Talk Back discusses crisis in Crimea

Students and panelists gathered for the semester’s fourth installment of “Students Talk Back: A Politics and Public Policy Forum,” to discuss Russia’s recent efforts to annex the Crimea region of Ukraine and the role of U.S.  diplomacy in the conflict. 

The Students Talk Back series is a semimonthly forum presented in partnership with the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Science’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, the College Democrats, the College Republicans and the Daily Trojan.

The theme for the discussion was “The Crisis in Ukraine: Is US/European Diplomacy Enough?”

The forum was moderated by Yasmeen Serhan, editorial director of the Daily Trojan, and Kerstyn Olson, interim director of the Unruh Institute.

Olson began by stressing the importance of geopolitical issues for students in California who will soon be voting in midterm and national elections.

“Given that we are living in a very tried-and-true blue state, I think it’s important — especially in a midterm election year — for USC students to not only think about issues that are of great import to California voters, but what will be important to voters in the so-called swing states,” Olson said. “Foreign policy is, of course, of incredible importance to all voters.”

The moderators were joined on the panel by Rod Pacheco, a former state assemblyman and former district attorney of Riverside; Paul Feldman, an assistant foreign editor at the Los Angeles Times, and students Jessica Blakely and Shikhar Gupta.

The first topic of discussion dealt with the legality of the Crimean referendum, which, if approved, will potentially allow the Crimea region of Ukraine to become part of Russia.

“They don’t have a constitution that allows them to do this,” Pacheco said. “If there was a legal basis for the move, then Putin, Russia et. al. would have offered it, and the fact that they haven’t means they don’t have one.”

For Feldman, who has been with the Los Angeles Times for more than three decades, the lack of a legal basis is less important because no one will enforce it.

“It’s an issue more about real politics than legal basis, because there is no one that is going to be enforcing legal basis anyways,” he said. “It does appear right now that whatever happens, whoever puts up a fuss about the legal basis part probably is not going to get very far.”

Blakely, a senior majoring in international relations and global health, agreed.

“Paying attention to what the international law would say might not be one of Putin’s priorities either,” she said.

Gupta, a sophomore majoring in international relations, provided some historical background for the audience members less familiar with the crisis.

“[Ukraine] has historically been a part of various nations, empires, kingdoms and what not,” he said.

Citing the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine by then-First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Kruschev in 1954, Gupta discussed the resulting implication: Nearly 60 percent of Crimeans identify as Russian.

Pacheco, however, stressed the importance of Crimea as a military outpost.

“This is a very important strategic base for Russia — they have a major naval facility there, it is a warm water port, they can reach any point in the Middle East, anywhere throughout the Mediterranean,” he said. “That was the basis for them invading in the first place under Peter the Great.”

While the first half of the discussion focused on questions from the moderators, during the second half, audience members were invited to ask questions of the panelists.

Luke Phillips, a sophomore majoring in international relations, commented on the implications of the Ukraine crisis for the future of U.S. foreign policy.

“There is going to be a seat change in U.S. politics within the next decade, and I don’t think it’s going to come with a change in the administration,” Phillips said.

The next Students Talk Back is Wednesday, March 26, in the Forum at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center.