The main reason sanctions wont be effective is the priorities of capital to access markets. Capital can live with Putin or any autocrat.
And then there's this. Ukraine struck a deal in '94 to give up it's nukes in order to protected from Russia and the USA and they were left flailing in the wind by the very same countries that promised to protect them. Ukraine’s nuclear regret: A look back at when and why Kyiv gave up its arsenal
And the lesson of Ukraine is one reason that North Korea will never give up its nukes and Iran will continue the process of developing its own nukes and by the way Iran is now much closer to having its own nukes now than it was when Trump tore up the agreement.
Not a good look. Not holding up to our side of a deal like that is, again, more bad optics. Question, though. If that was being done & was negotiated like that, then why in the world were they not admitted into NATO at THAT point for the umbrella of protection? Just to keep things from being muddied like now? Because now if the US/UK (think they were involved too) don't keep their word, why would folks trust them again ever in a similar situation?
The biggest take away I got out of it is Biden a) Was not willing to commit any military support to Ukraine and b) Was not willing to concede anything to the Russians when we went to the negotiating table. Either a) Biden and his handlers are fools or b) They wanted Russia to invade Ukraine. B seems more likely because now they can shift the blame for Biden's economy from Biden to Putin and Ukraine. Smart diplomacy would have been to concede Ukraine will never be a member of NATO as a bargaining chip so that the result of the past couple of days does not happen.
We have lived up to our side. People for some reason think of the Budapest Memorandum as a mutual defense pact, but it’s not. The signatories agreed to not attack Ukraine themselves and to respect its political and territorial sovereignty (which Russia has obviously violated). In the event of an attack on Ukraine by another nuclear power, what the Memorandum obligates the signatories to do is not to militarily protect Ukraine, but to immediately seek UN Security Council Action (which the US and UK have sought, but no UN action will ever happen because Russia is a permanent Security Council member).
Republicans supporting Putin will, unfortunately, now be sound bites and rallying cries too. I think Biden overestimated his pull/statesmanship regarding Putin. Putin doesn't care and now China & India, 2 massive economies, will help them out. Biden's/NATO sanctions will have no teeth because it's too much of an economic debacle to fully sanction India & China. If he was hoping to shift the focus, yeah there's some shift & Republicans are digging themselves into a hole here. But if more & more is put out there that the US promised actual help (not just sanctions) and backed out...it's another black eye after Afghanistan. Edit - corrected by above poster that it's not direct military aid that was promised. Thanks.
Thanks for the clarification. I went and looked and apparently Russia is the February head of the Security Council so anything brought up would need to be in March? Does being on the council automatically keep you from getting acted on?
The UN Charter requires non-procedural votes of the Security Council to have affirmative votes from all five permanent members who are participating. So unless Russia either votes to take UN action against itself, or abstains from the Security Council vote, it has veto power over action by the Security Council.
Assuming Russia is the proper country to receive the USSR’s veto…something Ukraine is preparing to challenge. Yes, I know that’s a really, really long shot. But I like their spunk on going after Russia in the UNSC.
I just got an NYT push that the Kremlin says it is ready for talks with Ukraine. Not sure what to make of it tbh.
Or option c) the reality that putting boots on the ground to defend Ukraine is only supported by 26% of the U.S. public, a highly unpopular course. Whereas fortifying NATO is the consensus move. I’m not sure where you are getting the ideas we aren’t supporting Ukraine. The U.S. has sent them billions of dollars in military aid and assistance, even with the corrupt Trump in office there were shipments (you might recall he was impeached for trying to use military aid in an extortion attempt to help his own election chances!). I don’t think it matters how much money we send at them, it was going to be an insurgency. The calculation is probably that once the troops leave (and at some point those ruskies have to leave), the people of Ukraine will oust whatever crooked government the Russians put in. Just as they did in 2014. The Russians will have to hold Ukraine with force if they want it, and that comes at a price. Rolling in their tanks is the easy part. How do they hold it?
