The Crimean parliament's latest moves to become part of Russia raise a question: Has Russian President Vladimir Putin considered how much it will cost to absorb the peninsula and its roughly 2 million inhabitants? As improvised as the de facto invasion may seem, he probably has. The costs are likely to be high but not unbearable.

Europe is looking increasingly unlikely to impose meaningful sanctions on a country that — according to Eurostat data for 2011 — accounts for 7.1 percent of European exports and 11.8 percent of its imports.

At the recent European Union summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel — whose country depends on Russia for about half its natural gas imports — called for moderation, and she almost certainly was not alone.