Geopolitical Update

So the US, Russia, EU, and Ukraine all signed a document saying they are committed to de-escalation. This is standard negotiation technique, step 1. Get everyone to work on a common document, work towards a negotiated settlement. Then East Ukrainian separatist self-declared leader says, he didn't sign, it doesn't apply to him. So I guess they didn't include everyone in the negotiation. None of this seems too surprising. If you look at a map of recent Ukraine elections, the entire south and east supported the guy who was just removed, and the north and west supported the other side. Since there was a earlier "revolution" in 2004, and that side was not able to maintain power for more than one or two elections, it's not rocket science to say what probably needs to happen is for the south and east to have referendums to decide their own fate. It seems possible that if Putin had been a little more patient, and worked with everyone to create a referendum in Crimea with all 3 choices - 1) stay in Ukraine, 2) be independent, or 3) join Russia, then the process of the last month or so would have been smoother. But he chose the seemingly strong-handed approach, and only 2) and 3) were on the Crimean ballot. In my estimation, the Russian side seems to be about 60% unreasonable, and the Ukrainian / Kiev side seems to be about 55% unreasonable. This is all big picture, far from the details analysis, so take it for it is. If you choose to focus on some details of the conflict, and those details induce a lot of emotion in you, then the conclusions you reach will likely be dominated by excessive certainty, since feeling certain about something is addictive (try the book "On Being Certain" by Robert Burton), and an easy relief from the anxiety of complex conflict. Excessive certainty will lead to the overconfidence bias (try "Thinking Fast and Slow", by Daniel Kahneman), which leads to less than optimal decision making. At the end of the day, geopolitical events are hardly efficient, the road to resolution can be choppy, but often anticipated.