It seems as if Germany is finally agreeing to supply Ukraine with the
tanks it badly needs for the coming spring and summer fighting seasons,
but after weeks of delays, constantly moving the goal posts, and outright lies-
why in the world was Germany so afraid to send over tanks in the first place?
Ukraine needs tanks if it's going to continue successfully resisting
the Russian invasion. If it wants any hope of actually throwing Russia out of its territory,
or retaking Crimea though, it needs tanks very badly. That's why the armored fighting
machines have been at the top of its foreign aid wish list since the start of the war.
But the west was unwilling to supply Ukraine with heavy fighting equipment until the start
of the new year. At first it was a matter of prudence- it would do little good to supply
Ukraine with equipment that would only be lost during a swift Russian victory. This is why the
west focused on things such as man-portable air defense and anti-tank systems, exactly
the types of things Ukraine would need to fight a guerilla war against the Russian occupiers.
However, Ukraine reversed the west's expectations with its victory in the defense of Kyiv. The
Zelensky government did not fall as expected, and the Ukrainian army remained unified and
capable of sustained combat operations- a surprise after the speed at which it collapsed in Crimea
during the Russian invasion of 2014. This changed the calculus for many in the west,
who started to call for Ukraine to be armed with more advanced and heavier
combat systems. The US would send the HIMARS, and then quickly send even more advanced equipment.
The war in Ukraine has reached an inflection point though. Russia has proven to be the
inferior military, but it has a significant mass advantage over Ukraine. Its stockpiles
of equipment and manpower is much deeper than Ukraine's- even if that equipment isn't
particularly great. When facing off against a foe with no significant supply of modern equipment,
Stalin's old adage of quantity being a quality all its own bears true.
Ukraine needs tanks and it needs them now. As of the creation of this video,
there's little time left for Ukrainian crews to be trained in western tanks
in time to repel an expected spring offensive from the Russians. Time is ticking for Ukraine,
and at a meeting with NATO defense ministers Germany refused to budge on
sending tanks to Ukraine. Five days later however it seems as if the
country has finally seen the light of reason and has agreed to supply Ukraine with tanks.
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Germany's hesitancy has left many of its NATO partners with a very sour taste in their mouth.
The nation seen as a leader in the EU has lost a great deal of political capital with its little
tank temper tantrum. At first Germany flat out refused to either send tanks or allow any nation
operating its Leopard 2 tanks to send them. As part of export agreements, nations buying German
Leopards aren't allowed to further export them to other nations without Germany's approval- and
they did not have the ok from Berlin to send their tanks to Ukraine despite a willingness to do so.
Germany said that the reason it wouldn't supply tanks is because it wanted to be
a part of a coalition that did so, and not act on its own. Almost immediately
Poland raised its hand and said, “cool, we're a coalition now.” The Baltic nations and other
EU partners also said they'd be willing to send over their Leopard 2s, and suddenly
Germany realized it needed to move the goal posts. Now it was no longer a concern over acting alone,
but suddenly it didn't want to be taking the initiative in sending tanks. Here
Germany thought it had found the perfect excuse to discourage NATO and the EU,
because the Leopard 2 is the most numerous tank in Europe, which would mean that only the US
would be able to provide tanks to Ukraine now as only it could afford to give a way a portion of
its force. But this would be foolish and not very economical- the Abrams is a logistics-hungry beast
with a gas turbine engine that requires jet fuel unlike its diesel engine counterparts. Setting up
logistics networks and keeping Ukraine supplied with spare parts would be costly and a nightmare.
That's why to everyone's surprise, Britain said “hold my beans and toast”, and said it would
send 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. The number would be enough for a single unit,
and would have very little effect on the war. As a matter of fact,
Ukrainian logisticians didn't even want to accept the Challenger as it would require a whole lot
of logistics work for a paltry number of tanks. But the real point was symbolic- now Germany was
no longer taking the initiative, and it no longer had to worry about not being part of a coalition.
So Germany did what Germany does and moved the goal posts again. Now
it was no longer about being first, or being with a group of tank BFFs,
the US had to take the initiative and give up its Abrams first. No Abrams in Ukraine, no Leopard 2s.
Like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, Germany was being a very clever girl. It
knows that President Biden said he wouldn't send Abrams to Ukraine- it makes no financial sense and
would probably mean Ukrainian tankers wouldn't even be ready for operations until the summer,
far too late to respond to the possible spring offensive. It had finally moved the goal post
far enough that it could pretend to have a decent reason for not supplying tanks,
and shift at least part of the blame to America- something which is basically a European pastime.
To date no one knows why Germany changed its mind over the course of a few days, and we can only
guess. Perhaps the US reminded Germany it had picked up the tab on its defense for the nearly
five decades of the Cold War. Perhaps Germany was getting tired of being villified by the
rest of Europe. Whatever the reason, now German tanks will soon be on their way to Ukraine and
the floodgates have been opened for Leopards to enter the battle- with the apparent inclusion of
the American Abrams as well, though this remains to be confirmed as of the creation of this video.
So why was Germany digging its heels into the sand and burning
through literally all of its good will with the rest of the western world?
The most widely cited reason for Germany's reluctance is one of optics- the nation is very
sensitive to the fact that it basically wrecked Europe twice in the 20th century, with the second
time making mass murder of Jews and minorities a national hobby. Since then, the nation has
been extremely reluctant to engage in military conflicts unless it's part of a wide coalition, or
to send equipment to nations at war. Germany has gotten serious cold feet about conflict since the
end of the Second World War, and given its history that's probably a good thing for the world.
But the optics are especially bad in light of the atrocities committed by the German army
right inside Ukraine against Soviet forces. Millions of Soviet citizens were killed in
the German invasion, often purposefully so in huge genocidal campaigns to racially cleanse
eastern Europe. The last thing Germany wants to think about is seeing German
tanks going toe-to-toe with Russian tanks one more time in the hills and fields of Ukraine.
This is an understandable concern, but given Russia's nazi-like atrocities in Ukraine,
if Germany was looking for any conflict where it could rehabilitate its image and be on the
right side of history, this one is literally it. Russian troops have murdered and tortured
civilians and POWs, turned abuse of Ukrainian women into an instrument of war, and have been
purposefully targeting Ukrainian civilians for nearly a year now. Every day that Germany
delayed sending tanks to Ukraine, it resulted in more dead Ukrainian soldiers and civilians both.
But there are other, very interesting reasons why Germany may have been unwilling to send tanks.
The first of these reasons is similar to Russia's apparent reluctance to put the T-14 into Ukraine.
To date there is only rumors and unverified photos of Russian T-14s in eastern Ukraine, the tank is
not confirmed to have seen action. Knowing Russia, the T-14 probably is in Ukraine, but only in the
rear somewhere far from the fighting where a few photos can be snapped up for propaganda purposes.
Russia has no intention of putting its latest and greatest tank on the actual front line,
and it might be that Germany is hesitant to have the Leopard in Ukraine for the same reason.
The T-14 has been famously frought with financial and even mechanical difficulties,
and images of destroyed T-14s on the front lines would effectively ruin the tank's already shaky
reputation. As Russia relies on export of weapons for a significant part of its economy, this would
make its credibility as a modern arms manufacturer very dubious at a time when the world is already
wondering if Russian equipment is worth buying if it's performing so poorly against Western weapons.
Germany exports the Leopard 2 to over a dozen nations,
and its reputation could also be similarly damaged if suddenly the Leopard 2 is losing
fights to T-72s. Current operators of the German tank would immediately have second thoughts about
future purchases when they realize their tank can't stand up to Cold War Soviet designs,
hitting Germany's weapons market were it hurts. As South Korea is looking to expand in Europe,
Germany cannot afford any threat against its near total hegemony of the European tank market.
Now to be fair, the Leopard 2 is widely touted as an incredibly capable tank,
so there's no indication it really will perform poorly. But this is the first time the Leopard is
going to fight the war it was designed for- mass armor on armor engagements against the
Russians. A disproportionate loss ratio could severely impact confidence in Europe's most
popular tank. And the Leopard doesn't even have to perform poorly or be a bad tank in order for
operators to lose confidence- with at least an estimated 100 Leopard 2s being sent to Ukraine,
Russia still vastly outnumbers Ukrainian armored forces. Losses of Leopard 2s will inevitably be
disproportionately high due to the numbers disparity and the fact that Ukraine can't
support its tanks the way the west can in a modern battlefield. Dead Leopards,
even if used well, are going to impact the reputation of the German defense industry.
German arms manufacturers are also afraid of an American invasion. Not a military one,
but an economic one. With nations opening up their tank stockpiles to Ukraine,
they're going to need resupply from somewhere- and while Germany is an industrial powerhouse,
it can't hope to fulfill all replenishment orders from all nations donating tanks in the
near future. The effort to rearm Europe with Leopards could take years- unless all these
current operators, who given Russia's aggression, suddenly decided that they need tanks today,
not in a year or two. In that case they could easily turn to the US and ask for the Abrams,
which the US would be happy to export. Germany's near-monopoly of tanks in Europe would be broken.
To make matters worse, South Korea is aggressively looking to enter the European tank market with its
K2, and has already secured Poland as a customer who's rumored to be buying hundreds of the tanks.
Could German greed have prevented the nation from arming Ukraine? It's possible.
But Germany may have been denying the badly needed Leopard in hopes that once the war was over,
it could simply get back to business as usual with Russia. Despite being warned by the US for
nearly a decade to not tie itself so closely to Russia, Germany grew dependent on Russian energy,
believing it would give them diplomatic leverage. All it did was give Russia leverage over it
instead. Since then, Germany has been painfully removing the links between itself and Russia- but
the pain has been very intense. There may have been some hope that by not supplying offensive
weapons to Ukraine, Russia may look favorably on restoring energy supplies once the war was over.
Despite this being pure speculation, it's easy to see how Germany may also have been
eager for the war to actually end and relations to normalize once
more. Denying Ukraine the tanks it needs to defend itself from a Russian offensive
in spring is one way that the end to this war could have been sped along.
Now go check out British Challenger 2 vs German
Leopard 2- which is better? Or click this other video instead!