I think GP means that Europe didn't intervene when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and, more generally, has done its best to limit rearmament until now. And we're going to pay for it by having a war against Russia that we might have avoided had we projected more strength.
The precedent being France and UK that were so disgusted by war after WWI (and recall that France was the historical biggest warmonger among Western nations at least since the second half of the Hundred Years War) that they didn't react to Nazi Germany annexing Austria, then invading Sudetenland, and in fact not even when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Had they reacted earlier, WWII might have been avoided.
The precedent being France and UK that were so disgusted by war after WWI (and recall that France was the historical biggest warmonger among Western nations at least since the second half of the Hundred Years War) that they didn't react to Nazi Germany annexing Austria, then invading Sudetenland, and in fact not even when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Had they reacted earlier, WWII might have been avoided.