The "day of silence" observed this past week by the Ukrainian Army and its pro-Russian rebel opponents was an event of enormous economic importance for global economics as well as geopolitics.

The cease-fire's success confirmed that the truce in Ukraine, agreed to on Sept. 5, is mostly holding, despite some local fighting and Western pundits' virtually unanimous predictions that the war would quickly resume. The durability of September's truce suggests that relations between Kiev and Moscow are gradually reverting toward an uneasy form of peaceful coexistence.

If so, then last summer's civil war in Ukraine will probably evolve into a broadly stable "frozen conflict," similar to the stalemates that have prevailed for years, even decades, in Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, Cyprus and Israel, to name just the frozen conflicts closest to Europe.