Peace on Blood Credit

How Our Cowardice in Ukraine is Setting Us Up for a Blood Price We Can’t Afford

History has taught us this lesson repeatedly, yet we refuse to learn it: appeasement is not peace—it’s just borrowing time at an unbearable interest rate. And sooner or later, the blood price comes due.

The failure of the United States to stand by Ukraine—not just today under Trump, not just under Biden, but going back to Obama and the invasion of Crimea—isn’t just a failure of leadership. It’s a betrayal of our own word, a guarantee to other dictators that Western promises mean nothing, and a surefire way to escalate global conflict.

Ukraine’s territorial integrity was already settled. It was guaranteed. And it was guaranteed by us. That’s not opinion. That’s not speculation. That’s treaty law.

The Budapest Memorandum: Our Word Is Our Bond—Until It Isn’t

In 1994, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons—the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world—based on the assurances of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia. Under the Budapest Memorandum, these nations guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In other words, they made a deal: Ukraine disarms, and in return, we keep them safe.

Ukraine held up its end of the bargain. We did not.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the response from the United States and the UK should have been immediate and devastating. This shouldn’t have even been up for debate. We were bound—not just by moral obligation, but by an explicit agreement—to ensure Ukraine’s borders remained intact. Instead, we let Putin seize Crimea without serious consequences, proving that our guarantees are meaningless.

At that moment, Putin learned the lesson that every dictator craves to be true: America is weak. Western democracies are weak. We won’t act, and we won’t hold the line.

The Loan Shark of War: Borrowing Peace at an Unbearable Cost

To anyone hesitant about further U.S. support for Ukraine, consider this thought experiment:

Imagine what the cost would have been had we decisively stopped Russia in Crimea. Not just in money, but in lives. What would have been the human toll of a swift, overwhelming military response in 2014? Likely a fraction of what has already been paid in this full-scale invasion.

Now, we face the same decision again—but with a higher price tag. The cost of stopping Putin today, while greater than in 2014, will still be far less than the cost of the next war.

Because there will be a next war.

Appeasement is not a strategy. It is not "keeping the peace." It is delaying the inevitable, while guaranteeing the final conflict will be bloodier and more catastrophic. The more we appease Putin, the more we encourage his next move.

Appeasement is like borrowing peace from a loan shark.

Sure, it may feel like we’re buying some temporary stability. But the blood price we’ll pay down the line won’t just be higher—it will be exponential. And sooner or later, the debt will be collected.

This isn’t war hawk rhetoric. It’s the least war hawk argument there is. Because the greatest risk to world peace isn’t standing up to Putin—it’s pretending that if we close our eyes long enough, he’ll stop.

A History of Weakness: Obama’s Failure, Trump’s Betrayal, and Biden’s Slow Crawl

This failure to keep our word spans multiple administrations.

• Obama refused to act when Russia took Crimea. He talked about "red lines" and international norms, but when the moment came to enforce them, he balked.

• Trump not only continued the weakness—he actively emboldened Putin. He held up military aid to Ukraine in a crude extortion attempt and spent his presidency signaling that U.S. commitments to allies were meaningless. Now, he’s openly siding with Russia in his second term.

• Biden, though initially stronger, has since wavered. He sent aid when it was politically easy, but as the war dragged on, he let political calculations override the need for decisive action.

The result? Ukraine is being slowly bled out, forced to ration ammunition and weapons while Putin escalates, testing how far he can push before the West folds entirely.

The longer we wait, the worse it gets. The more we delay, the more it costs. And history will judge these leaders not just for their actions—but for their refusal to act when it mattered most.

The Cost of Appeasement: A World on the Brink

Those who cry about the risks of World War III should take a long, hard look at how we got into World War II. It wasn’t war hawks who pushed the world into that inferno—it was weak, feckless leaders who believed they could negotiate with a tyrant.

• The 1938 Munich Agreement, where Britain and France let Hitler dismember Czechoslovakia in exchange for “peace in our time.” Six months later, Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia. A year later, he invaded Poland.

• The Non-Aggression Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which greenlit Hitler’s expansion into Western Europe and Stalin’s own imperial ambitions.

• The slow, indecisive response of Western democracies, which let the Axis grow strong enough to engulf the world in war.

The world didn’t go to war because someone stood up to Hitler too soon—it went to war because they didn’t.

Putin has followed this playbook to the letter. Crimea in 2014. Donbas later in 2014 and 2015. The current full-scale invasion in 2022 that is still ongoing today, with Trump all but telling him he’s free to do as he pleases. What does anyone think happens next?

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Weakness Today Guarantees War Tomorrow

This is not a complicated situation. Either we act, or we embolden Russia. Either we stop Putin now, or he comes for another country next. Moldova. The Baltics. Poland. And at some point, NATO gets dragged in, and the war everyone claims to want to avoid becomes a reality anyway—but now, with an even stronger Russia.

And let’s be clear: We are not talking about sending American troops into Ukraine. Ukraine doesn’t need our soldiers. They need our weapons. They need our support. They need us to stop pretending this is optional.

People who claim the U.S. has no obligation here are either ignorant of history or deliberately dishonest. We do have an obligation. We put it in writing. And even if we hadn’t, the strategic imperative is obvious: stopping Putin now is far easier, cheaper, and less deadly than waiting for the next war.

Because the next war won’t be fought by just Ukrainians. It will be fought by us. And it will be because we chose cowardice over responsibility.

We are watching history repeat itself in real-time. The only question is whether we’ll stop it before it spirals out of control.

Final Thought

We are out of time to pretend this isn’t our fight. Appeasement is not peace—it’s a blood debt—and it will be collected.

So, decide: Do we pay that price now, or when it’s far too late?

Join the Fight, Amplify the Truth

Because silence is surrender. We never surrender. We are #TheRelentless.