Send M1 Abrams Tanks to Ukraine

T he German government has elected not to send desperately needed Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Furthermore, the Germans continue to deny permission to the many other European countries who have Leopard tanks to send theirs to Ukraine. According to the German government, Germany does not want to “go it alone” by being the only Western country to send main-battle tanks to Ukraine.

This is transparently an excuse. Poland has already sent over 300 Soviet-manufactured tanks to Ukraine. The Germans say this does not count — only Western-made tanks do. The French recently announced that they would send light tanks, and the British are sending Challenger main-battle tanks. The German say those don’t count either. The tanks must be sent by “a nuclear power.” Britain and France are both nuclear powers. That doesn’t matter. According to the Germans, only American M1 Abrams tanks will do.

The Biden administration has resisted this call, creating an impasse that could prove fatal to the defense of Ukraine and the West. This is a mistake, but not because sending a few M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine might help push German chancellor Olaf Scholz into freeing the Leopards.

PHOTOS: M1 Abrams Tanks

No, the reason why the U.S. should send Abrams tanks to Ukraine is because they are damn good tanks, they are available in very large numbers (over 10,000 have been produced), and this is exactly the kind of war they were designed to fight and win.

The Biden administration and its apologists in the media have offered numerous smokescreens for their failure to act. According to some, M1 Abrams tanks would be useless to Ukraine because they are gas guzzlers that use expensive aviation fuel. Furthermore, it is claimed that they are very complex systems, too difficult and expensive for Ukraine to operate and maintain. So, instead of sending Ukraine a few hundred of the over 4,000 Abrams tanks we have in stock, we should wait for Olaf Scholz to change his mind.

This is all nonsense. It is true that the M1 Abrams tanks can run on aviation fuel. That is because their turbine engines are omnivorous and can run on any fuel, including not only jet fuel, but diesel fuel, ordinary gasoline, or vodka, for that matter. That flexibility is an enormous logistical advantage, and is why the turbine propulsion system was chosen in the first place.

That said, it is true that the tank gets bad fuel mileage. But any weapon system involves compromises between conflicting requirements. If you want to keep a tank light, you have to trade off mass between weapons, armor, and engines. If you want to have all three, your tank is going to be heavy. But it’s also going to be very formidable in battle.

That’s the Abrams. It’s a slugger: Its 120 mm gun can really dish it out, and its advanced composite armor can really take it. In the Gulf War, Abrams tanks took many hits from shells fired by Iraq’s Soviet-made tanks, and not one was destroyed. (One was only damaged enough to be forced out of action for a few days.) It is exactly the dreadnought Ukraine needs to break the Russian line defending its southern land corridor to Crimea and win the war.

There are certainly logistics and training issues associated with the Abrams. This is true of all weapons systems. But setting up the required logistics is just a matter of doing the necessary work. M1 Abrams tanks have been delivered all over the world, including 1,100 to Egypt, 218 to Kuwait, 450 to Saudi Arabia, and 380 to Morocco — with others delivered or scheduled for delivery to Iraq, Poland, Greece, Australia, and Taiwan. Furthermore, not only are Abrams tanks operated by 20-year-old American high-school graduates, they are currently being used in combat in Yemen by Saudi kids. Ukrainian soldiers can certainly be quickly trained to use them. According to retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey, an experienced Ukrainian tank crew could be trained to use the Abrams in 30 days.

Delaying delivery of necessary arms risks defeat, which is an outcome America cannot afford. If Ukraine loses the war, Russian forces would advance to the borders of NATO countries Poland and Romania, and the expansionist Putin regime would be greatly strengthened both economically and politically. Furthermore, by conquering Ukraine, Putin would delist the million-man Ukrainian army from the West’s order of battle and eliminate Russia’s gaping strategic weakness along its southwest border. With this weakness cured, Russia would be free to invade the Baltic states. Under such circumstances, the U.S. would be forced to reposition massive armed forces to defend Europe. This would greatly weaken our ability to defend Asia, both by draining our treasury and directly diverting our military capabilities.

But the strategic catastrophe resulting from the failure to adequately arm Ukraine would be far worse than even this implies, because it would fatally undermine the deterrent effect of America’s military. President Biden set the current disaster in motion when, rather than maintain a deployment that since 2014 was costing the lives of about ten soldiers per year, he ordered U.S. forces to flee Afghanistan. This “America won’t fight” signal was read by Putin as an invitation to invade Ukraine — an invitation he accepted with alacrity by assembling Russian invasion forces on Ukraine’s border within two months of our self-imposed rout.

We can defend Ukraine without risking a single American soldier. If we choose defeat rather than accept the extremely modest costs in armaments that it would take to secure victory, why would anyone, in particular Chinese dictator Xi, believe for a minute that we would risk our entire Pacific fleet to defend Taiwan?

The Biden administration needs to get serious. The waiting-on-Scholz clown show needs to end. Failure to act adequately risks defeat, which would end deterrence and open the gates of hell.

As General Douglas MacArthur famously said, “In war there is no substitute for victory.” To win, Ukraine needs better arms, including fighter aircraft, long-range missiles, and tanks.

America should send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine without further delay.