Between Balance of Power and Balance of Resolve: Why Russia Used Fait Accompli in Crimea But Frozen Conflict in South Ossetia?
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.210519.232How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- fait accompli, frozen conflict, balance of power, balance of resolve
- Abstract
In the past few decades, Russia and the U.S. have conflicts of interest, especially in Russia’s neighbors. For example, in 2008, Russia adopted a frozen conflict tactic in South Ossetia, while in 2014, Russia adopted a fait accompli tactic in Crimea. Then why Russia employed different strategies respectively? The paper argues the difference based on the different local balance of power and the balance of resolve. If Russia both has a stronger local balance of power and balance of resolve vis-a-vis its target, for example, in Crimea, then it is willing to use fait accompli. However, whenever either its local balance of power or balance of resolve or both, is weaker, frozen conflict is more likely to be used. This is the case of South Ossetia. More specifically, Russia has a military base in Crimea, which gives it a local military advantage and has a strong resolution to control Crimea. Although Ukraine has the U.S. as the protector, U.S. is geographically far away. Therefore the U.S. is less determined to be involved and cause escalation. By contrast, Georgia regards South Ossetia as an inalienable territory, while Russia originally had no troops there. Therefore, Russia’s local balance of power and balance of resolve are both weaker than the Crimea case. As a result, it preferred frozen conflict.
- Copyright
- © 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Jialin Li PY - 2021 DA - 2021/05/20 TI - Between Balance of Power and Balance of Resolve: Why Russia Used Fait Accompli in Crimea But Frozen Conflict in South Ossetia? BT - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Humanities and Social Science Research (ICHSSR 2021) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 1164 EP - 1169 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210519.232 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.210519.232 ID - Li2021 ER -