The national security argument in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump was a big dud. While the House managers made the case that the United States should arm Ukraine, they didn’t follow up the point because it was weak.
The president’s defenders noted, accurately, that Trump’s Ukraine policy was more militaristic than President Obama’s. If you measure national alliances in the coin of lethal weapons, Trump’s impeachable policy was superior to Obama’s multilateral and legalistic approach.
[See Deep State primer: “How the U.S. Supports Ukraine’s Military?”]
Why did the invocation of “national security’ in Ukraine fail to move the impeachment needle?
In an interview with Aaron Mate, Professor Stephen Cohen dissects why the Russia rhetoric was off-key and dangerous. The notion that arming Ukraine is a matter vital to U.S. national security–a central claim to Article 1 in the House bill of impeachment–is not supportable.
Cohen makes the argument–which Obama acted on–that there is no point in arming Ukraine when neighboring Russia has the ability to match and any exceed any U.S. escalation.
