US public not blameless in Russia-Ukraine conflict

This is a hard column to write. Today Russia hived off part of Ukraine as if it were its garden with apple trees to pick off. Ukraine is an independent country; it is not Chechnya.

As a journalist and foreign policy practitioner, I am used to blaming governments, including my own, for global messes.

But in the case of Ukraine, I find myself realizing that the source of many of the problems besetting this fragile democracy is not only Russia or its president, Vladimir Putin. Part of the blame lies with...