How To Escalate The Ukraine War And U.S. - Russian Tensions At The Same Time

Members of the Ukrainian armed forces prepare a weapon at their position located near the town of Horlivka, north of Donetsk, Ukraine, June 6, 2015. REUTERS/Oleksandr Klymenko

Josh Cohen, Reuters: Want to escalate U.S.-Russia tension? Arm Ukraine.

United States-Russian military tensions are exploding. On June 23 the Pentagon announced plans to station hundreds of tanks, howitzers and other armor in the Baltics and throughout other East European NATO countries. Russia meanwhile is increasing its forces in Belarus and speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, the heavily armed Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania.

While both the United States and Russia should step back from the brink, many Obama administration officials are pushing for a dangerous escalatory step: the shipment of billions of dollars of lethal weapons to the post-Maidan government in Ukraine.

The lobbying to arm Ukraine began in February when three of the nation’s leading think tanks released a widely-read report arguing for the United States to provide Ukraine with $3 billion of lethal arms. Since then both the Senate and House passed legislation calling for the United States to arm Ukraine, while Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and U.S. Air Force General and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip Breedlove publicly advocated this policy. In fact, the only senior official not pushing this agenda is President Barack Obama — though the pressure on him to do so is growing.

WNU Editor: I agree .... by openly shipping vast quantities of lethal weapons into a war-zone where there is more than enough lethal weapons is a guarantee of a wider war in Ukraine, resulting in tensions between the U.S. and Russia exploding with real consequences to U.S. foreign and national security policy. To begin .... Russian public sentiment has been steadfastly against direct Russian involvement in the Ukraine conflict .... this will quickly change if the perception is that the U.S. is now actively involved in a conflict that is targeting Russian speaking populations. Putin will be under tremendous public and political pressure to respond .... and he will respond. But the biggest impact will be in Ukraine itself. As the PEW research revealed in a poll released a month ago .... Ukrainian support for the war and for the policies of Ukraine President Poroshenko are now rock bottom .... Polls: Ukrainian Public Dissatisfied With Current Conditions. Ukraine Government And Ukraine President Poroshenko Deeply Unpopular. With the exception of Ukraine's hardcore nationalists .... there is no support among Ukraine's population for an escalation in this war, and even less so if the Americans become involved in shipping weapons and the personnel that are needed to train the Ukraine army on how to use them. This will only translate into more support for the separatists, and for the Ukraine government .... what little support that they now have will only be diminished further.

Update: Unfortunately .... the groundwork for a greater U.S. involvement is the Ukraine war is now being laid .... Ukraine Says Russian Generals Lead Separatists (Eli Lake & Josh Rogin, Bloomberg).