former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy rick stengel. thank you so much for joining us today. rick, i'll start with you. i listened to what president biden said with lester holt last night. he basically said, we're not trying to do this. direct conflict with russia is world war iii. those were literally the terms that he used. he said, everybody get out. this is not going to be "argo." what is the purpose of the united states right now engaging in diplomacy or sending troops to poland if the president's made it pretty clear that we're not going to get into armed combat over ukraine if the russians invade? >> well, we were never going to get into armed combat, jason. i mean, ukraine is not a nato country, as we all know. i mean, i think what happened with -- between president biden and that kind of extraordinary press briefing that jake sullivan did is they said the die is cast, which is kind of an appropriate expression because