Not, strictly, “nothing”. But “massive and targeted sanctions” aren’t going to cut it. Back in 1994, the west managed to get Ukraine to give up all its nuclear weapons. Weapons that would be deterrent to a Russian invasion we’re seeing now. In the Budapest declarations the west guaranteed protection to Ukraine — if Ukraine was attacked they would go straight to … the UN Security Council(!). Yeah, right. That’ll do the trick. Not. What with Russia on the Council with veto power, and its current President.
So the Ukraine is alone. And the west doing nothing except sanctions, which so far have been underwhelming. Just as the US led the west to abandon Afghanistan, with literally nothing, except the Taliban. Putin noticed.
China is watching all this with interest. After all, if this is how feckless the west is, maybe bring forward the invasion of Taiwan. There will be no pushback except “massive and targeted sanctions”. Which with China willl be even less useful than against Russia. Given that one upside of the pandemic for China has been moving to be ever more self-sufficient. While the US is increasingly losing ground to the Chinese nave, as we noted here yesterday.
ADDED: by the way, on the Ukraine nuclear issue, I remember the debates in the mid nineties. Arguing most powerfully for Ukraine to keep its nuclear arsenal, specifically as deterrent to Russia, was Chicago prof John Mearsheimer, who I’ve mentioned on this blog from time to time. He of the Realist school. Not the honey-dopey school. Turns out he as right. And all the “peace dreamers” wrong. (Cue here UN Secretary General Gutierrez asking Putin to “give peace a chance”!)
