Russia’s occupation of Crimea is one of the things a better-calibrated American position was supposed to prevent; Ukraine did have defense guarantees before then, so I’m extending the reasoning backwards to that point.
I claim the problem is that those guarantees were not sufficiently credible to prevent the Russian occupation; and then the response to the occupation was not successful in increasing credibility enough to prevent the full invasion.
At this point credibility seems critically low, and I don’t know how we can go about rebuilding it from here even if the people making American/NATO policy are persuaded that credibility is the thing to focus on.
Wouldn’t Ukraine want Crimea back, and wouldn’t that cause a war with Russia?
Russia’s occupation of Crimea is one of the things a better-calibrated American position was supposed to prevent; Ukraine did have defense guarantees before then, so I’m extending the reasoning backwards to that point.
I claim the problem is that those guarantees were not sufficiently credible to prevent the Russian occupation; and then the response to the occupation was not successful in increasing credibility enough to prevent the full invasion.
At this point credibility seems critically low, and I don’t know how we can go about rebuilding it from here even if the people making American/NATO policy are persuaded that credibility is the thing to focus on.