https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur...
Thus such agreements have become worthless.
Had the US said five days ago, "we will use our military to ensure the Budapest Memorandum is followed", and defended Ukraine when invaded, then in the future if a similar agreement was proposed the country would trust that it would be followed. They did not, and this means that no one will again enter into a similar agreement.
I'm not claiming that a US military intervention would be the "correct" thing to do, merely that it would be necessary to preserve worldwide trust in treaties similar to the Budapest Memorandum.
If you have neither of those things, you have no agreement at all.
Just because someone agrees to something in a contract doesn’t make it enforceable, and it’s even worse if the contract doesn’t specify what the consequences are for breaking it.
The first is a violation of the agreement, which is what Russia is doing currently.
The second is the lack of enforcement of the agreement against the above violator. If the other signatories enforced the agreement, then it would signal that the agreement is worthwhile, and other countries would be willing to enter into it.
Yes, of course Russia is the aggressor here and was the first to break the agreement. But the moment when these agreements become worthless, is when violations are not enforced, not when violations occur.