No one paying attention is complaining. They didn't see exactly this exact sequence coming until it was all in motion, but they also aren't surprised. The peopl

No one paying attention is complaining. They didn't see exactly this exact sequence coming until it was all in motion, but they also aren't surprised. The people most surprised are: the businesses that invested so heavily in Russia, the people who swore that capitalism would have made Russia adopt democratic institutions, those who were convinced that Russia wanted to stop having unstable government and economy, and certainly the true believers of democracy who just aren't prepared, ever, to admit democracy didn't take hold and instead a kleptocracy sank its teeth into Russia, and the Russian people just shrugged rather than revolting. What if the U.S. had changed policy, following the Munich speech? Announce Russia is becoming autocratic, expressing imperialistic aspirations, is directly contradicting its obligations under the UN Charter, Budapest memorandum and other treaties, and therefore is a major thread to world peace? What then? The U.S. would have been accused of thwarted Russia, trying to prevent it from finding its own path to global world order, and self-determinism. Certainly China and almost certainly India would have scoffed at what they would have seen is an overreaction. China and India right now can't even get on board with saying what Russia has done is wrong and should withdraw. So instead the policy was to give everyone enough rope, and oh look they just hanged themselves. A lot of these kinds of things just have to play out before anyone takes either ideas or the new reality seriously. Governments and businesses just aren't going to make big changes to policy because some policy wonks listened carefully to the speech of an envious leader of a 3rd rate power, and think he's going to make a major play for imperialism. They'd be laughed out of the room because it's that dangerous and chaotic to do it, not least of which it's bad for Russia so why do it?