Having the discussions take place in a NATO forum, as Russia has now agreed to do, allows the West to showcase its increased solidarity. Russia’s threats have unified the alliance. The discussions will also contrast the U.S.’s preferred model of power, which emanates from our ability to persuade others to share the burdens of what we’re trying to achieve, with the model pursued by Russian and China, which relies on threatening nations into submission.

The United States and its allies have the easier side of that argument. As Ronald Reagan said, “There is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.” Russia may mobilize some support among countries that feel threatened by governments held accountable by their citizens, but the U.S. has the moral and mathematical advantage of arguing against strong states imposing their will on those unable to protect themselves.

Not that Ukraine is truly incapable of protecting itself. One other thing that may be restraining a Russian invasion of Ukraine is the fact that, even in the Donbas, the mighty Russian military has not succeeded in subduing Ukrainian resistance. Quite the opposite: Russia has enhanced Ukrainian national identity. A Russian occupation would encounter the sort of insurgency that the Russian military proved incapable of subduing in Afghanistan and Chechnya, despite its brutality. Half a million Ukrainians have military experience; 24 percent of respondents in one recent poll said that they would resist Russian occupation “with a weapon in hand.” Russia might succeed in taking Ukraine, but it is unlikely to hold it.