Maintaining peace in Europe requires tolerance, even in the face of flagrant provocations. Sometimes the punishment for bad behavior can be more destabilizing than the behavior itself.
Europe is right to resist American efforts (as minor as they are) to punish Russia for Putin's capture of Crimea and his subliminal war in eastern Ukraine, the author says.
You have to admit, he has a point. There probably would have been a lot fewer casualties if nobody had stopped Hitler and just tolerated his bad behavior until Hitler tired of behaving badly.
Really, the punishment we began in earnest on June 6, 1944, was more destabilizing than the bad behavior of Nazi Germany, right?
