President Barack Obama and his administration are faced with hard questions about how to respond to Russian troops taking control of the Crimean peninsula. Nobody wants to go to war with Russia; at least, not even the usual congressional warmongers. But the general consensus is that Obama must do
something,
however weak American moral authority may be on this front. So what are Obama's options?
Pressure on Russia's international stature is a leading option:
In addition to Ms. Merkel, Mr. Obama spoke with his counterparts from Britain and Poland on Sunday and won agreement from all the other G-8 countries to suspend preparations for the Sochi meeting and find ways to shore up the economically fragile Ukrainian government. The administration also canceled a trade mission to Moscow and a Russian trip to Washington to discuss energy while vowing to also scrap a naval-cooperation meeting with Russia.
Working to isolate Russia not just as a nation among other nations but its citizens, particularly its elite, is
another possible strategy:
Unlike being evicted from the G-8, a travel ban would impact Putin’s wealthiest supporters who have grown used to open access to the West. [...]
[Secretary of State John] Kerry couched a potential visa ban as something that would be taken by the “global community” and not just the United States.
Similarly, Kerry warned that Putin "may find himself with asset freezes on Russian business."
All of these options would require the Obama administration to line up enough other countries to give them teeth; it's one thing for Russian elites not to be able to travel to or send their kids to school in the U.S., but it's another to extend that ban to Great Britain, France, Germany, and so on. Not to mention that we've seen how well it works out when the U.S. tries to police the world with just the small handful of countries it can coerce into going along.