What I personally care about, not just when it comes to Americans, is a bit more of a spine.
I’m a little shocked to hear this from a Latvian, as you guys got fucked up pretty hard by Operations Redskin and Meteor. Feels like an Italian pining for the days of Eisenhower’s GLADIO or a Cambodian saying how much they missed the foreign policy of Richard Nixon.
I’m sure Putin would break faster if the pressure was harder.
I’m not sure what additional pressure would look like. Part of the problem with trying to amp up pressure on Putin is that you do that by applying pressure to his allies. And if they break towards Putin because you showed up with too many sticks and not enough carrots, they’re that much less likely to side with you again in the future.
Estonia, Sweden and Finland have been getting a ton of carrots relative to Poland, Hungary, and Turkey. The Saudis know they are too critical to seriously threaten. The Israelis know they’ve got the Americans by the balls, so they can do whatever the fuck they like. Meanwhile, the BRICS (-R) - who never really had a dog in the fight to begin with - are finding fewer and fewer reasons to work with increasingly stingy and racist American diplomats.
Which direction do you really think South Africa would go if given an ultimatum? What about India, a country far more reliant on Russian gas imports than American exports? We already pissed off Brazil by playing footsy with Bolsonaro for four interminable years.
And when the international community sees Biden as a dead man walking into the next election, there’s far less confidence that he’ll be there to fulfill any kind of threat or promise relative to Putin or Xi, who aren’t going anywhere.