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Obama, wary of foreign crises, faces East-West standoff in Ukraine | Reuters

Obama, who has avoided entanglement in global crises where possible and focused on domestic affairs, now finds himself in the midst of the most dangerous East-West standoff since the end of the Cold War.

U.S. officials have said for months they did not want Ukraine's political crisis to turn into a Washington-Moscow tug of war. But on Saturday, a week after Ukraine's Russian-backed president was ousted in a tide of popular anger, Obama's foreign policy aides rushed to craft a response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's blunt moves.

But Putin had brushed aside Obama's threat on Friday that "there will be costs" for any use of force in Ukraine. The Russian leader, whom Obama once hoped to make a partner, now seems a determined adversary.

He appears to be calculating that Obama's willingness to go to the mat over Ukraine, a country few Americans know much about, does not match Russia's readiness to assert itself over a former Soviet republic with which it has close historic ties and economic interests.

Crimea, part of Russia until 1954, is Ukraine's only region with a majority ethnic Russian population, and Russia has a military presence already with the headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet.