Until now, stunned and appalled, the West has been merely reacting to the Kremlin’s moves, however belatedly or inadequately. But now, heading into the March 16 referendum, the liberal democracies seem prepared to accept the Russian annexation of Crimea as a fait accompli.

It isn’t clear how long the uncertainty over Ukraine’s new course will last. But the challenges that the country is facing are more obvious. Here are a few of the major ones.

Walter Russell Mead sees a major, zero-sum geopolitical contest unfolding between the United States and Russia over Ukraine and Syria. Washington, he argues, should abandon its policy of seeking better relations and push back against Russia. But on its own, pushing back isn’t enough. America has to strike the right balance.

The seismic shift in Ukraine was achieved by its people—not by outside forces, and not by its politicians.

U.S. and NATO missile defense plans are about more than just guarding against rogue missile threats from Iran. They will shape the U.S.-Russia relationship and, more importantly, long-term relations between America and Europe.

The path for immigration reform has not only been a twisted one. It has had more stop and go lights than Fifth Avenue from lower Manhattan to Harlem.

Ever since the Georgian Dream coalition’s upset election victory over Mikhail Saakashvili’s UNM, Georgia-Russia relations have been on the mend. But don’t expect the good feelings to last long after the final Olympic delegation leaves Sochi.

The U.S.-Turkish relationship has come to be defined by a rhetoric of mutual admiration that obscures the tensions created by Ankara’s increasingly sectarian and authoritarian domestic politics. For the United States, honesty about America’s differences with Turkey would be the better policy.

Democracy and freedom are in decline around the world. What should the United States do to reverse this trend? Better yet, what shouldn’t it do?