So your point is that we're just as bad as the Russians? Not exactly a good sales tactic to get people to support spending hundreds of billions of dollars and 10s of thousands of lives to defeat them while risking nuclear war.

I'd say we should have followed Obama's advice, and many other western Cold War experts and left Russia's sphere of influence alone. Particularly we should not have crossed Russia's VERY clearly stated "red line" of integrating Ukraine into NATO.

It is not that I'm a fan of Russia or in particular Putin. I just live in the real world, where even if I might win a fight, the cost and the risk is not worth it.