It is Ironic that this News Comes Out Just Before Tết

The US is looking to expand its supply of arms to the Ukraine:

With Russian-backed separatists pressing their attacks in Ukraine, NATO’s military commander, Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, now supports providing defensive weapons and equipment to Kiev’s beleaguered forces, and an array of administration and military officials appear to be edging toward that position, American officials said Sunday.

President Obama has made no decisions on providing such lethal assistance. But after a series of striking reversals that Ukraine’s forces have suffered in recent weeks, the Obama administration is taking a fresh look at the question of military aid.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who plans to visit Kiev on Thursday, is open to new discussions about providing lethal assistance, as is Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, officials said. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who is leaving his post soon, backs sending defensive weapons to the Ukrainian forces.

It appears that the only person with any sanity left in the Obama administration is Susan Rice:

In recent months, Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, has resisted proposals to provide lethal assistance, several officials said. But one official who is familiar with her views insisted that Ms. Rice was now prepared to reconsider the issue.

It's interesting that the person that Barack Obama has been determined to keep on his staff, John Seymour McCain III, in a fit of infantile pique blocked her nomination to Secretary of State is stopping this, for now at least.

In some ways, it's a good thing.

He could be listening to the slavering war monger that is Samantha Powers on this.

BTW, the usual crop of DC psychopaths has weighed in:

Fueling the broader debate over policy is an independent report to be issued Monday by eight former senior American officials, who urge the United States to send $3 billion in defensive arms and equipment to Ukraine, including anti-armor missiles, reconnaissance drones, armored Humvees and radars that can determine the location of enemy rocket and artillery fire.

Michèle A. Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official who is a leading candidate to serve as defense secretary if Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president, joined in preparing the report. Others include James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral who served as the top NATO military commander, and Ivo Daalder, the ambassador to NATO during Mr. Obama’s first term.

“The West needs to bolster deterrence in Ukraine by raising the risks and costs to Russia of any renewed major offensive,” the report says. “That requires providing direct military assistance — in far larger amounts than provided to date and including lethal defensive arms.”

They don't get it.

Russia sees this as an existential issue, and they see US actions, from the expansion of NATO to the multiple coups engineered in the Ukraine and other former Soviet republics under the guise of "color revolutions" as a part of a war that has continued to be waged against Russia since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Truth is, I agree with the Russian view on this.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have seen this sort of insanity become a fixture of US foreign policy.

The US believes that it can enforce its preferred solution anywhere in the world, even when it does not serve any meaningful interest of America.

There is also the small fact that the Ukrainian military really does not exist as a particularly functional entity.

It has had to be backed up by Fascist militias, and its attempts to use conscription have been met with protests, an orgy of draft dodging, and the mass purchase sinecures as priests.

And these idiots in the Pentagon and White House are determined to go to war with Russia because their latest color revolution did not go exactly as planned.