[…] The Times article was about Obama’s refusal, in the face of bipartisan pressure, to send arms to Ukraine. Obama, the Times reported, “has told aides and visitors that arming the Ukrainians would encourage the notion that they could actually defeat the far more powerful Russians, and so it would potentially draw a more forceful response from Moscow.”
An anonymous source paraphrased Obama as asking questions like, “Okay, what happens if we send in equipment – do we have to send in trainers?” And, “What if it ends up in the hands of thugs? What if Putin escalates?” In the absence of satisfactory answers, Obama confined aid to things like helmets and night vision goggles.
After he left office, Washington reversed course and sent lethal military aid to Ukraine—billions of dollars worth. And, to answer Obama’s questions: Yes, that turned out to involve sending trainers to Ukraine—as well as conducting NATO-Ukraine military exercises on Russia’s doorstep; and yes, Putin escalated. This doesn’t mean that the former caused the latter, but the sequence of events leaves that possibility quite open. Läs artikel