Ukraine-Russia War
Reality check, telling as it is, pragmatic analysis:

I was watching Piers Morgan yesterday and a Ukrainian panelist was lecturing the panel about the Budapest Memo and all the ways Russia broke the accord. And then she went on about Ukraine being a democratic European nation with free citizens. And then she went on to say they demand security assurances and require additional US aid because they just know they can drive Putin out. And then she demanded to know what exact security assurances are we willing to give to Ukraine to keep Russia honest. Citing the 1994 Budapest Memo where Ukraine traded their nuclear weapons for security assurances, she spoke the same sense of desperate entitlement, much like how Zelensky spoke to Trump in the Oval Office.

An American panelist effectively countered the war is lost and Ukraine lost, you can’t drive Putin out no matter how much aid we give you, there are no secuirty assurances where you get the same diplomatic rights as a NATO ally, and we have no interest in fighting a stalemate proxy war on your behalf.

And more importantly the American people don’t care other than we don’t want our money invested if there’s no benefit to us.

There’s a new sheriff in town. Get used to it. This is the reality. That’s how Americans feel now. That’s the message.

All of this is to say that the Ukrainian panelist sounded a lot like my Navajo friends who bemoan all the 19th century treaties signed with America and how we owe them everything promised in those treaties. The Navajo treaties were signed to fulfill Manifest Destiny and were never serious documents. The Budapest Memo was to make nice with Russia to facilitate the end of the Cold War.

The Budapest Memo was signed in 1994. There’s a diplomatic naivety believing the world map became static and immutable 31 years ago and security assurances would be guaranteed forever and ever, especially for a non-NATO nation.

The Budapest Memo was a diplomatic document created to solve a specific problem in 1994, not 2025. The problem now in 2025 requires new diplomacy. Best to consider the warranty is void on the Budapest Memo and work with today’s reality.

The Navajo treaties, the Budapest Memo, these addressed diplomatic obstacles of their time. These security assurances were never going to be honored so it’s best to stop bringing it up and work with the real situation. Yes, Putin is the aggressor who invaded a democratic nation and that’s horrible. But it really doesn’t change anything and there will be no justice, only an end to the killing and war. That’s not an untenable trade off.