NATO should have gone away and we should have left Europe when the USSR disbanded. Instead NATO has been steadily moving east for 30 years now. NATO is not on Russia’s doorstep because Russia expanded. I have a son and two Grandsons in the Army and I am not over joyed about the prospects of them fighting Russians and God know who else to protect the corrupt Ukrainian grift operations of our ruling class. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is worth spit and I do not care what happens to either country. If they both were gone I do not think I’d care. I believe we should just stay out of this and concentrate on the multitude of problems we face like the invasion here at home.
Hardly the actions of an aggressive alliance. In fact, Putin rightly saw all these measures as signs of weakness.
If you want to argue the Europeans should take care of themselves, even my European relatives would agree. It's not that they won't, it's that they can't: despite the EU, Europe is still a set of squabbling nations that can easily be split against one another as Putin well knows.
So the question the US faces is whether it is worth it to keep making the defense commitment to Europe as it has been doing. I think allowing Europe's vast financial and technical resources to fall under the control of Russia and China would be a disaster for the US. But I also think we need penalties against NATO members who do not pull their weight like Germany: for example, tariffs on their imports to support US military commitments.
As far as any grifting involving Ukraine, I always chuckle about that considering they just passed a $1.7 trillion porkulus spending package that include more than $600 million in pork just as Richard Shelby's "retirement" gift.
They don't need Ukraine: they steal our money in broad daylight because they know there's not a darn thing we can do about it.