While I assume they probably won't do anything, I genuinely am worried this time might be different and they might push into western Ukraine and sit rear-guard between Russia and Kiev which is an escalation, and declaration of war on Russia but one that invites Russia to fire the first bullet against them while they get to claim they were just sitting there peacefully.

Because in truth, growing up in the US and even becoming a Marxist for some time I was kind of ignorant of the full meaning and scope of these war games. I assumed them to just be posturing and a way for the defense industry to get paid for munitions in peacetime, but in reality in many places like occupied Korea, they are literally moments, an order away from crossing the line into a full on attack and invasion if intelligence suggests the enemy is no longer paying full attention and they think they have a good chance of killing the leadership and cutting off communications.

But I really do tend to doubt they will escalate at this point with the situation elsewhere unless they're really gunning for a new world war.