Retro
22672
To me this looks like a pressure campaign because all the ‘arr we’re going to send Leopards whether Germany wants it or not, just watch me do it’ posturing ignores the reality of weapon proliferation treaties… it’s (or at least should be, among ‘civilized’ countries) just not done to ignore export licences, because what would this mean about such (or any?) treaties in the future?
Just imagine if Germany stopped shipping any military goods (including Leopard spare parts?) to Finland or Poland as these countries flout any restrictions put on their use (BTW I think the South Korean tanks (or rather arty pieces) Poland has on order are using German components, so good luck with that (should Poland prove itself ‘unreliable’)! Of course in the long run this would mean (an even bigger) disaster for the German defense industry, similar to what the Swiss did to themselves…)
PS: just to be clear, IMO Germany should have prepared (if not shipped, or at least allowed to be shipped) Leopards a year ago, but I honestly don’t see anyone going ‘cowboy’ and just starting to ship tanks
Grifman
22673
They had nothing to worry about - Bulgaria is a member of NATO - Russia wasn’t and isn’t going to touch them.
Timex
22674
I suspect they’re gonna just go and buy them from someone else… also, I suspect Germany doesn’t want to give up on that revenue stream.
As it stands, Poland is already buying a ton of stuff from the US, and now South Korea. And they are strengthening their own domestic production capabilities. So I think Germany’s threat of not selling them any stuff I kind of empty.
It’s inexplicable to me, because the pattern is always to delay, piss of all allies only to turn around and actually delivers substantial and useful aid in the end. I have no idea who Scholz is meaning to please with this stance, because other than the Kremlin, and the fringes of both the left and right, I cannot come up with any fans of this type of behaviour.
Yes, the German public has always been somewhat risk averse and preferred a measured and somewhat reticent policy style, particularly in defense matters. And of course Germany’s quasi pacifist stance in the past led to a rather complacent and frankly irresponsible attitude towards defense, but that particular worldview has been shattered for good in Ukraine and it was Scholz himself who gave a rather good “Zeitendwende” (as in sea change) speech right after the invasion.
So I really don’t know who this dithering and lack of leadership is supposed to appeal to. Because the German public can demonstrably be brought around, the coalition partners including the Greens are all for sending many more weapons and surely it can’t be worth it to burn so many bridges and alliances for what exactly? No one is looking at Germany and thinking that it is supplying arms willy nilly, and everybody was well aware that these might be tough choices for some parties when we had this same debate about the Gepards that have been a great boon for Ukraine’s safety.
tl;dr: I don’t know either.
KevinC
22676
That’s definitely the part that leaves me confused. They end up not getting nearly enough credit for what they do because people mostly remember the original hesitation. And by the time they get around to supplying what they originally were reluctant to send, they’re dragging their feet on the next issue. From the outside it just seems like shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to relations with your allies.
I’ve assumed it had something to do with domestic politics that weren’t clear to me as a foreigner, but sounds like it’s confusing on the inside too! Thanks for sharing.
It is inside baseball. Somewhere upthread is a good article /Twitter thread about it. The SPD just CANT be a hawk, no way. They have to alwayspush the “lets talk” angle. I wish they would be quicker but there seems to be an interparty need for the whole Theatre. And I think a great fear of escalation is what is holding Scholz back too. What if something in Ukraine goes tits up with the stuff we supply? I am sure he is also very worried of doing the wrong thing, and the AFD and their ilk profiteering from it. Election margins are not huge. The Greens and FDP are far more forward in their military support of Ukraine. But decades of “Germany needs to stay out of all military conflicts due to our past” cannot be erased in a year.
Is it party support rather than public support that worries him? Would there be fractures within the SPD if he was seen to be going too far too fast?
Quaro
22681
Also just because South Korea could start delivering right away. They initially asked for US stuff but the waiting list is years out, and the Korean tanks seem good enough.
abrandt
22682
That’s quite the aid package!
This is an especially funny cause that the very day Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs publicly condemned Ukraine for stationing AA guns in the cities.
I don’t know, maybe Russians think the public demonstration of AA machines makes them look cool and strong? But it’s like posing with anti-venereal pills in your Tinder profile.
Neither concern is convincing to me at this point, both public opinion or intra party dynamics. Scholz has made is plenty clear that these decisions aren’t taken lightly and no one would call him a warmonger for moving a bit quicker after a year of slamming on the brakes. Even the Greens of all parties are pushing for more arms shipments and they have a far more pacifist base than the SPD that also has more power on the overall direction of the party. I know @ImaTarget made just the opposite point above, but I don’t buy into the notion that Scholz would risk splitting the party if he was just a tiny bit more decisive. SPD chancellor Schmidt was spending 4% of GDP on defense and pushed for Pershing II missiles in Europe, a SPD led Bundestag mandated the very first combat mission for the Bundeswehr (without UN mandate no less) and for every oldtimer like Ralf Stegner warning of escalation I’ll find you a Michael Roth or Fritz Felgentreu who are much more in line with the other parties, which also have some eternal friends of Russia - look no further than the prime minister of Saxony, who is a Christian Democrat. No one is demanding that Germany is taking the lead, just to be tiny bit less obstructive.
The whole tank debate is just weird, the oddly chosen red line of no western MBT deliveries was held by all allies, while at the same time Germany supplied HIMARS without much fanfare.
I agree, I’m not really sure why there is any hesitation about tanks vs other weapon systems.
Yup, and the increasingly shrill debate about them risks overemphasizing their importance over a mix of other weapons systems, which Ukraine will need as well. To give some props to Germany for a change, I think it’s good that they are trying to bring back Gepards from Qatar to give to Ukraine.
Dejin
22687
IIRC the US supplied HIMARS and then Germany followed suit donating their MARS rocket launchers. So arguably this doesn’t contradict what Scholz wants to have happen with the tanks.
I’m just surprised that they want to be seen as being so completely subservient to the US — not willing to take any steps until the US does first. I thought Europe wanted to be seen as somewhat independent of the US, or is that only a French foreign policy trait?
Isn’t this because tanks are seen as a more aggressive, breakthrough weapon? Don’t get me wrong, it’s still ridiculous, but I can how tanks could be perceived as being used to “attack Russians” as opposed to “defend Ukrainians”.
Certainly, but there wasn’t nearly as big of a debate within Germany and not as much objection from the “no offensive weapons” crowd in the country. Same thing with howitzers.
As I said above, I just don’t get the tank debate and I don’t think the US’s reasons for not wanting to supply Abrams are that convincing either.
Definitely a more pronounced sentiment in France, but you’d think this would be a wake up call to Germany, who could only afford its cosy pacifism due to the US ensuring its and the continent’s security. I do believe that a lot of people are starting to get it, but old habits die hard and a transformation to less dependence (independece is a complete pipe dream) will be long and arduous.
Well, that’s the rationale being offered, but I don’t know why that matters so much. Certainly Ukraine has a right to ‘break through’ to recapture territory occupied by Russia. It’s not like they can or will drive those tanks to Moscow.
The whole “offensive vs. defensive” weapons thing is a big canard anyhow. A red herring. Any weapon is offensive, by its nature. It kills things, or destroys things. Given that deterrence is a recognized part of defense, too, a weapon that can strike at an enemy and adds to deterrence by upping the costs of aggression also is defensive. There is is this weird idea among people with generally little understanding of military affairs that a nation can effectively defend itself with entirely passive systems and postures, which is just not true.
There seems to be this idea that you can cocoon yourself in armor I guess and let the slings and arrows of aggressors bounce off of you, and that’s a viable defense strategy. At best of course it only serves to set you up for a counter-attack, as you cannot win even a defensive war without offensive action as far as anyone has been able to demonstrate at least.
Tanks are big, scary looking, and associated as noted above with Blitzkrieg and all sorts of real and imagined Bad Things. Most of which are true, but the weird part is that all of those real and imagined Bad Things involved far more systems that were not tanks than the tanks themselves.
