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[quote=Anonymous][quote]
Why wasn't Nato or UN already IN Ukraine the last few years given the Crimea debacle and takeover? [/quote]

The optimal strategy for protecting Ukraine over the last few years wasn't clear, and I still don't think it is clear.

After Crimea crisis, the options were 
(1) do nothing at all (no military) assistance whatsoever, 
(2) a massive and rapid increase of military assistance, or 
(3) something in between (1) and (2)

Had we used option (2) a few years ago, this probably would have accelerated Putin's invasion. Had we taken option (1), then Ukraine would have had a harder time fighting the invasion once it occurred. I believe we took approach #3, which, I think, was a reasonable approach to take, even though it didn't lead to the desired outcome.

To have successfully prevented the invasion, I think we would have to roll the clock back 20 years and, starting around 2001, employ an entirely different strategy. Either we would have needed to rapidly expand NATO all the way to Ukraine during the period in which Russia was quite weak, or, alternatively, we could have taken the opposite approach, designating all countries that border Russia as neutral territory in which neither Russia nor NATO would have forces and/or weapons systems. The goal would have been to change the basic character of the Russia/West relationship, aiming for a higher level of trust, and perhaps some cooperation (Russia did cooperate with NATO with respect to Bosnia peace-keeping). This would have been difficult, requiring a lot of diplomacy, and perhaps would have failed, but we have no way of knowing.

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