Secretary of State John Kerry has declared “all options are on the table” with respect to Russia, though he later dialed that rhetoric back a bit, saying that this was focusing on “non-military options.”

Kerry and others in the administration are riled over Russia’s deployment of troops into the Crimea, and Kerry vowed that “Russia is going to lose, the Russian people are going to lose.”

Most officials are talking up sanctions against Russia to spite them for backing Crimean secession, and promising to “isolate” them internationally. Kerry also called for US companies to stop doing business with Russia, though as a practical matter this seems highly unlikely.

In the end, the Obama Administration is making a lot of idle threats, and GOP hawks are condemning them for not making even more. Though the US has military forces in the region, it is unthinkable that they would risk a full-scale land war with Russia over a peninsula with a majority Russian population which is almost certain to back secession in the pending referendum.