海角大神

To people planning summer travel, Europe can seem like a vast museum, its dramatic past bottled up in carefully tended castles and cathedrals, its old grudges and intrigues safely sealed behind display glass. Tour groups amble across fields where armies fought epic battles in the last century. Twenty-five years after the Berlin Wall came down, you can still buy relics in gift shops (there was, after all, a lot of concrete involved), but the wall itself 鈥� the massive barrier that once marked the edge of the free world 鈥� is memorialized only in a few remnants and a tiny cobblestone path embedded in the pavement of a city that has otherwise left those days far behind.

Europe鈥檚 modern pursuits run in the direction of tech exports, green energy, and multicultural accommodation. A member of the German parliament says his fellow Germans today prefer to see their country 鈥� whose ambitions tore the Continent apart in the first half of the 20th century 鈥� as a 鈥渂ig Switzerland,鈥� steering away from international conflict, refraining from military engagement, and concentrating instead on business and quality of life. A senior official in Germany鈥檚 Foreign Ministry describes the prevalent feeling of post-cold-war Europe as 鈥減erfectly safe and secure.鈥�

Then came Crimea. It would be hard to overstate the mental shift that seems to have taken place over three short months. European politicians, diplomats, and business leaders that a group of editors and I met last week (the visit was arranged by the Robert Bosch Foundation and Johns Hopkins University) see Crimea as a turning point as important as 1989, when the Berlin Wall was breached. The head of the German parliament鈥檚 Foreign Affairs Committee, Norbert R枚ttgen, describes Crimea as much more than a peninsula opportunistically grabbed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. 鈥淚f it was only about Crimea, it would be serious enough,鈥� Mr. R枚ttgen says. 鈥淏ut this affects the validity of the European peace order that emerged at the end of the last century.鈥澛�

Janusz Reiter, who watched Europe鈥檚 evolution from both sides of the old Iron Curtain and has served as Poland鈥檚 ambassador to the United States and to Germany, describes a continent where 鈥渨e lived in a post-national reality and were enjoying it.鈥� Because of the crisis in Ukraine, he says, Europe is 鈥渞eturning to history.鈥� The US is no longer likely to act as Europe鈥檚 shield, and after Iraq and recent spying revelations many Europeans don鈥檛 want that anyway. It will be up to Europeans to meet Mr. Putin鈥檚 challenge.

Admittedly, those views may be overly dramatic. I鈥檝e visited Europe over the years and interviewed officials in both the cold-war and post-cold-war eras, but I can鈥檛 judge whether 2014 is a watershed year. Putin might rethink his nationalist, anti-Western aggressiveness. He clearly has enjoyed the applause from Russians for standing tall, but he knows that militarism hurts Russia economically and that a weak economy will undermine his popularity. Europeans could wake up in a few months feeling safe and secure once again.

If nothing else, however, Crimea has shifted European thinking. Europe鈥檚 past of nationalism and conflict must stay in the museums and history books. But democracy, human rights, free markets, and peaceful resolution of disputes 鈥� ideas born in Europe but not practiced there until very recently 鈥� must now be defended by the Europeans who have embraced them.

John Yemma is the Monitor's editor at large. He can be reached at yemma@csmonitor.com.