A half-hearted proxy war, perhaps. It’s hard to ask US citizens to make real sacrifices (who, beyond symbolism and sympathy, probably don’t give a practical shit about Ukraine - specifically, very few are interested in sending family members to die in Ukraine).

Not sure how my 25 cent analysis of US would translate to Germany, but demands on citizens should probably not get too out of sync with the level of existential threat the citizens perceive. If there’s a perception problem, fix that and then make the demands for sacrifice.

Also, making sacrifices may looks good for a few days, but it will sure cause massive problem after that. And, the funny thing is many people indulge in so much luxury, I don't think it is even possible.

I didn't sign up for a war

Six million Jews didn't sign up for a war either.

Nor did everybody on the 'allied' side in WWII.

Nor did millions of Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Afghanis and so on.

Millions of Ukrainians did not sign up for it.

In fact: almost nobody except for the aggressors signed up for a war and even there that's debatable, usually it's only a few people at the top and then 100's of enablers and thousands to millions of conscripts, who didn't sign up for it either.

But that doesn't mean that you won't end up in a war. The question is how much control you will have over the location of the battlefield. That's why the Americans had this 'fight them over there rather than here' doctrine going. Which given their lack of proximity always was a bit of misdirection, but that doesn't mean that the idea by itself does not have merit.

Most people involved in wars did not sign up for them, from my reading of history

Take that up with the Russian president.