Russia In Patriotic Fervor Over Crimea

[Igel]

5. Empires don't annex?

Have you pondered the Russian Empire? Is there an "occupied Karelia" and an "occupied Yakutia", along with an "occupied Tatarstan"? No. They annexed.

How about what remains of the Persian empire? Are the Arab, Balochi, Kurdish, and Azeri parts of that rump empire just "occupied" or were they annexed?

China was the same. It's China. Not "Hania" with "Miao State" and "Mongolian State" and "The Occupied Republic of Tibet." It's China. The claim isn't that Taiwan should be a Chinese vassal state. The claim is that Taiwan is an integral part of China.

Some people really need to make sure language fits the US, but, really, neither us nor the US are so important as to revise 3000 years of history just so we can win an Internet forum argument. And make the US the ur-, the uber-, the prototypical empire. We flip the metaphor on its head.

Russia is an empire--the remains of one--as well as the holder of some vassal states at this point, like Abkhazia and S. Ossetia. But the Crimea was part of an independent state that the Russian Empire captured and annexed, one that many Russians want reclaimed as part of their state. If only because it tweaks the nose of a bunch of ungrateful Ukrainians, the West, and because it makes them look strong in their own eyes. (Not to mention Sevastopol is where they beat the British *and* the Ottomans, and Yalta is important in other ways.)