Maybe it would not have worked anyway, but fanning the flames directly (at the cost of numerous precedents of international law breach) is irresponsible - and is predictably stoking tensions with Russia: but maybe that was the real goal. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
The current situation on the ground was not in a crisis mode.
At that particular moment in time, yes that's true. But the trend was looking bad and there's not many good recent precedents in that area to call on to reassure anybody that the lack of crisis would continue.
So it was a case of do something or do nothing. We've tried "do nothing" in that region before and it didn't work out well. We can argue for ever and a day, and god knows I feel like I have, about what actions might have been for the best, but it comes back to the problem there isn't a best, just a range of "least worst". What we did was amongst the range of least worst. keep to the Fen Causeway
