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Notes -
I mean, the Budapest Memorandum could have been made a real paper (just as 'protector of Orthodox Christians' was a thin excuse to meddle in the Ottoman Empire) but Obama chose to not pick it up, and Biden after him. The Monroe doctrine doesn't exist on any formal treaty or legislation but if any European decided to invade a South American country Uncle Sam would magically appear regardless of the lack of justification to do so.
'Law' in this case was just the pretense of legality: if the Americans really wanted to go down to the mat for Ukraine, they'd have manufactured a reason to do so. They didn't, so they fell on the 'do nothing' side of strategic ambiguity.
Nowhere does the Budapest Memorandum suggest that the United States would intervene on Ukraine's behalf outside of complaining to the UN about it (which, I suppose, could in theory lead to US involvement – but of course guess who has veto power on the security council?)
Now, as you say, the US could manufacture a reason. They could invoke the Russian violation of the memorandum as a cause for war (although by that logic US violations of the memorandum would also be a valid casus belli for Russia to declare war on the United States). But I think Americans really do not want to go down to the mat for Ukraine because we would prefer not to see Rammstein nuked and thousands of Americans dead, even as a merely "plausible" outcome.
And, on that note, do you know who else would prefer not to see Rammstein nuked? Germany! Supposing the US went to the mat for Ukraine – we might not be able to get all of NATO onboard and could even see a situation where places like Germany deny the US overflight rights like France has in the past. Do you know how difficult it would be to support Ukraine if continental NATO balked? Without Turkey's participation our ships would be barred from the Black Sea, our land access would be cut off if Eastern European states decided not to play ball (to be fair, Poland seems one of the states most likely to cooperate in this scenario) and Denmark could probably also shut off US access to the Baltics.
I'm not sure what's exactly the most likely outcome here, but while Europe now is talking a big game about helping Zelensky, I remember when Germany had to be browbeaten to send Leopards. I'm not sure what the other NATO states would do if the US had decided to go to war in 2022, but I doubt they would all have lined up to join.
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