Impose Sanctions on Russia

By the end of this week, America and Europe will have to make the most crucial and far-reaching decisions about the West’s relationship with Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall. There can be no avoiding them, because any such avoidance would be a decision to drift further into appeasement, weakness, and an eventual conflict with Putin’s Russia on less favorable terms. The shooting down of a civilian Malaysian airliner by “pro-Russian separatists” in eastern Ukraine, with the loss of 298 lives, is both a catalyst and a turning point. Whether the turn is toward a more brutal war in Ukraine and a protracted cold war between Russia and the West or toward second thoughts by Moscow and a diplomatic de-escalation of the crisis, however, will depend on what the West now does.