President Joe Biden has warned Americans they will have to pay a price for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Gas prices are likely to rise.
The post-World War II world order that has maintained relative peace in Europe is threatened.
But Biden has also been very clear on another point: US troops will not be sent to Ukraine to take part in the conflict.
When he announced sanctions against Russia for beginning its invasion on Tuesday, Biden took great care to make clear the US was not being aggressive toward Russia.
"Let me be clear: These are totally defensive moves on our part. We have no intention of fighting Russia," Biden said.
Earlier in February, Biden told NBC News he would not consider any scenario that included sending US troops to evacuate Americans in Ukraine.
"There's not.
That's a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another," he said.
While Biden's clarification that US troops would not become offensively involved can help avoid a conflict between the US and Russia, critics pointed out it also made clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his forces would face fewer obstacles in their invasion.
"Biden diluted our most important source of leverage in this crisis," Ian Brzezinski, former Pentagon official under President George W. Bush told the New York Times earlier this month.
US troops are in countries that border Ukraine
A major element of Putin's invasion is his fear that Ukraine could become part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, which was formed after World War II to contain the Soviet Union and has expanded in recent decades to include former Soviet bloc countries.
Ukraine borders the NATO member countries of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. If Russia threatened one of these countries, the US would be required by the agreement to defend them.
"We want to send an unmistakable message, though, that the United States, together with our Allies, will defend every inch of NATO territory and abide by the commitments we made to NATO," Biden said Tuesday.
He said something similar last week, in remarks from the White House, but he added clearly, "We also will not send troops in to fight in Ukraine, but we will continue to support the Ukrainian people."
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