Well - it may be time to consider a news flash:
The Cold War is over, the USSR has collapsed and Putin is not dumb enough to start WW3.

Putin and what is left of the former USSR have more important problems - like transitioning a huge country into a free market capitalist economy, the Crimea and Ukraine being mere side shows and cheap headlines for the western media hacks. If they in fact "interfered" in the USA election that was self inflicted  - all part of the diplomatic underbelly.

Our modern conflicts are terrorism and economic. The first not subject to traditional military intervention, the latter a game that has been going on since the first cave man discovered gold. Perhaps it is in fact time to reconsider the purpose of NATO - $$billions of money spent on a massive military that is in fact not apropriate to present world diplomacy. Trump's bull in a china shop manners aside - NATO may no longer meet our security priorities in the ME, problematic including for Putin.