Putin’s behavior reveals a certain systematic response to actions by other nations. Parallels exist between Putin’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and his 2022 invasion of the rest of Ukraine. (Crimea is part of Ukraine.)
At least two events seem to have led up to the 2014 invasions: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “reset” presentation to Russian diplomats and President Obama’s “red line” pronouncement regarding the conflict in Syria.
In March 2009, Clinton presented an electrical switch on a piece of wood to Russian diplomats. It was a red-button-type mechanism, the type often used for emergency stopping factory equipment. It bore a label which was intended to say “reset” in Russian. The presentation was botched in several ways: the safety-switch hardware expressed emergency procedures, not deliberate rebooting; the translators had chosen the wrong Russian word, and so the label read something like “overload” or overwork; the label itself was written in the letters of the Roman alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet. The hoped-for symbolism disappeared in a confused and blundered gesture.
Clinton had hoped to communicate that there would be a “reset” in Russo-American relations. Instead, she communicated incompetence. It is not clear why America would desire a reset, given that the U.S. had been able to gain some leverage on Russia during the tenure of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from January 2005 until January 2009.
In an August 2012 press conference, President Obama stated that if the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons, that would constitute the crossing of a “red line” and that there would be “enormous consequences” from the U.S. if such a line were crossed. Obama was quite clear, repeating the phrase “red line” again during the press conference. When the Syrian government did, in fact, use chemical weapons, Obama failed to issue the “enormous consequences” he’d assured the public that’d implement.
These two incidents showed to Putin that the U.S. was not ready to oppose Russian military aggression, and so the Russian Ground Forces invaded Crimea in 2014.
Similarly, the collapse of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan in 2021 was a signal to Putin that Russia could invade Ukraine in 2022 without significant U.S. resistance.
Another factor which Putin considered was the U.S. failure to commit to assisting in Ukrainian defense. In the 1990s, when Ukraine surrendered its nuclear weapons, American diplomats issued an “assurance” that the U.S. would help Ukraine defend itself if needed. In diplomatic jargon, an “assurance” is not a guarantee or binding treaty. Had the U.S. signed a treaty guaranteeing its willingness to assist in Ukrainian defense, then Putin would have considered that factor before attacking in 2022.
