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You and Biden are recommending actions as if Putin is now rolling tanks through Paris or Warsaw. In fact, the buffer around Russia has shrunk to almost nothing, thanks to Bush-Clinton-Obama-Biden.

This is not 1946, 1968, or 1982.

Biden and NATO have brought NATO aggression to Russia’s doorstep. And not to mention Ukraine’s government is full of neo-Nazis. You’re making worst-case assumptions Putin has any other intentions than allowing the self-determination of the Donbas, which has been taking military hits from Ukraine for 8 years.

The point is that none of this is worth one bit of US interest, other than helping to broker peace - and to ensure this nuclear madman power doesn’t have its saber-rattling nuclear enemy (NATO) within a few dozen miles of its major cities.

In addition, we have no money whatsoever to spend on any of this. WE ARE TOTALLY BROKE. Again, it’s not 1982 anymore.

You are very naive if you believe Russia gives a flip about Donbas other than stealing land and resources. Russia threatens the USA now more than in 1982. The Speaker of the Duma even talks of reversing the “illegal” transfer of Alaska. They brag constantly of their ability to “win” a nuclear war. The Donbas takes no military “hits” from Ukraine. The Donbas is Ukraine as my friends and family there can tell you. Russian crimes in the Donbas are unspeakable and precede 2014.

Keep in mind that in return for Ukraine giving up its post-Soviet nuclear stockpile, Russia pledged not to use force against Ukraine, a promise that was endorsed by the US and NATO. In my view, Putin and Russia were indulged far too long in their aggression against Ukraine, with the result that much of the world is drawing a dangerous lesson: against aggressive neighbors, nukes are the way to go, not pledges of help from the US and other powers.

As for the US being broke, that raises an issue that intersects with the Ukraine war in one respect that is little mentioned: the role of the dollar as the global trade and reserve currency. That is what permits the US to finance its massive public debt with foreign borrowing.

No small part of the reason for the dollar's value is that the US is a global military and political power. Maintaining that role and the dollar's value implicitly requires that we act as the global policeman against economically disruptive aggression. And, contrary to what you seem to think, the cost of helping Ukraine is a pittance compared to the value to the US of the dollar's role as a trade and reserve currency.