Blog 7: United Nations General Assembly Vote Isolates Russia

United Nation General Assembly Vote Isolates Russia

The first barometer of global condemnation of Russia's annexing Crimea Ukraine and its Western backers persuaded a large majority of countries in the United Nations of Assembly on Thursday to dismiss the annexation as illegal even as Russia sought to rally world support for the idea of self determination. The resolution was proposed by Ukraine and back by the United States. The resolution had 100 votes in favor, 11 against and 58 abstentions. The two page text does not identify Russia by name, but it says the referendum as " having no validity" and calls on countries not to recognize the redrawing of Ukraine's border's. Ukraine's foreign minister says that Russia's actions were " a direct violation of the United Nations Charter." Russia states that Crimea should not have been apart of Ukraine anyway and appealed to another element in United Nations principles which is the right of Crimeans to self determination. That assertion was refuted by the United States ambassador by stating " The chaos that would ensue is not a world that any of us can afford." The resolution was regarded as an important pressure point on Russia by the United States and European Union. A former American Diplomat stated that" This is critical for the U.S-Europe strategy to isolate Putin and condemn him internationally for Russia's violation of the U.N Charter in invading Crimea." Although the resolution has no enforcement power it symbolically significant in the history of General Assembly votes. This directly shows Russia to not further invade Ukraine or they will face greater global criticism.

Analysis:
I previously stated in my blog two weeks that the U.S should step into this position because the situation between Russia and Ukraine in Crimea was getting out of control, Since the country of Ukraine's president disappeared and they wouldn't have another election for 3 months, therefore their government was torn to shreds and they were soon going to be invaded by Russia. Then last week I talked about how the United States over stepped their boundaries in Ukraine because they were forcing their rules on Ukraine, I think the United States has a trend of doing that to often, I just thought the U.S should be there for support while Ukraine gets their government together, but the U.S started enforcing rules and sanctions and I feel they overstepped their boundaries. Now this week I think that there is the right amount of work done to prevent any unlawful actions. I previously thought since there were growing tensions between Russia and the U.S that they would grow into a war or more of an Global Issue getting other countries involved. Now that the U.N stepped in and created the resolution it heres what Ukraine wanted and if Russia were to still pursue Crimea they will face Global Criticism and will have to face the consequences from not one country but the whole Globe. This is a good idea for now, but if Russia continues to pursue Crimea, then that is when this becomes more of a Global Issue because Russia will have to be punished and that never ends well. Hopefully this will not start any more tension or grow tensions between countries because if another World War would break out, as in Sociology class 202 we stated that, it might be the destruction of the World due to all the technology and weapons we have today, which most importantly would be a Global Issue.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/europe/General-Assembly-Vote-on-Crimea.html?ref=world