Putin knows that his lines of communication are close, ours are to far to do much. But the issue isn’t just Putin.
I don’t think he wants nuclear war. But quite frankly we start acting all macho next door to a superpower and it will happen. There are no good guys in this deal, none. A coup removed a legally elected government, and then a counter coup was launched in an area that didn’t really want to be part of the Ukraine anyway (and was forced to be during the Soviet era).
If Putin gets mad, all he has to do is shut down our supply lines to Afghanistan. Which by the way, runs through Russia. We made the Paks so mad they started joining in on the convoy attacks, and we cut a deal with Russia to allow supplies to our guys.
Start thinking strategy, stop thinking emotionally. Obama and Hagel lost this one, big time, but we have no abilities to project power in and around the Black Sea. It would be like Russia getting mad if we starting doing something they didn’t like in Nebraska. There isn’t any way to get there.
The Ukrainian Parliament, whose membership had NOT suddenly changed, LEGALLY impeached (in effect) Yanukovych, who had trampled all over the Ukrainian constitution, thrown his opoposition in jail via kangaroo courts, etc.
Behind the scenes, the same oligarchs to which the Ukraine Parliament has always answered, are still in place.
If the Parliament had been forcibly replaced in large numbers, then the tossing of Yanukovych (who’s election was probably fraudulent anyway), would have been illegal. But, that “if” did not happen. And... the last I heard, there were still many protesters in Maydan — not so much the neo-Nazis, but the same people who made up the bulk of the mass protests, wanting an end to the corruption. (By now, I’d think there would be large scale anti-Russian protests as well. Who can blame them?)
Now it is true that it is hard to find a Ukrainian politician who is not corrupt. However, some are more tyrannical than others.
Is Yulia Tymoshenko (probably a more important voice for Ukraine today than the entire present exec. branch) a Nazi?
That said, I still find all the propaganda and internal politics “noise” and essentially irrelevant, in the larger picture. What has been shown is that the US (and apparently most of its people) are dishonorable and won’t live up to a big time Security Assurance.
Our worthlessness is the real problem, as it will lead to NO US ally trusting us, a major arms race (nuclear in several cases), and most likely an eventual regional nuclear war (if we are lucky it stays that size), as conflicts break out as others move into the vacuum we leave behind. This is MUCH more likely than Putin deciding to use nukes in virtually any scenario immediately arising from this Ukraine situation.
You mean like Russia has no ability to project power in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua (and now) El Salvador?
We have many assets in the form of NATO members near and on the Black Sea, all of whom are seriously shaken by what Putin is doing. There are also ample opportunities to pressure Putin elsewhere, first of all with really hard economic sanctions and helping Ukraine, then attacking his client states (Syria) and going after other positions in Europe (Belorussia, Kaliningrad, Abkhazia and Ossetia). Afghanistan is a sideshow at the moment, and as far as I can tell we will have few (if any) troops there by the end of the year.
We don't lack the means: we lack the will.