The crisis in Ukraine highlights two truths about international politics: Some things have not changed since the end of the Cold War. And some things have changed a lot.
What remains is the map. Ukraine still sits on Russia's western border; the name "Ukraine" means "borderland" in Slavic, and the area was once known as "Little Russia." With the rapid expansion of NATO eastward, Ukraine is one of only two countries (Belarus is the other) that provide a buffer between Russia and Western allies like Poland and Hungary.
That gives Russia's czarlike leader, Vladimir Putin, large and legitimate interests in who rules that country. As Charles King, a Russian expert at Georgetown, wrote in the New York Times, "Some things are not wrong just because Russians happen to believe them."
Yet geography has not yielded completely to globalization. One in five Ukranians speaks Russian and identifies strongly with Moscow. Putin's argument that he was sending in troops to protect them was a fraud; there was no evidence any ethnic Russians were in danger. But they remain a key factor in the geopolitical balance.
So does the historic ambition of Slavic people in Northern Europe to control warm-water, all-season ports. The Russian Black Sea fleet, based in Ukraine's Crimean region, has a direct route to the Mediterranean via the Bosphorus, the strait that runs through Turkey.
We lived in that region for almost four years. We watched countless Russian vessels sail through that passage, and the scene leaves an indelible lesson: Russia would do almost anything to protect its naval power. That's why Putin's troops occupy the Crimean peninsula.
The Russian leader is learning, however, that soldiers cannot control markets. The Moscow stock market fell sharply, and Reuters reports that the leading losers "were the many companies, from banks to retailers, with heavy sales exposure to Russia and Ukraine." The markets bounced back a bit after their initial panic, but the point had been made.
In delivering a forceful warning on NBC's "Meet the Press," Secretary of State John Kerry pinpointed Moscow's economic exposure: "Russia has major investment and trade needs and desires. I think there's a unified view by all of the foreign ministers I talked with yesterday ... that they're simply going to isolate Russia, that they're not going to engage with Russia in a normal, business-as-usual manner, that Russia is inviting opprobrium on the international stage."
Trade works both ways, of course. Europe gets about one-third of its natural gas from Russia and some countries, especially Germany, are reluctant to turn the screws too tightly. But the markets are under no such constraints.
Maps matter. So do markets. The tension between them will help determine Ukraine's future.
Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.