There are so many other things we could do if we actually gave a crap. We could use our strategic petroleum reserves to tank the price of oil in the short term, while authorizing international sale of LNG and building the infrastructure on both sides to end their natural gas dominance in europe. We could pull out of the silly nuclear agreements Obama has negotiated with Putin and put Star Wars and nuclear testing back on the table. We could reposition NATO forces forward into the Poland, Romania and the Baltics and make every showing that we plan to leave them there permanently. We could coax Finland and Sweden into NATO and create a northern command with the Canadians and Scandinavians that’d be an irritant to Russian plans for the arctic. Etc, etc. There are a tons of ways to push back, without sending US forces on another foreign adventure. If we’re not even exploring the simpler options, what in the world would make people think we’d jump to something like this?
I like where you are going with your thinking. If you read the article, I think you would find that the author is in agreement with you. He does not advocate sending troops acutally into the Ukraine, but as you said into Poland, Romania and the Baltics. I also like the idea of Finland and Sweeden into NATO. Most importantly, we need to step up oil and natural gas production and start exporting to Europe. Hopefully enough Euroweenies will ditch their environmental disdain for fracking and start looking at pulling out some of their own natural gas via fracking. Get off the Putin gas lifeline so they can grow a spine and stand up to him.