War with Russia won’t look anything like Vietnam. Not even remotely close.
As we have seen in the Ukraine. Ethnic Russians do not wait until fired upon, to fire back. They know, after having suffered many invasions, that you must always keep the initiative, whenever possible. So I would expect them to respond in another part of the world, if their hands are more or less tied up in Ukraine. Perhaps one of the Balkand states. And this is not supportive of Russia, just wild guesses as to how they will react.
And this is now the third position Obama has now taken with respect to the Malaysian plane shoot down.
#1 - Horrible tragedy. Looks like Russia did it.
#2 - We find no evidence Russia was involved.
#3 - We are sending Pentagon advisers to Ukraine.
#4 - He will end up taking the worse possible decision with respect to the Malaysian plane incident.
My guess at this point in time is that Obama cannot make any decisions. Especially tough ones. So we have a group of advisers running the Presidency. Could be as many as 12.