When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he was confident that this new assault on the rules-based international order would not be met with serious pushback—and with good reason. For more than a decade, Putin had gotten away with this type of aggressive behavior. From land grabs in Georgia and Ukraine to war crimes in Syria, from interference in other countries’ domestic politics to murder within and outside Russia’s borders, his list of crimes was long, but Putin never paid a substantial political or economic price for his offenses.
Putin learned this lesson after invading Georgia in 2008. Russia’s goal was to overthrow the democratically elected government of Mikheil Saakashvili and install a puppet regime. It was the first time since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 that Moscow had invaded another country. Georgian resistance and Western support helped stop Russia from establishing full control over the country, but after a five-day war, Moscow still managed to seize territory from Tbilisi. Despite this, the West did not make Russia pay for violating another country’s sovereignty when the war was over. No economic or political sanctions against Russia followed. Instead, the United States and its allies soon looked for ways to reset their policies with the Kremlin, hoping to improve relations in the service of other goals. Yet accommodation only encouraged Putin to further harass Russia’s neighbors, repress his people, and undermine security and stability in Europe.
