Gonna take a gamble here, and hope the professor recipricates with some civil mature dialog
Do I think the people of America want to see "troops on the ground in Ukraine"?...of course not. And contrary to popular leftist opinion, most conservatives don't like or want war, especially this RW conservative.
That said, the issue isn't doing things that will please the most amount of people, or more so offend the least amount of people. The issue is that leadership sometimes requires decisions made that are clearly not expected to be taken positively.....IF its the right thing to do.
The President represents America in so many ways. Their actions speak loudly. Credibility is everything to the Presidency. It may not be the popular thing to do, or the politically correct thing to do, but sometimes, decisions to either secure American interests, defend American allies, or yes, possibly a need to deter Hitler-like aggression needs to be on the table. That's what a leader is. That's what other countries and "groups" (read ISIS & other Islamic terrorists) are looking at...how is the U.S. going to respond. Are they going to be asertive, or are they just going to crawl into a corner and pretend the thread doesn't exist,...kinda like Chamberlain.
I don't know what the answer is, as far as military action. If I were President though, I wouldn't make idle threats that produces nothing but laughter from those pushing their military efforts against us or our allies. I wouldn't throw the credibility of the Presidency into the gutter, enabling precisely the expansion messers ISIS, Russia, and China are all now taking advantage of.
One thing is for sure, NONE of those 3 would be acting in this way, if Bush were still President