Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[TheCurmudgeon]

In part:

To date only the USA has deployed to Poland a F-16 squadron; which may have been a planned deployment before the crisis started.

Sadly no other NATO member has also deployed. I exclude the NATO AWACS patrolling, which is not even using bases in Poland.

...

To date not much imagination on show, albeit on my limited reading.

At a minimum I would have expected a carrier group and a Marine MEU to be moved somewhere close, either the Baltic or the Eastern Med.

The EU, Great Britain, and the U.S. pride ourselves on the belief that our military activities are always founded in some legal principle. So unless we are directly threatened, we probably cannot militarily affect things on the ground.

Polish troops could easily cross the border. If they were attacked by the Russians it would constitute and attack on NATO. That would seem to have a chilling affect on Putin, but his psychology may read it as a threat and cause him to escalate. It just seems like, while the Ukrainians are taking the threat seriously, no one else is.

It could be that we only get the news from one side, but I am a little confused by how the NATO military side of events is playing out .