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Is Ukraine a US state? Do they pay taxes? Can we conscript their sons to go die for the protection of our nation?
Russia invaded Ukraine. They don’t invade The United States, they didn’t threaten to invade The United States.
They don't pay taxes, but the view of the people running the US is that there's a substantial benefit for the US in defending the rules-based international system*, that in the long term is probably worth substantially more in dollar terms than the cost of funding Ukraine. Maybe they're wrong but it's still largely an economic calculation, not a decision based on abstract philosophical principles for their own sakes.
*Rules that the US sets and gets to break, before anyone comes with examples of the US being hypocrites on this front.
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You sure about that?
Furthermore, if Russia were to have encountered no opposition in the forceful seizure of Ukraine, how long would it be before they went after the Baltics? Poland? Eventually we wouldn't be able to stand on the sidelines any more.
Actually, they'd just stop there and not go any further. They had specific reasons for getting involved in the Ukraine that aren't there for Poland and the Baltics. I don't even think they're going to want to retain control over Ukraine in the end either - I think they're going to want to turn it into a thoroughly dysfunctional rump state that's utterly unable to credibly threaten Russia or prevent them from interfering in internal domestic affairs.
If you want an example of a military force that forcefully seized territory and was then emboldened to claim more, you're going to have much better results looking at the Middle East - who owns the Golan Heights again?
Who owns the Sinai?
Besides, the salient fact about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t that it was considered strategically necessary by a solemn council of Russian foreign policy elders. It’s that Putin, in his own writing and speeches and interview (eg Tucker) clearly considers part of a multigenerational plan to restore Russia to greatness that has no clear territorial bounds, and which might reasonable include at least some more of the Russian Empire of his youth and early employment, which stretched all the way to the West German border.
At the least pacifying the Baltics would be very much strategically valuable and I think it’s ridiculous to suggest he hasn’t thought about it.
Could you please provide some examples and quotes of Putin talking about his desire to Make Russia Great Again by bringing back the empire? I've read multiple interviews and talks with him and don't recall him making similar claims in any of them. I'm entirely willing to believe you, I just want to see some evidence - most of the sources I've seen describing Russian politics in this area believe that Putin is actually more restrained and less eager for conflict than most of the people waiting in the wings behind him.
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You can't just claim everything to be a step onto a slippery slope without evidence and/or concrete arguments. There are plenty of instances in world politics of actors doing a particular thing with ease and not proceeding to attempt every other action that is somewhat similar to it: the US rolled over Iraq but did not proceed to invade Iran, the Russians waltzed within something like 30km of Georgia's capital and then just turned around and went home, ...
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