The Olympics end on February 20, and as my colleague Tom Ginsburg pointed out on Twitter, Putin is not going to embarrass his "ally" China by usurping all the headlines until the Olympics are over.  We have noted previously  why Russia will invade Ukraine.  The U.S. could have prevented this by withdrawing the threat to include Ukraine in the NATO sphere of influence.  Of course, that would be a concession to Putin, who is a very bad man (maybe as bad as Trump!).   Moral propriety, alas, has little to do with the sordid nature of great power politics, as the entire history of U.S. conduct since WWII would also reveal. 

So those of us who are impotent when it comes to great power politics can ask:  how will this affect us?  Assuming this is a shooting war localized to that region (and not a nuclear war that annihilates humanity–in that event, apologies to those who have booked advertising for the coming months!), the effects will be minimal in North America:  oil prices will increase, inflation will get another boost, the stock markets will collapse, then recover.   In Europe, the effects will be more serious:  there will be the economic consequences, but intensified (because of Russia's supply of natural gas to the rest of Europe), and then there may be a serious refugee crisis, depending on how ghastly and inhumane the invasion of Ukraine is.  Russia wants no war with Europe; it wants not to have hostile powers on its doorstep.

Readers in Ukraine, Russia, and other countries in the region should email me if there is anything the academic community can do to somehow help.