Heedless of the precariously balanced state of the global economy, for the first time since the end of the cold war, Russia and the Western powers had engaged in a proxy war. Russia had announced that it would resist any further extension of Western influence and it had made good on that threat. For its part, the West was disunited. For all the saber rattling in Warsaw and Washington, there was neither the political will nor the resources to back up further eastward expansion.
