Quotes of the Day

One principle ought to be bred in the bone of any European after the carnage of the 20th century: that no act of state bears such ominous consequences as changing a border by force. Plenty of passionate voices said as much after Russian troops rolled into Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia on Aug. 8. On the night of Aug. 12, a day when Russian planes dropped cluster bombs on the town of Gori, the Presidents of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine took the stage in front of the Georgian parliament building beside Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. "Everyone who believes in democracy says today, 'I am Georgian!' " said Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. His Polish counterpart, Lech Kaczynski, railed against Russia: "Today Georgia, tomorrow Ukraine, the next day perhaps my country!"

Stirring words are the easy part, of course. The question that the leaders of the 27 member states of the European Union had to address as they gathered in Brussels on Sept. 1 was whether words would be enough to answer its giant and unapologetically bellicose neighbor to the east. The meeting was only the third such emergency summit that E.U. leaders have held. The first came after the Sept. 11 attacks; the second, riven with discord, convened in the run-up to the Iraq war. This conclave is as unlikely to enter the hit parade of diplomatic history as the first two. The leaders condemned Russia's unilateral recognition of South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia, and called for Russian forces to be withdrawn "to the lines held prior to the outbreak of hostilities." Until that happens, they said, the E.U. would postpone further negotiations on a new trade agreement between itself and Russia. They also committed to deploy as many as 200 civilian observers to monitor the imperfect cease-fire French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered with Moscow
 a few days into the fighting.

Sure, this was a principled restatement of the E.U.'s belief in the rule of law. But more than anything it was a sobering reminder of how little the European Union can do to enforce its wishes against an unreasonable and powerful adversary, and a far cry from the "root and branch" review of Europe's relations with Russia that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had called for on the eve of the summit.

Which should surprise absolutely no one. Europe has more than august principles to worry about in its clash with Russia. For all the intense memories in the Soviet Union's former vassal states, and the Churchillian traditions and electoral concerns that motivate Brown's tougher line, there are also a few hard truths to factor into a common response to Russia. Most vitally, Europe has a deep dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies. Its citizens, moreover, are concerned that Europe should not contribute to what German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called a "spiral of provocations" that could lead to a conflict far beyond Europe's capacity. And while it's hardly an end in itself, 
 European consensus is essential in the face of Russia's growing ambition.

The Flow of Power

Nowhere do those moderating considerations weigh more heavily than in Germany, which buys about a third of its oil and some 40% of its gas supplies from Russia. There's no straight concordance between energy dependency and forbearance toward Russia. Poland and the Baltic states, which pushed for a tougher line against Moscow, would freeze without Russian natural gas and oil — and indeed, Lithuania, Ukraine and the Czech Republic have all seen the spigot closed on deliveries from Russia in recent years. But German politicians, particularly many in the Social Democratic Party (SPD) — the junior member of Christian Democratic (CDU) Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition — have long felt a special responsibility for keeping a line open to Moscow, from Willy Brandt's Nobel Prize-winning Ostpolitik in the 1970s to former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's much criticized acceptance, at the nomination of Russian gas giant Gazprom, of a key post on a pipeline project he had backed while in office.

Eckart von Klaeden, foreign-policy spokesman for Merkel's conservative bloc in parliament, acknowledges that the pressure to go easy on Russia comes not just from the left, but from his German business constituents as well. Germany contributes nearly 40% of total E.U. investment in Russia. "I can understand how they feel their business is threatened," says Von Klaeden. "But they also say that politics should remain in the political sphere and that the two sides should never mix."

Alexander Rahr, a Russian expert at Germany's Council on Foreign Relations, suggests that the business lobby played a large role in Merkel's "dramatic" climbdown from her outright endorsement of Georgia's NATO membership in Tbilisi last month to her softer stance in Brussels. John Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany who is now the chairman of the German unit of investment bank Lazard, says that while he opposes sanctions himself, Germany's tolerant attitude toward Russia goes even deeper. "Germans are very, very ready to take the Russians' side," he says. "This crisis will make the appeasers even more appeasing than they have been until now."

The question of appeasement has long been barbed and dangerous in European history. Taking its measure became a major source of tension between old Europe and new Europe, to use the notorious nomenclature coined by former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld during Europe's last big foreign-policy dilemma, over Iraq. This time, though, Europe was able to agree in a matter of four hours on a unified response to a direct and threatening neighbor.

Closing Ranks
That is due in part to concessions from the hard-liners. Before the Brussels summit, Polish President Kaczynski had complained that "the real decisions in this organization are being made between Berlin and Paris," and called the idea of a common policy toward Russia "laughable." But the more moderate Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk left for Brussels with an admonition for E.U. unity on his lips. "We want to lead the way," he said, "but we don't want to be radical." In the end, Kaczynski and the Baltic leaders came around to the widely held position that economic sanctions against Moscow would be pointless or even counterproductive. "Even the most hawkish E.U. members recognize the limits of potential sanctions," says Antonio Missiroli, director of studies at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre. "Their leverage is limited, and sanctions could backfire. Russia is not Zimbabwe."

Britain, whose relations with Russia have been in a chill since the 2006 murder in London of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, also took a robust tone after Russia's invasion of Georgia, though it was David Cameron, the Conservative opposition leader, who raced to Tbilisi in mid-August to blast the Russians while Brown vacationed uncomfortably in Scotland. British Foreign Minister David Miliband took the baton and traveled to Ukraine, another country deeply worried about Moscow's expansionist ambitions. Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, inhabited mostly by ethnic Russians and home to the Russian Black Sea fleet, is one of several areas with allure for Russian irredentists. (It was only in 1954 that Ukrainian-born Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev shifted administrative control over the Crimea from Moscow to Kiev.)

Not to be outdone by Cameron and Miliband, Brown argued in Brussels for a spirited response to Moscow. Along with several other leaders, he put his weight behind the suspension of negotiations over an often delayed E.U.-Russia partnership agreement intended to ease commerce and economic cooperation. "Yesterday was a strong demonstration of European unity in the face of Russian transgression of core international values," Miliband told TIME. "There was not only strong support for Georgia but a profound reassessment of the right way to deal with Russia. Europeans are committed to territorial integrity and rule-based governance, and these principles have been violated by Russia."

Moscow responded with cool disdain to the E.U.'s deliberations. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the results "sufficiently predictable." It deplored the suspension of the trade talks, but suggested that Russia had grown accustomed to "artificial obstacles on the path to this document." On the eve of the summit, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev told Sarkozy — not for the first time — that Russian troops intended to pull out of the buffer zones in Georgia proper, raising the possibility that the ultimatum for the suspension of talks would quickly be rendered moot. "The majority of E.U. countries have manifested a responsible approach and confirmed their intention to continue the partnership with Russia," the Foreign Ministry statement concluded.

Far from accepting that Europe is impotent in the face of Moscow's nonchalance, however, Sarkozy insists that the E.U. is charting a wise course between provoking Russia and upholding vital principles. "Is it a paper tiger that negotiates a cease-fire, gets a partial withdrawal and is the only body which can solve the situation and is able to help Georgia?" asked Sarkozy, who chaired the Brussels proceedings because France currently holds the presidency of the European Council. "We did not see the Berlin Wall fall, the end of the Soviet dictatorship and the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact to open another Cold War. 
 I say we should keep our sangfroid."

If Russia keeps pushing, though, future crises may demand answers that go beyond mere words. The E.U stood on high principle last week, insisting that Russia cannot decide its neighbors' borders and foreign policies. But saying that doesn't make it so.

With reporting by Leo Cendrowicz/Brussels, Bruce Crumley/Paris, Eben Harrell and Catherine Mayer/London, Beata Pasek/Warsaw, Andrew Purvis/Berlin and Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow

• JAMES GRAFF
• At an emergency summit, Europe's leaders try to deliver a tough response to Russia's invasion of Georgia. But for all the talk, few have the stomach for a serious showdown with Moscow