The Age of Deliberate Ambiguity in Politics

For the last two decades, the corollary to giving Russia a "voice without a veto" in Euro-Atlantic security affairs has been to offer Russia's neighbors a "pledge without power"--to make promises which appear to convey binding security guarantees but without creating the mechanisms for their enforcement.

[...]

The promiscuous usage of the term "partner"--to suggest a quasi-alliance relationship with a country without any formal treaty guarantees--has been particularly problematic. States like Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan offered military forces in support of U.S.-led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, believing in a transactional approach to international relations--that their willingness to put forces to fight and die alongside U.S. troops in the Greater Middle East created a reciprocal obligation of the United States to, in turn, guarantee their own security.

  National Interest

Fooled them, didn’t we?

This brings us to the question of the legal standing of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the United States (along with the United Kingdom and Russia) pledge to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine. This promise was an important incentive in getting Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. [...] It was never ratified by the Senate and it offers no security guarantees whatsoever to Ukraine.

I wonder who’s sorry now.