I wouldn't worry too much John; after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think the American people at least are wary of overseas military involvement, and rightfully so. I say let the Europeans and Russians work this one out. As long as the Russians have nuclear weapons, they pose a potential threat to everybody, but their conventional military is no threat to those of us on this side of the Atlantic unless we're stupid enough to put soldiers in the Ukraine.
Regards,
Jason
We don't really have any choice because it's close to being a NATO problem. Whether we care to or not, we have binding security arrangements there. The problem is, no European country outside of France and the UK have spent anything on defence, and there is a general lack of will to do anything about Putin. It is probably pretty frightening how much he could get away with before anyone bothered to intervene. Bottom line is, most of central Europe is now NATO, and we have already said we would defend them as alliance partners. But would we? Really? The concern is Putin may be willing to find out.