When Russia started violating “21st-century norms,” the West responded with 1930s-style anti-aggression sanctions. As the EU worked out what its sanctions would include, France made sure they excluded two Mistral helicopter carriers that France was building, for which Russia had already paid nearly a billion dollars.

The deadline for the carriers’ delivery to Russia was last September. As the deadline approached, France suffered a stroke of conscience and announced that it wouldn’t deliver the ships until there was a ceasefire, and movement toward a political settlement, in East Ukraine. The September deadline came and went. Russia demanded the ships; France wouldn’t budge. Russia gave the French a new, December 1 deadline to turn the Mistrals over. That deadline came and went as well.

What’s the big deal about helicopter carriers? Like Ukraine, each of the three Baltic countries — Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia — has a large ethnic-Russian population. NATO, and any number of geopoliticos in the U.S. and Europe, believe that after East Ukraine joins Crimea and northern Georgia in Russia’s new empire, Putin plans a pivot to the Baltics. Last September, Russia held an enormous war game along the Latvian and Lithuanian borders. About the same time, Russian spies crossed into Estonia, kidnapped an Estonian intelligence officer, and tossed him in prison. (Where he remains. Free Eston Kohver!)

Russia’s threat to the Baltics is backed up by its Baltic fleet, which is based in Kaliningrad, the Russian Baltic-coast enclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. Kaliningrad is the focus of new military investment.

Here’s the kicker: According to the wiki-leaked Stratfor analysis, if the Mistrals join Russia’s Baltic fleet, they will “[cut] deployment time [of Russian forces] to anywhere in the Baltic states from five days to 24 hours.”

So give the French credit; they’re taking a big financial hit in order to do the right thing. They will, evidently, repay Moscow’s money.

Surprisingly, the Russians — who have lost two carriers and, according to the Moscow Times, are stuck with “a special batch of Ka-52 attack helicopters” specially designed “to fill them” — have responded to France’s hard line with conciliation.

It’s a sad day when the U.S. gets lessons in courage from France.