Completely different situations; England had the geographic isolation to deter invading forces and South Korean aid was augmented by American military forces.
Irrelevant to my point. No one said their situations were identical, what pointed out that the excuse to not provide military supplies to a country in need MERELY because it may not be effective or lost in combat is a dumb excuse - one that you seem unable to grasp.
War is always a calculus of cost-benefit and risk. To have rejected aid to the embattled, defeated, and isolated England (or the nearly defeated SK) because of a high risk of failure or of squandering material required either an arrogant decision maker who assumed he/she knew the futile results of such aide, or someone whose real sympathies were with those nations enemies.
In short, there was nothing wrong with risking some material to help the Ukrainians check Russia's return to empire, especially for an investment that would have cost far less in the short run than it may well cost (as it did with Hitler) in the long run.
Again, I note, you seem determined to see Ukraine swing on Russian noose. And if so be aware that your buddy Putin is also opposed to aid because unlike you, he see's such "useless" aide as a threat to his expansionist impulses.
And would have done nothing to help Ukraine. Indeed, the presence of American weapons in Separatist or Russian hands, just a year or so after a huge debate erupted in America over the possibility of American aid to Syrian rebels ending up in terrorist hands, would have been a huge problem to the United States.
The idea that Putin and the Kremlin, which threatened nuclear retaliation against the West should they intervene directly, would have been deterred just by the sheer presence of American and western military hardware is laughable.
Again, you are trying to push the idea that had the Ukrainians just had enough firepower, they would have been able to succeed in the late summer of 2014. This is again, incorrect; what doomed Ukraine's offensive to failure was a lack of skill, not hardware.
What is far more laughable are your bloated claims of certitude of defeat, which is always a matter of conjecture and probability. As in 1939 and 1940 WWII, there were always defeatist and highly plausible "no aid" narratives provided by the isolationists (and their then allied communists) to justify turning their back on England and others. There were always narratives assuring 100 percent defeat and of the impossibility of opposing Hitler and NAZI aggression because "their victims just can't win". But as any student of the game of nations knows, a policy based on assuming with 100 percent certainty of the future is a policy inviting failure.
The fact remains that there was (and still is) an opportunity to take stronger action against Russian aggression that began in the early phases of the war. The Ukraine forces by August were clearly beating the well equipped (airliner shooting) Russian proxies. So much so the Russian military had to rush to their defense and roll back the major gains of Ukraine's forces with Russian tanks.
But as it turned out the west acted as he expected and hoped for, weak...hesitant...tepid. Would Putin have plunged ahead if confronted with an escalating arms race or robust US involvement, who knows? Could the prospective or actual loss of Russian tanks to, for example, Ukrainian Javelins have modified Putin's plans, who knows? But Putin is not a nuclear war threatening Khrushchev and even he realized that nuclear war (or starting a full scale conventional war) was never an option.
The bottom line is I am NOT basing my points on certitude. I'm not saying that a robust response would have certainly stopped Putin, or that Obama would have necessarily changed todays current outcome by strapping on his porta-spine and going to Congress for funds. I'm merely making the observation that it MIGHT have made a difference, that Ukraine deserved the chance, and for that reason ALONE, lethal aide should have been, and should be, promised and delivered long before now. THAT Obama strongly resisted doing so is undisputed.
in order to justify your policy you have to PROVE with 100 percent certainty that any aide would have been useless. If you can't (and no one can know that) then you're turning your back is a cold, calculated, and clearly pro-Russian aggression policy. Your cloaked point, sadly, is that Ukraine should not be even given the opportunity to check or turn the tables on the Russians (while you hypocritically beat on them for not being better when confronted by better equipped Russian regulars).
Given that you keep pushing a policy of self fulfilling defeat, why not fess up? Are you an alt-right Russophile or an old style anti-American leftist?