Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an emotional speech on the 21st of this month, made it clear that he believes Ukraine is a part of Russia.
In that document, the three parties made six commitments to Ukraine. In the most important of the pledges, they stated that they “reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”
To be clear, as Pifer notes, Washington did not extend a NATO-like guarantee, but the U.S. should nonetheless act vigorously, he argued, “because it said it would act if Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum.”
“That was part of the price it paid in return for a drastic reduction in the nuclear threat to America,” Pifer wrote. “The United States should keep its word.”
So far, the situation is not looking good for Ukraine. In 2014, Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and effectively sawed off the Donbas region. Neither the United States nor Britain imposed crippling costs on Russia for naked aggression.
“Boy, after this, nobody is going to give up nuclear weapons,” Arthur Waldron of the University of Pennsylvania told Gatestone. As Waldron suggests, American policy toward Ukraine provides a horrible example.
Biden’s threats have been unpersuasive and so far Putin has not been persuaded.
“The Biden administration has only belatedly—and half-heartedly—undertaken measures to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine,” says Waldron. “Long ago, the President should have given heavy weapons to Kyiv. And he has not substantially reinforced Europe.”
Since the Cold War, American policy toward Russia has been premised on the notion that a weak Russia was more of a threat to the United States than a strong one. As a result of that assessment, Putin has not had to face an America willing to use power to enforce norms.
Whatever the merits of Washington’s tolerant and indulgent approach may have been—I think it was horribly misguided—Putin used this latitude to break apart neighbors and redraw the map of Europe and the Caucasus region with force. It is now time for the United States, to remember the promises made—those in writing and those made informally.
Putin, after all, will not stop at Ukraine.