It seems increasingly likely that the Ukrainians won’t be able to drive out the Russian invaders and that Moscow won’t succeed in swallowing any more of Ukraine either. What, aside from unimaginable human misery, comes next?
As they’ve done since the start of this invasion, pundits and leaders instinctively grasp for historical analogies to guide their thinking and three stand out. One "model” for Ukraine is West Germany in the 1950s, another is Israel starting in the 1970s and a third is the Korean Peninsula, also since the 1950s.
People citing the case of West Germany argue that NATO should accept the unoccupied part of Ukraine into the Western alliance as soon as possible. That would deter Russia from any additional land grabs and allow free Ukraine to rebuild itself into a prosperous democracy, as West Germany did during the Cold War.