…in today’s Wall Street Journal. Worth reading throughout. However, if you don’t have the time, just read this:

Reversing this course will not be easy, but it is absolutely necessary. At stake are international law, energy security, NATO’s future, and American credibility when it comes to supporting new democracies. It is also about resisting Russia’s openly hegemonic designs on its neighbors — including Ukraine, which Mr. Putin reportedly described as “not a real nation” to President Bush at their meeting in Sochi earlier this year.

What can the West do? The first step is for the U.S. and its allies to rush military and medical supplies to Tbilisi. […]

Next, the West should make use of Russia’s claim that its role in South Ossetia and Abkhazia is driven by the need to protect the populations there. If so, Moscow should have no objections to U.N.-sanctioned peacekeepers and observers […]

Over the longer term, it is essential that Russia’s stranglehold on Europe’s energy supplies be broken.

Confucius, Œc. Vol.

Don’t ask impertinent questions like that jackass Adept Lu.