The West Could Have Prevented The Russo-Ukrainian War, But Didn't

Not every war is unnecessary or avoidable, but history might well judge the Russo-Ukrainian war as both, not least because the United States and its European allies could have prevented it, but didn't.

The decision to go to war was Russia's, and Russia bears ultimate responsibility for what happens now.

The West should have also considered the folly and recklessness of floating the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine, something no serious person ever thought Russia would accept without going to war to prevent it.

Instead, for years now the West has encouraged Ukraine to take a hard line on Russia, with false promises that the U.S. and NATO would stand up to Moscow and defend Ukraine when it came down to it, or that Ukraine would become a NATO member and thus secure its untenable borders.

As the political scientist John Mearsheimer argued back in 2016, the West has been leading Ukraine "Down the primrose path, and that the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked. What we're doing is encouraging the Ukrainians to play tough with the Russians. We're encouraging the Ukrainians to think they will ultimately become part of the West, because we will ultimately defeat Putin and we will ultimately get our way, time is on our side."

You don't tacitly commit to defending Ukraine from Russia while simultaneously making your nation energy dependent on Russia, as Germany and other European powers have done over the past decade, or flood your financial sector with billions from Russian oligarchs, as London has done.

For many years, the U.S. and its NATO allies knew that revisionist powers like Russia and China were unhappy with the post-Cold War international order, determined to revise it according to their strategic ambitions.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/25/the-west-could-have-prevented-the-russo-ukrainian-war-but-chose-not-to/