If Putin was signaling his own people, however, the fact remains that those forces now on higher alert are readying for combat with the United States and NATO. The missiles and bombers are pointed at us, not the people of Moscow. Putin is playing an insanely dangerous game here. He’s holding a weak hand and yet threatening to go all-in. This is yet more evidence that years of isolation, in which his only contact is with sycophants and security guards, has taken its toll on his mental state.

What should the U.S. do?

For now, the sensible, and confident, American answer should be to do nothing. This might seem counter-intuitive: The Russians have gone to an alert, and it would seem only prudent to answer this with a reciprocal raising of U.S. alert status. But this Cold War reaction is, I suspect, exactly what Putin wants. He’s in a jam and he’s trying to look strong, and part of the way he can do that is to turn his hare-brained scheme in Ukraine into a gigantic Russian-American confrontation. Putin would like nothing better than to take everyone’s mind off Ukraine and focus us all on a game of nuclear chicken.