The US and western Europe. While everyone blames the US, there are a lot of countries in Europe that prefer the US to Russia and are doing their own thing. They have a lot of lose if Russia takes over Ukraine.
Explain to me why this is not a European led effort? The US is thousands of miles away from this Russian border dispute.
France is always banging on about how Europe should be more respected / have a stronger defense story.
Russia has a much much BIGGER trade relationship with Europe. Where is the EU? They literally are not even in the meetings, it's kind of comical.
So the countries that are a) close, b) have economic relationships that matter etc are silent and the US administration is strutting around saying they are going to put a gun to Russia's head or whatever.
The parallel would be if Russia was going to put a missile system in Cuba, and the US just sat around, and Turkey or some country thousands of miles away started negotiating over it with Russia. Hell no - the US would be front and center in that negotiation
And BTW - this happened - the Cuban missile crisis. And the US WAS front and center there.
Russia seems to have gotten clean away with Crimea. Are there similar underlying divisions in Ukraine? Ie, a russian speaking portion and a more western half? That is exactly the type of thing they are good at exploiting, and the on the ground support for the US in part of the country may not be robust. That's a bad mix for foreign policy intervention.
I'm really hoping Biden has is head screwed on straight for this one.
I doubt Europe was out of the loop, but nothing more is clear.
They could be a bystander only informed of things (which brings up your questions).
They could be letting/making the US lead for their own reasons. The following come to mind: they don't want to be seen as in charge - the US is drawing any negative attention. They can't agree on leaders and the US is better than "the other country". They want to make the US look good for reasons.
Russia could be giving all credit to the US for various reasons.
I have no idea what the truth is. It might be one of the above, it might not (my guess).
