The Navy is going in:
U.S. officials say the first of two American warships heading into the Black Sea in advance of the Olympic Games has set sail from Italy.
The USS Mount Whitney got underway Friday from Gaeta, Italy, and the Navy frigate USS Taylor is expected to leave from Naples, Italy, on Saturday.
Taylor is a lightly armed frigate. While it has two helicopters, it isn't more than an escort.
Mount Whitney is the headquarters ship of our (phantom) 6th Fleet. It has one helicopter. It is not suited to evacuating people.
It is extremely well suited to being the command and control element if we have to mount an operation to help Russia cope with a terrorist threat or to evacuate our people.
This way we don't need to set up a headquarters on the ground anywhere around there, which would take too much time if done once a crisis begins and have too big a footprint if set up before. But if we fly in with troops and equipment or just send in aircraft for evacuations, the ships would be there already.
Although the helicopters could be used to begin an operation to lift people to an airfield that our planes fly to for evacuation out of the area. They could bridge the gap until more helicopters arrive.
I've read that we have transport aircraft standing by in Europe in case they are needed. I assume there are other assets on call, as well, including special forces for rescue missions and other ground troops for local security to wherever we might stage.
I'd guess we'd stage either in Georgia or in Turkey, which is a bit farther away. I'll guess that the Russians would be too touchy to let American forces stage inside Russia itself.
