Defining Appeasement

Saying we can solve the Ukraine crisis by giving Russia eastern Ukraine while bringing in the rest of Ukraine is both morally bankrupt and won't work.

Seriously?

Third [of four options, which is the best option,] is a de facto partition of the country, in which the Russian areas secede and join Russia and the continuing Ukraine is made less ambiguous politically. It could then join the West, having adopted a consensus to behave fiscally and politically like a serious country, something it has never managed before, in distant or recent history. The West should be pulling itself together for the achievement of this objective, which is distinctly attainable.

Morally, this is bankrupt. It assigns the people (even ethnic Russians) of eastern Ukraine--who have little interest in joining Russia--to live under Putin's increasingly autocratic rule.

Practically, it counts on Russia accepting this deal as final rather than as step one of a multi-stage effort to regain all of Ukraine. Say? How'd that 1994 Budapest Memorandum agreement about Russia respecting Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity work out?

That Russia would want to keep pushing for more of Ukraine rather than basking in peace for our time after settling the Czechoslovakia Ukraine question is conceded by the author, who even says that to keep Russia from seizing more of what we "give" to Russia, the West would have unite and step up to absorb a properly Westernized rump Ukraine into the West, which would then protect these Ukrainians from Russia.

And as an aside, despite the author's assertion that Germany has no tanks,Germany does have tanks since their conventional army is based around two tank divisions.