I see disturbing similiarities to one of history's other tyrants, Adolph Hitler. His first invasion of a country was Austria, people who also spoke the German language and welcomed his troops with enthusiastic parades and celebrations. His early conquests were of areas where the population was predominantly of German decent and spoke German, including parts of Chekzolovokia, Lithuania and Poland. Not wanting to stir up a fight, the rest of the world stood by and did nothing, soothing their conscience by accepting Hitler's reasoning that he was reuniting Germans in areas that was Germany before WW1 and protecting ethnic Germans from Stalin and the Communists. There was truth to the latter since the Red Army had repeatedly swept through ethnic German villages, summarily executing every man and male child and raping the women and children, often forcing the men and boys to watch the rape of their own family members before executing them (males).
I'm certainly not in favor of military intervention and I hope that Putin stops with Crimea, leaving alone other countries with ethnic or Russian speaking people. I just hope that Putin doesn't subcribe to the foreign policy idiom that, "If it works, don't change it and keep on doing it until it doesn't work". Unfortunately, the Crimea situation uncomfortably similiar to Austria before WW2. You know what they say, history repeats itself.
