I lived for thirty-three years in the United States, where I observed Reagan, Bush senior, Clinton and Bush junior launch half a dozen wars, the 9.11 terrorist attacks, and the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis….I had never experienced such strong emotions --intense hatred and disdain for Russia and Vladimir Putin. The U.S. airwaves and print media are filled with bluster -- hysterical calls for punishing their enemy. There has been nothing like this!

Charles Krauthammer heaped abuse not on Putin, but on Obama for being too weak in his dealings with Putin. He urged Obama to send a naval flotilla to the Black Sea. The Pentagon did send a guided missile destroyer there: the USS Truxtun. But a lone destroyer doesn't look like the United States is looking for a fight. Recall that around a quarter of a century ago, in 1988, two U.S. war ships, the destroyer Caron and cruiser Yorktown, were rammed by two much smaller Soviet frigates inside disputed Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea, near the port of Foros and were forced to leave. No such incident, one would hope, will happen again.

The Pentagon is also sending six F-15 jets and one KC-135 refueling aircraft to join patrols in the Baltic Sea. A further dozen F-16 fighters will be deployed soon. And the Turkish Air Force scrambled six F-16s after a Russian surveillance plane flew along its Black Sea coast. Georgia also sent four planes this week. But these actions are on such a limited scale that they look more like isolated incidents and don't add up to something that would turn the Cold War into a hot one.