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Notes -
It sucks to be proven right, but yes, saw it coming.
I'll propose an alternative and much simpler explanation.
«Credibility» is a measure of some quality that may be state capacity or its close relative. No party is willing to just throw a fight when challenged; some parties are unable to muster the energy and so get forced into concessions, having degenerated politically even without equivalent declines in other respects. Leaving aside blatantly irrational commitments, it is useful to wave that capacity around and remind people that not only are you rich and armed but you can deliver the payload. Americans have done that with Afghanistan, and then they've done it again by noping out of the polygon rendered useless before their empire crumbled.
You have to start with those fundamentals of «rich» and «armed» though.
The size of the fight in the dog matters, but weight classes exist for a reason. Russia is (was) what, 1.5% of global GDP? Russia can commit 100% of itself (or can it?). Fine, everyone else can commit too, and they see no reason to let go. As a result, the fight is depended by the [economic and political] size of the dog, nnd «credibility» ends up on the side of /r/CredibleDefense regulars.
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