from Strategic Culture:
For more than a month, U.S. President Donald Trump has been conjuring with the idea of supplying nuclear-capable Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. This week, however, he told reporters that he had backed away from the prospect.
Several weeks ago, shortly after Trump announced he was considering arming Ukraine with Tomahawks, our weekly editorial on October 3 warned that “all bets are off for a peace deal”. We contended that the American president, by considering such a move, was not genuine in his diplomatic efforts to end the nearly four-year conflict. “Trump is acting as a big-mouth poker player who has very few cards to play… betting that his boorish tough talk and the hype about sending Tomahawks to Ukraine… will somehow intimidate Russia to sit at the negotiating table and accept a half-baked peace deal.”
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Moscow has not been intimidated to rush a peace deal on Trump’s or NATO’s terms of an immediate ceasefire, insisting instead that a resolution to the conflict must involve a substantive international security treaty and the eradication of root causes, including the Nazi nature of the Kiev regime and NATO’s historic expansionism.
When Trump was asked this week if he was still considering supplying the iconic missile to Ukraine, he said: “No, not really.”
That was after weeks of demurring; he might, he might not, we’ll see, and so on. What changed his mind?
In the last phone call between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, on October 16, it was reported that Putin sternly warned that supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks was an escalation too far. He indicated that the weapon would not change the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s favor but that it would bring the U.S. and Russia directly into confrontation.
Sixty-three years after the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, with John F Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, this was an uncanny echo of that critical moment when the world faced nuclear war.
Trump subsequently claimed that he asked Putin, “Would you mind if I send Tomahawks to Ukraine?” We can only imagine Putin’s terse response.
The lame question from Trump suggests that the American president was not actually serious about the proposal and that the whole prior and subsequent reporting of his musings was a bluff aimed at unnerving Moscow.
The Tomahawk has a range of about 2,000-2,500 km and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. It would also require U.S. participation to launch it from Ukrainian territory. If the missile were fired at St Petersburg or Moscow, Russia would have no choice but to consider it a possible preemptive nuclear attack.
Thus, it is averred, Trump was told that if he went ahead with his insane idea to supply Ukraine, then he had better be prepared to accept responsibility for starting World War III.
The day after the phone call with Putin, on October 17, Trump hosted the Ukrainian puppet president at the White House, whereupon Trump started backpedaling on the Tomahawks. He said that the U.S. needs to retain stockpiles for its own security interests and may not be able to supply Ukraine. “We need Tomahawks for the United States, too. We can’t deplete our country,” said Trump.
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