On the menu today: We hear a great deal about the importance of working with our allies in foreign policy, but that happy rhetoric glides past the fact even our longstanding allies can often be real pains in the tuckus, dragging their feet on key decisions. The Ukrainian government says it needs more tanks to fight the war against the invading Russians. President Biden says Ukraine will get what it needs. But the German government wants the U.S. to send its own tanks before it sends any German ones, other European NATO allies can’t send their German-made tanks without Berlin’s permission, and the German defense minister is calling for patience.
He knows a war is going on, right?
Tanks for Nothing, Germany
Vladimir Putin must be laughing his butt off. He should be.
First it was MiG-29s, then it was Patriot missile batteries, then it was Bradley fighting vehicles. The pattern continues; Ukraine asks for a weapons system, and then the Biden administration and the rest of NATO hem and haw about sending them, warning that it will take a while for the Ukrainians to be trained how to use the system. Then, after the war worsens and more Ukrainians die, Biden and NATO come around and decide to send the system.
On Friday, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, told reporters that the war in Ukraine is likely to continue past 2023:
From a military standpoint, I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all — every inch of Ukraine and occupied — or Russian-occupied Ukraine. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen; doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it’d be very, very difficult.
If Ukrainians and Russians are still going to be fighting a year from now, there’s not much reason to worry that it would take too long to train the Ukrainians, now, is there? If both sides are still going to be fighting the war in January 2024, we can have a Ukrainian side that is trained on a multitude of advanced systems, or we can have a Ukrainian side that is not trained on a multitude of advanced systems. Which one would the Biden administration rather have?
Now the “will we or won’t we” debate has moved on to tanks. NATO leaders will talk a great game about the paramount importance of helping Ukraine fight off the Russian invaders, and then when it comes time to send the big guns, they’ll all look at each other and say, “You go first.”
The big news out of Friday’s NATO meeting was that the Germans didn’t want to transfer any of their Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The country has 312 operational ones, but apparently 99 are under repair (!), and Berlin appeared open to transferring 19 of them to Ukraine.
Now, Germany’s defense minister, Boris Pistorius, is urging patience, and offering up remarks that translate as, “It’s not just a question of delivering or not delivering these tanks, but also weighing up the consequences of not acting, but also of acting.”
It’s not like the Russian invasion just started. We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary. How much more study and analysis does a decision like this need? Either the German government wants to send the tanks, or it doesn’t.
Keep in mind, Germany makes the Leopard 2s and controls the export licenses, meaning that other countries can’t send them to Ukraine without Germany’s permission. And the Germans had been dragging their feet on that move, too, although they’re now indicating they won’t block other countries from sending their Leopard 2 tanks.
At one point, the Germans said they would be willing to send some of their Leopard tanks if the U.S. was willing to send Ukraine some M-1 Abrams tanks. But the Pentagon is shaking its head at that proposal.
“I just don’t think we’re there yet,” U.S. under secretary of defense for policy Colin Kahl told reporters Wednesday. “The Abrams tank is a very complicated piece of equipment. It’s expensive, it’s hard to train on, it has a jet engine — I think it’s about three gallons to the mile with jet fuel. It is not the easiest system to maintain.”
Biden’s top defense officials are among those opposed to sending the Abrams tanks, according to NBC News:
But both Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley have recommended against sending M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, the three U.S. officials said.
Milley and Austin have cited how long it takes to train personnel to operate the tanks and how difficult the tanks are to maintain. They also have argued they are not the right vehicles for the fight in Ukraine right now, according to the officials.
One U.S. official said Austin has argued the training to operate and maintain the tanks would take months, and even though the Ukrainians have proven adept at learning many new platforms, he continues to resist sending the Abrams.
It would be nice if someone would inform President Biden about the positions of his own administration. On Friday, when a reporter asked the president if he supports Poland’s goal to send the German-made tanks to Ukraine, Biden responded, “Ukraine is going to get all the help they need.”
Keep in mind, the border of Germany is 357 miles from the border to Ukraine. The U.S. border is 3,860 miles from the Ukrainian border. The U.S. is sending some M-1 Abrams tanks to Poland and Lithuania as part of efforts to strengthen NATO’s Eastern flank. But by and large, America’s tanks are in America, meaning flying them or shipping over to Europe and getting them to the Ukrainian border would take considerably longer. (The U.S. Air Force’s C-17 Globemaster can fly an M-1 Abrams tank from one place to the next, but only one at a time.)
It’s easy to see why the Ukrainians would love to get their hands on some U.S.-made M-1 Abrams tanks; they were built to be nearly indestructible Russian tank-killers. Back in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army deployed Russian-built T-72s against the U.S. Abrams. A 1992 General Accounting Office report summarized how the Abrams rendered its Russian-made counterpart obsolete:
Preliminary data from [Center for Army Lessons Learned] also credits the Abrams with having high survivability. CALL data showed that several MlAl crews reported receiving direct frontal hits from Iraqi T-72s with minimal damage. CALL cites one incident in which an Abrams was reportedly struck twice by a T-72 tank firing from 2,000 meters. CALL reported that the crew involved in the incident stated that one projectile had bounced off the tank and the other had embedded itself in the armor. CALL also reported that two tanks had hit enemy antitank mines; the incidents caused minor damage, and the crews survived.
As of this morning, the Polish government appears to be ready to step in and send some of its own German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Credit Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki for trying to get something done.
The whole mess prompted Representative Michael McCaul, the GOP chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to make the seemingly absurd proposal that the U.S. should send Ukraine one M-1 Abrams tank, just to call the Germans’ bluff.
The war is on Europe’s doorstep; why does it feel like the U.S. always has to prod some of its European allies to get them to help?
The Washington Post editorial board fumes that German chancellor “[Olaf] Scholz is sacrificing sound strategy on the altar of political calculation by wavering in the face of opposition from some political allies and a segment of the German electorate. It is a misjudgment that cannot stand.” Its editorial concurs with McCaul’s proposal to call the German government’s bluff:
If sending some Abrams tanks is the key to breaking the impasse on a potentially much greater shipment of Leopards, President Biden should give his assent. He should do so not only to add muscle to Ukraine’s arsenal at what is likely to be a decisive moment in the war, but also to maintain Western resolve and unity in the face of the gravest threat it has faced in more than a generation.
Over the weekend, I wrote that Joe Biden is not the man he thinks he is, and his erroneous self-perception is at the root of a lot of his administration’s headaches. I’m sure that on the issue of Ukraine, Biden looks in the mirror and sees Winston Churchill staring back at him. But he continues to look and sound like Mister Magoo, blithely assuring reporters that Ukraine will get everything it needs, seemingly ignoring or oblivious to the divisions within his own administration and the NATO alliance.
ADDENDUM: It was easily missed, but on Friday, another Democratic governor decided that bussing migrants from her state to cities elsewhere isn’t terrible xenophobia:
Arizona is continuing to move migrants out of the state’s border communities and to other destinations in the U.S., Gov. Katie Hobbs said Friday.
The program has expanded from buses to include the option of chartered air travel via a 737 aircraft, according to a state contract signed Jan. 14.
In a wide-ranging news conference at the state Capitol, the new Democratic governor said the controversial practice, started by her Republican predecessor, needs review to ensure it is effective. But she indicated it had some merit.
“It’s something that provides support to those local communities,” Hobbs told reporters, referring to border communities that are strained by the influx of migrants. “If we’re spending money to bus people, why not just get them to their final destination?”