[M T]

Sadly, I think our unwillingness to provide ATACMS to Russia is driven by the fact the President said we weren't going to do so early on in the war. Once he said that, doing so would be arguably "dishonest". The Russians would certainly look at it that way and would play it that way. I think we have convinced ourselves we can't go back on this "pledge", even though that undoubtedly was not what was intended by the statement at the time.

Unless there was some specific agreement such as "No nukes = no ATACMS" (which might be politically sensitive if it became public), it would be very easy to say, "Because of the evidence of war crimes against the citizens of Ukraine and the ongoing attack against the civilian power infrastructure, the US has reluctantly decided to remove the restrictions.  We simply can not stand by and watch these barbaric attacks launched from with Russia."

[M T]

Sadly, I think our unwillingness to provide ATACMS to Russia is driven by the fact the President said we weren't going to do so early on in the war. Once he said that, doing so would be arguably "dishonest". The Russians would certainly look at it that way and would play it that way. I think we have convinced ourselves we can't go back on this "pledge", even though that undoubtedly was not what was intended by the statement at the time.

Unless there was some specific agreement such as "No nukes = no ATACMS" (which might be politically sensitive if it became public), it would be very easy to say, "Because of the evidence of war crimes against the citizens of Ukraine and the ongoing attack against the civilian power infrastructure, the US has reluctantly decided to remove the restrictions.  We simply can not stand by and watch these barbaric attacks launched from with Russia."