I think the difference with GB/Germany is that the West is unwilling to provide meaningful military support for Ukraine, in the form of troops on the ground. From Ukraine’s perspective I think this is the worst of both worlds, because the West won’t actually stand up the bully, but also isn’t willing to engage with it. This has resulted in war.
This is what I meant by Ukraine being in an unusual position: it is sufficiently West-aligned that it won’t give into Putin’s demands, and he wants to cause trouble, but its lack of Nato membership means that US, UK etc won’t actually provide the support it needs against Russia.
Or to put it another way, I think the current outcome is a form of appeasement because we aren’t actually willing to fight.
I’m not sure I would call giving weapons to Ukraine, sanctioning Russia, and hunting down war supporting Oligarchs’ assets as appeasement. It’s not the maximum response but it is an escalation of response to Putin’s attack. It might be enough to scare elites who support Putin without causing further escalation, which is dangerous since we are dealing with a country that has nuclear weapons, which wasn’t the case with the Nazi regime in WW2.
I think the difference with GB/Germany is that the West is unwilling to provide meaningful military support for Ukraine, in the form of troops on the ground. From Ukraine’s perspective I think this is the worst of both worlds, because the West won’t actually stand up the bully, but also isn’t willing to engage with it. This has resulted in war.
This is what I meant by Ukraine being in an unusual position: it is sufficiently West-aligned that it won’t give into Putin’s demands, and he wants to cause trouble, but its lack of Nato membership means that US, UK etc won’t actually provide the support it needs against Russia.
Or to put it another way, I think the current outcome is a form of appeasement because we aren’t actually willing to fight.
I’m not sure I would call giving weapons to Ukraine, sanctioning Russia, and hunting down war supporting Oligarchs’ assets as appeasement. It’s not the maximum response but it is an escalation of response to Putin’s attack. It might be enough to scare elites who support Putin without causing further escalation, which is dangerous since we are dealing with a country that has nuclear weapons, which wasn’t the case with the Nazi regime in WW2.
That’s fair, it’s not appeasement, but neither is it what people wanted of Chamberlain in WW2.