Too Little Too Late -- The Ukraine -- An Update -- November 17, 2024

Locator: 44343UKRAINE. 

During the campaign, Kamala Harris never said anything about doing this, or even considering this. 

The big question: who made this decision? 

As a reminder:

• Commander-in-chief: President Joe Biden
• Secretary of Defense: Lloyd J. Austin III
• US European Command (USEUCOM) / Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR: General Christopher G. Cavoli
• USAEUR-AF: US Army Europe and Africa
• USAFE-AFAFRICA: US Air Force
• USNF Europe-Africa: US Navy
• NATO, Chiefs of Defense, US: General Charles Q Brown, Jr.
• Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: General Charles Q Brown, Jr.
• nation's highest-ranking military officer; principal military advisor to the president.
• US Permanent Representative to NATO: Ambassador Julianne Smith.
  

From wiki:

The United States Secretary of Defense is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high-ranking member of the federal cabinet.

The SecDef's position of command and authority over the military is second only to that of the president of the United States, who is  the Commander-in-Chief.

This position corresponds to what is generally known as a defense minister in many other countries.

To ensure civilian control of the military, U.S. law provides that the SecDef cannot have served as an active-duty commissioned officer in the military in the preceding seven years except for generals and admirals, who cannot have served on active duty within the previous ten years. Congress can legislatively waive this restriction and has done so three times, for George C. Marshall (Truman), James N. Mattis (Trump), and Lloyd J. Austin, III (Biden).

Subject only to the orders of the president, the SecDef is in the chain of command and exercises command and control, for both operational and administrative purposes, over all DoD-administered service branches – the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force – as well as the Coast Guard when its command and control is transferred to the Department of Defense.

Only the secretary of defense (or the president or Congress) can authorize the transfer of operational control of forces between the three military departments (Department of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force) and the eleven Unified Combatant Commands.

Because the secretary of defense is vested with legal powers that exceed those of any commissioned officer, and is second only to the president in the military hierarchy, its incumbent has sometimes unofficially been referred to as "deputy commander-in-chief."

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the secretary of defense and the president; while the chairman may assist the secretary and president in their command functions, the chairman is not in the chain of command.

The secretary of state, the secretary of the treasury, the secretary of defense, and the attorney general are generally regarded as the four most important (and are officially the four most senior and oldest) cabinet officials because of the size and importance of their respective departments.

The current secretary of defense is retired general Lloyd Austin, who is the first African American to serve in the position.

Has Austin, III, been over-ruled by Biden for the past two years?