Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty

These are paths, not findings

A route from one entity to another says nothing about whether the first influenced the second. Chains are shown to help you decide what to go and check, never to be reported as-is. Every chain below is grade I — inference regardless of how well-evidenced its individual hops are, and a chain is only as good as its weakest link. Verify each hop separately, check the dates line up, and establish the intermediate steps before writing anything that treats a chain as causal.