If the west helps too much then in 50yr the next Russian despot will take another crack at it when they think the west won't help.
[1] Barring the plausibly deniable arms shipments and clandestine training that the underdog in any sort of conflict like this gets. Nobody ever starts a war without their enemies sending aid to whoever they started it with. Anyone who's read their history already knows this.
Nation states don't do "precedents" when it comes to helping each other out. They do "what is good for me here and now and maybe on a future timeline I happen to care about". For democracies this timeline is short. For dictatorships and monarchies this timeline tends to be a little longer because nobody wants to leave a giant mess for their kid.
Sending in green beret advisors or the FFL isn't a "precedent". And everybody knows it. It's a one off based on the political realities of the minute.
The kind of political realities that lead to those sort of interventions are short lived decades long things at best.
In contrast, "our country, fuck off" is a solution that will likely live as long as Ukraine maintains some sort of national identity. Nobody's invaded Afghanistan twice.
There's about 3 anglo-afghan wars and the more recent invasion and occupation involving Britain.
There's earlier examples but I'm not sure if the place even fully existed as a concept back then.
In any case they sure aren't interested in wasting returning to the region.
Pretty much all the other colonial powers have a similar "nope, not our problem any more" attitude toward meddling portions of their sphere or influence that they left because the locals made staying too expensive.
Algeria is across the pond and the French want nothing to do with it. Contrast with Russia which is constantly poking and occasionally invading its former sphere of influence.
>Algeria is across the pond and the French want nothing to do with it.
The French are currently robbing the citizens of ~1/3 of all African countries through their central banks and they have assassinated 22 African presidents since ~1970.
I don't think you are qualified to discuss this topic in any depth, most of your earlier claims are patently false. I only picked this one to tear apart due to time constaints.
NATO is a nation state alliance built on mutual defense and strengthened by precedent. The precedent of defending allies is built into the NATO agreement.
> For democracies this timeline is short. For dictatorships and monarchies this timeline tends to be a little longer because nobody wants to leave a giant mess for their kid.
Great point on the different timelines, I have to disagree on the reason. Dictators/monarchies have a longer timeline because they tend to rule for much longer than leaders in democracies. By definition, democracies involve turning over the ideals and ideas of leadership every few years. Do you believe Putin is worried about leaving things to the daughters that he never mentions?