Follow us on social

2023-01-20t095531z_1044278615_rc29uy93ma3n_rtrmadp_3_ukraine-crisis-germany-usa-scaled

Germans remain adamantly opposed to sending any Leopard tanks to Ukraine

The US and other allies pledged light vehicles and other weapons in Ramstein today. The US share is up to $25 billion.

Analysis | Europe

The Ukrainian government will be deeply disappointed that the meeting of Western defense chiefs at Ramstein air base in Germany did not agree to give German-made Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine. The countries represented at the meeting, however, did promise to send a disparate collection of other arms. The United States has pledged an extra 59 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 90 Stryker light armored personnel carriers. Other countries are supplying artillery, ammunition, and anti-aircraft weapons.

Today's announcement brings the U.S. share up to nearly $27 billion over the course of the last year.

Germany, however, continues to refuse to send the Leopard tanks or to allow other countries that have previously bought the tanks (under conditions that require German permission for re-export) to do so. The Polish government has strongly condemned Berlin’s hesitation.

The German government has said that it will not do so unless the United States sends its own Abrams tanks (though the Biden administration has denied that this is a German condition). This the Biden administration has refused to do, citing the complex nature of the Abrams, the need for intense and specialized maintenance, and the length of time it would take to train the Ukrainians in their use. The objection has also been raised that supplying Ukraine with several different kinds of tanks, in addition to its original Soviet armor, would only cause confusion and inefficiency.

Britain is sending 14 Challenger tanks to Ukraine, and France is considering whether to send its Leclerc tanks. Given the limited size of European armored forces, the numbers of these available for supply to Ukraine by each country are very limited. The point about Germany supplying Leopards and allowing other NATO states to do so is that the Leopard is used by several different NATO armies, and so, if each supplies a limited number, that would still add up to a sizeable force — even if well short of the 300 tanks that Ukraine has requested. The Polish government has threatened that it might supply Leopards to Ukraine without Berlin’s permission, but that would put at risk its own future supply of spare parts from Germany.

In the end, the U.S. and German decisions on whether or not to send the tanks is not technical, but political. The Russian government has declared that NATO’s despatch of tanks would be a drastic escalation that would trigger unspecified but “unambiguously negative” consequences. “Potentially, this is extremely dangerous,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov warned. “It will mean bringing the conflict to a whole new level which, of course, will not bode well from the point of view of global and pan-European security.”

The problem presented by this decision for NATO as an alliance, and for the U.S., German and French governments in particular, is that they do not actually know what they want in Ukraine. They have pledged to help Ukraine win, but have not decided what “victory” means. The Ukrainian, Polish, and Baltic governments know. They want the complete defeat of Russia, the reconquest of all the territory lost by Ukraine since 2014, and preferably the overthrow of the Putin regime and the break-up of the Russian state.

For cooler heads in Berlin, Paris, and Washington, this is a likely path to a NATO-Russia war and the possibility of mutual nuclear annihilation. Thus, the Biden administration is now being quoted as saying that it wishes Ukraine to be able to credibly threaten to take Crimea (which most Russians and most Crimeans regard as Russian territory that must be defended at all costs). At the same time, administration officials insist that this threat is intended to divert Russian troops, bring Russia to the negotiating table and make it willing to compromise, rather than to encourage Ukraine to actually attack Crimea. This is to put it mildly a complicated position, and a very difficult and dangerous line to negotiate — depending, as it would, on being able at a given point to persuade the Ukrainian army to stop.

As to the German government, it is caught between hostility toward Russia and respect for East European views held by many of its elites, and the deep inherited dread of European war and fear of economic depression among many ordinary Germans. In addition, generations of reliance on the United States in security issues have left Germany with neither the experience nor the will to undertake independent initiatives on critical international issues. A generous critic would say that, in its hesitation to give unconditional aid to Ukraine, the German government is simply responding to the deeply divided feelings of the German electorate. An unkind critic would quote Alexander Pope: “Willing to wound, but afraid to strike.”


U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin meets with Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov to discuss how to help Ukraine defend itself, at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, January 20, 2023. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
Analysis | Europe
Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?
Top photo credit: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) (Gage Skidmore /Creative Commons) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) )( USDA photo by Preston Keres)

Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?

QiOSK

Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities.

keep readingShow less
Bernie Sanders Chris Van Hollen
Top image credit: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks during a press conference regarding legislation that would block offensive U.S. weapons sales to Israel, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., November 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Will Senate vote signal a wider shift away from Israel?

Can Bernie stop billions in new US weapons going to Israel?

Middle East

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have been roundly criticized for the security lapse that put journalist Jeffrey Goldberg into a Signal chat where administration officials discussed bombing Houthi forces in Yemen, to the point where some, like Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) have called for their resignations.

But the focus on the process ignores the content of the conversation, and the far greater crime of continuing to provide weapons that are inflaming conflicts in the Middle East and enabling Israel’s war on Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of over 50,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians.

keep readingShow less
Friedrich Merz
Top photo credit: German Prime Minister-in-waiting Friedrich Merz (Shutterstock.Penofoto)

German leaders miscalculated popular will for war spending

Europe

Recent polls show the center right Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) headed by prospective chancellor Friedrich Merz losing ground against the populist right Alternative for Germany (AfD), even before the new government has been formed.

The obvious explanation is widespread popular dissatisfaction with last month’s vote pressed through the outgoing parliament by the CDU-CSU and presumptive coalition partner the SPD (with the Greens) to allow unlimited increases in defense spending. This entailed disabling the constitutional “debt brake” introduced in 2009 to curb deficits and public debt.

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.