Speed and stealth is everything, and it is one thing the US is very good at still. It is very likely that NATO would win any race to critical transit points in eastern Ukraine even if Russia received word just as NATO forces did.

Russia beat the US to Berlin in 1945, to Sarajevo in the 1990s and to Crimea this year. In the latter case, with speed and stealth.

Where has the US used speed and stealth for large troop movements recently?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman