about the lessons of 1914 for today. It is crucial not to drive into “dead ends”, Mr Steinmeier went on, but to create “exits”.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21599410-angela-merkel-and-her-foreign-minister-crisis-throwback-worse-times-which-war

And yet Germany’s Russia policy under Mrs Merkel and her foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, will always be more nuanced than its more gung-ho allies would like. Mrs Merkel’s style of crisis management, as displayed during the euro crisis, is essentially incrementalist. Mr Steinmeier used to be Mr Schröder’s chief of staff and shared his approach. And both are fascinated, if not haunted, by history; having recently read the bestseller “The Sleepwalkers” by Christopher Clark, an Australian historian at Cambridge who speaks flawless German, they are determined not to repeat the mistakes of 1914.

Mr Clark’s protagonists are sleepwalkers because, in the weeks following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, they failed to communicate or change course, trapping themselves in seemingly inevitable cycles of escalation and mobilisation until disaster struck. On March 14th, in the Baroque atrium of Berlin’s German Historical Museum, Mr Steinmeier hosted a debate between Mr Clark and a German historian, Gerd Krumeich, about the lessons of 1914 for today. The most relevant one, said Mr Steinmeier, is what can happen when dialogue stops and diplomacy fails. It is crucial not to drive into “dead ends”, Mr Steinmeier went on, but to create “exits”.

Sanctions and other measures must come step by step, giving Mr Putin chance after chance to stop further escalation. Mrs Merkel and Mr Steinmeier have been speaking to Russia more than any other Western leaders, with nearly daily phone calls in recent weeks. No matter what happens, Germany will keep talking.