Trump approves sale of lethal weapons to Ukraine

For a guy who is supposed to be Vladimir Putin's errand boy, Donald Trump certainly doesn't treat his supposed benefactor very well. First he cranked up production of U.S. domestic oil, changing the entire dynamic of the global energy market and tanking Russia's oil profits. As Trump himself might say . . . NOT NICE! Now he's doing what Barack Obama was too weak to do concerning Putin's invasion of Ukraine: He's selling lethal weapons to the Ukranians to help them defend themselves against the Russian aggressors, thus ensuring that Russia will pay a price if it continues to escalate the conflict:

Members of the Trump administration confirmed on Wednesday that the State Department approved a commercial license authorizing the $41.5 million sale of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems, ammunition, and associated accessories to Ukraine, the Washington Post reported. A State Department spokesperson, speaking on background, said that although the United States has now licensed the commercial export of lethal weapons to Ukraine for the first time, the U.S. government has not sold or given weapons directly to Ukraine. There’s never been any official policy on such sales one way or another, the spokesperson said, adding that this license was granted on a case-by-case basis. Another senior Trump administration official said that Trump personally approved the decision to allow the issuing of the license after being presented a decision memo by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. While there was never a formal ban on such weapons transfers, the decision was discussed internally as a lifting of the de facto Obama administration restrictions, the official said.

Obama was always afraid that if he stood up to Russian agression, it would "provoke" Putin. That is about as bad a misunderstanding of Vladimir Putin as a person can indulge. Putin pushes where he thinks he can, then stands back and takes the measure of anyone who might oppose him. If he believes he will not pay much of a price for continuing to push, he continues to push. When dealing with Obama, Putin realized pretty quickly that the measure of the man was mush. Obama would do absolutely nothing to stand up to him, so there was no risk for Russia in its invasion of Crimea. The Ukranians begged the United States for weapons they could use to defend themselves and their territory, but Obama was too worried about upsetting Putin if he granted their request.

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Trump's decision to go ahead and provide the weapons means Putin has to make a very different risk/reward assessment about further escalation in Ukraine. That doesn't guarantee he won't do it, but he knows that if he does he'll likely pay a higher price in the form of dead Russians. And he might lose battles on the ground, or be forced to retreat in situations where he would have previously had free reign to go where he wanted. That changes the equation. Back to Obama, though, let's not forget some of the reasons he might have been nervous about pissing off Putin. We all remember what happened when Obama claimed he had drawn a "red line" in Syria, which was any use of chemical weapons by Bashar Assad. When Assad went ahead and used chemical weapons anyway, Obama was predictably unwilling to enforce his red line - and he needed Putin to bail him out by claiming to have negotiated terms under which Assad would give up his weapons in exchange - of course - for concessions favorable to Russia. (Unsurprisingly, Putin didn't really make Assad give up his weapons.) You don't hear much about this because the media wanted to cover for Obama, but it was one of the worst examples we've ever seen of a guy who didn't belong on the world stage running his mouth and being humiliated when his bluff was called. In the geopolitical arena, it put Obama in a subservient position to Putin and he never really emerged from that position. Don't underestimate the role of Iran in Obama's thinking either. We've told you in recent days about Obama's willingness to let Hezbollah skate for its drug trafficking activities, all so the parties necessary to the Iran nuclear deal wouldn't get upset and walk away. He was so desperate to get that horrible deal done that he would make absolutely any concession to anyone, and John Kerry was there affirming Obama's awful instincts, telling him that all these giveaways were to "build trust." Well, Putin has a lot of influence over Iran as well, and probably could have killed the deal by telling the Iranians he didn't want them to sign it. It was simply one more incentive for Obama to bend over forward and give Putin whatever he wanted. But the biggest factor was probably Obama's own weak instincts, combined with his lack of conviction that America's strategic interests are worth fighting for. Replacing Obama with Trump has helped America strategically simply because, for the first time in eight years, we have a president who actually wants America to have strategic success on the global scene. That alone is worth a lot - to Americans and to Ukranians as well.