Sanctions won’t tame Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Talking might

The civilised world felt as if its heart had been touched by an icicle. Photographs of murdered children. Biogs of people like us; we could have been on that plane. We will be on similar ones, now reminded of our vulnerability to frivolous barbarians in possession of terrifying weapons. Grief and fear lead rapidly to anger: to the demand that something must be done to punish the evildoers and rescue us from insecurity. That might seem a comforting thought. It is also false comfort, for there is a basic problem. What can we do?

When in doubt, think hard, in a long historical perspective. Paradoxically, that apparently arid discipline may bring real comfort.

The disintegration of empires always makes the earth tremble as it is battered by tumbling geopolitical masonry. Think how long Europe took to regain the civilised standards it lost with the fall of Rome. Consider the Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires: above all, the British one.