and we are witnessing this first hand today in the Ukraine.”

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