No. The leaders should have done less talking and more warmongering. This is something that the West consistently fails to get, but it's very simple: the only thing that counts is what's done, and not what's been told. Talk is cheap.

You don't need to fire a single shot, you only need to move the units closer to the border, so aggresor needs to keep some of his units on his own territory "just in case".

Yeah, it would be nice if we lived in a world, where we can solve problems without involving the army at all, but it's not here yet.