I know zip about Ukraine & Crimea; this will not prevent me from having opinions about Ukraine & Crimea.
(Look ma! I’m pundit-ing!)
Anyway, the one thought that does keep popping up in me noggin is that Putin’s push in Crimea is a sign of weakness, not strength.
Soldiers, guns, tanks: these are artifacts of failure (of diplomacy, of cunning, of imagination); their use signals a breakdown, not a triumph.
AbsurdBeats 
that’s thug life 4 you, Putin needs to keep the oil flowing or he’s done for, whatever his twisted psyche (the very one that little-bush fell in love with) is up to he can cause a lot of really brutal suffering along the way and I don’t know if we/NATO can stop him, these mashed-together modern states are going to keep splintering as their governments fail and with the new global economy I don’t see what will ever patch them back together, tribal warlords are back on the map, meanwhile back on the home-front good luck now to the administration with that cutting the size of our armed forces project…
As I like to remind my students, that the US is the most powerful nation on earth does not make it all-powerful.
Militarily, I don’t know that there’s anything the US/NATO can do that would make the situation better rather than worse; diplomatically, I don’t know what could be done—which isn’t to say nothing diplomatically could be done, just that I don’t know what it would be.
Guess I wouldn’t make such a great pundit after all.