> (The sheer suddenness of the flip on Russia, and its scale, surprises me. We didn't do it when they shot down a passenger jet, or carried out several terroris

> (The sheer suddenness of the flip on Russia, and its scale, surprises me. We didn't do it when they shot down a passenger jet, or carried out several terrorist attacks with chemical weapons outside the country, or when they supported Assad in Syria, or even the previous time Russia invaded Ukraine. Perhaps if something more graduated had been done earlier we wouldn't be in this position) Back then I was shocked that one can just invade and annex part of a country in Europe and virtually nothing happens. Sure, a few minor sanctions here and there, but really nothing that would have an effect. Obviously, the idea was to to appease Russia and try to involve it economically in order to ultimately have it become more liberal and democratic. If you look at Merkels actions in particular, she was using that exact playbook that the US had been using after WW2 in Europe and Germany in particular to great success, but failed in China, and also Russia. So I think all previous actions have to be seen under this strategy. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and direct lies on the diplomatic level before that ("just an exercise, won't invade, calling troops back" etc.) forced the West to concede that appeasement and economic inter-dependency as a strategy failed and that if Putin's Russia succeeds with the invasion in Ukraine, Eastern Europe will be next. So the strategy changed to "Putin cannot be allowed to win in Ukraine".