Agreeing to Russian security pledges was insanity at the time.

But it was cheap, easy, feel good, and all the demilitarization and peace dividend was a big political plus for a lot of politicians who'd never have to face the consequences but only the benefits.

Even now we have a military problem. Ukraine's using more artillery shells per day than we can make, meaning every shipment draws down supplies that we'd need for use elsewhere if anything truly bad happened. The assumption is that the bad thing(s) won't happen. But that was the assumption in '93 and '94, now, wasn't it? and that if we needed to, we could ramp up production quickly. Well, almost three years in and the "ramping up" of something like artillery shell production the US still uses decades old technology--even Europe's outclassed and surpassed us in that regard. Three years of "ramping up" with a large amount of money available for investment and we still are drawing down supplies.