Unusual enough to suggest this came directly from Trump.
The most reported explanation is a warning not to hit NATO, following a Wall Street Journal report that Russia was planning some form of probing attack on alliance territory.
One day after that meeting, Russia's Foreign Ministry warned the UK it could strike British ammunition inside or beyond Ukraine.
The strategic case for a Russian strike is uncomfortable, because it is rational.
NATO is already a participant through Ukraine. Russia is already retaliating asymmetrically; the drone at a German airport, the Polish railway sabotage.
The midterms mean Trump cannot afford a second front, Europe is split, and the Iran war exposed how thin Western capacity really is.
A limited strike, kept below the Article 5 threshold, could frighten Europe into ending the war faster.
There is even an argument that Russia would welcome retaliation, since a Western response would hand Putin the rally-around-the-flag moment his repeated NATO warnings have started to lose.
The case against it is Putin's own record. He has fought this war with one hand tied deliberately, resisting his own hawks who want German drone factories hit. He is trying to finish this war on favourable terms, not open a sequel.
And there is a third possibility: that parts of Europe would not mind being struck. With the economic case for the European project weakening, militarism is what remains to justify the alliance.
And an attack on NATO means Washington cannot leave.
The flaw is that it may produce the opposite result. A U.S. short on interceptors and unable to close out Iran has every reason to walk away instead.
Nobody throws the first punch at a much bigger man unless they're certain someone bigger is standing behind them.
Europe is no longer certain.
@WeTheBrandon
