The Western European Twitter press releases hide a tamer reality in the zeal to condemn Putin for 19th century thinking.
Although to be fair, America isn't doing much more.
Yet what do we really expect? After studying the issue, Europe looked the other way about Russia's invasion of Georgia (as did America in the throes of "reset"-euphoria).
So I guess I don't expect much this time.
Oh, sure, one day Putin will go too far and the West will react.
And I'm sure Putin will be as surprised that the West defends a red line as Hitler was when Britain and France stood by Poland in 1939, after letting the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, and all of Czechoslovakia disappear behind new lines drawn by the Nazis.* Now the West steps up, was the lament before and will be again, I'm sure.
Heck, if we're really lucky, the French might share with our Navy information about the vulnerable points on the Mistral amphibious warfare carriers that Paris is still planning to deliver to Russia.
*Please note: Godwin's Law applies only to online discussions not of a historical nature about how aggressive dictators and democracies operate. Remember, too, that the Hitler of 1939 was not yet the Hitler of 1945. Right?
UPDATE: Related thoughts about those who think we should "understand" Putin's behavior as a reaction to the West:
The essential appeaser’s error is to say, “Let’s be reasonable”, to a person to whom reason is anathema and so ends up, by mistake, endorsing tyranny. In January 1939, The Times’s leading article declared that, “Certain grievances in Europe which threatened war have now been adjusted without war, even though…the adjustment has been hasty and crude, and bears the marks of force.” War came less than nine months later. Putin seems to be sorting out “certain grievances” in this spirit.
Remember, in 1939, Hitler's Germany was just a regional power, too.
