To me, it’s not a matter of how heavily we should be involved. If we’re going to be involved, we need to do what it takes to win... and that needs to consider how other nations would respond. (I don’t recommend nuking Moscow, for example.)
The question is what our objectives should be. I’m not up for driving Russia back to the 2013 borders. That’d actually be an injustice for Crimeans. I’d probably be OK if they ended up with parts of the Donbas, but I figure we’d have to make sure that gain (or rather, normalization of the previous gains) were at such a high cost that Russia would never become aggressive again. I kinda THINK we’re at that point, actually. Russia’s military is fantastically depleted.
I guess the standard would be whether I could imagine Russia invading Estonia or Poland after this? Georgia makes this a messier standard. I can’t see them invading Poland, now, but could they invade Georgia on the pretext of settling the conflicts with South Ossetia and Abkhazia? (Those are two regions of Georgia currently in the same sort of frozen conflict as Donetsk and Luhansk were in Ukraine.) If they try to, do I care?
I want the US to guard our borders.
I could not care less about Russia’s borders.
“Start producing natural gas like crazy and see how quickly Russia calms the hell down.”
Not Poland. And not Estonia. Both are NATO. But I bet Putin sees Moldova as ripe for the picking.
I guess the standard would be whether I could imagine Russia invading Estonia or Poland after this? Georgia makes this a messier standard. I can’t see them invading Poland, now, but could they invade Georgia on the pretext of settling the conflicts with South Ossetia and Abkhazia? (Those are two regions of Georgia currently in the same sort of frozen conflict as Donetsk and Luhansk were in Ukraine.) If they try to, do I care?===
Poland has no Russians or Russian land. So no reason to invade Poland given she will not make any trouble by her behavior.
Estonia is like Finland before 1940. It took Narva the Russian town. If they give it up to Russia voluntarily then no reason to invade them too.
If Georgia will not attack S.Osetia and Abkhazia again like in 2008 then Russia will have no cause to interfere.