"I do think this is a very protracted conflict … measured in years," Milley told Congress. "I don't know about a decade, but at least years, for sure."

As our first response, said Milley, we should build more military bases in Eastern Europe and begin to rotate U.S. troops in and out.

Yet this sounds like a prescription for a Cold War II that America ought to avert, not fight. For the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, while a declared goal of US policy, is not a vital US interest to justify risking a calamitous war with Russia.

Proof of that political reality lies in political facts.

For 40 years of the Cold War, Ukraine was an integral part of the Soviet Union. In 1991, Bush I warned Ukrainian secessionists, who wanted to sever ties to Russia, not to indulge such "suicidal nationalism."

And though we brought 14 new nations into NATO after 1991, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama never brought in Ukraine.

Indeed, during the seven weeks of this war, President Joe Biden has refused to transfer to Ukraine the 28 MIG-29s that Poland offered to make available, if the US would replace the Polish MIGs with US fighter jets.