Russian President Vladimir Putin's armed takeover of the Crimean Peninsula and Russian military maneuvers on the eastern frontier of Ukraine have reminded many Western observers of the German takeover of Austria in 1936 and of German behavior in 1938 over the Sudeten Germans in what is now the Czech Republic. The Western response has been condemned by some as feeble and tantamount to the "appeasement" that foreshadowed World War II.

Putin has shown himself to be a ruthless autocrat. He wants to reassert Russian power and form a federation similar to the Soviet Union. He is intolerant of opposition and pursues those who criticize him, but he is not a clone of either Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin, and the situation does not yet amount to a revival of the Cold War. It lacks the ideological element and the communist ethos that ensnared ideological traitors.

There is no justification for complacency. If the West does not respond with determination, Putin may think that he can proceed not only against eastern Ukraine but also against other targets such as Moldova or even the Baltic states where there are significant Russian-speaking populations.