(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . NATO politics to Russia's rescue [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-19 Leopard 2: Swimming, or sinking? There is still a tiny hope Germany’s refusal to allow other countries to send Leopard 2s to Ukraine unless the US sends Abrams first is just all elaborate theater and we’ll see NATO tanks rolling out in the next Ukrainian offensive any day now. But that is some serious hopium. Despite all my earlier optimism in other articles regarding NATO already training Ukraine on a NATO tank, I never imagined this level of incompetence. Presuming we are now just hearing publicly what has been getting talked about behind closed doors. This news puts Zelenskyy’s comments to Congress in a new light. I would put good money that Zelenskyy has decided that Germany will not willingly provide Leopard tanks without serious arm twisting by the United States. So when he was asking for American tanks, he really meant American Abrams and not just substituting “American” in for “any NATO tank” to play to the American audience. The general direction of the war has been obvious for months now. And I don’t mean just my own optimism. General Mark Hertling amongst others has been predicting Ukrainian moderate success for a while. It’s been a long time since anyone other than a true Tankie has believed Russia could outright win. I doubt the US military has been in that category so why hasn’t NATO worked this out months ago? A Ukrainian attack with a modern MBT could break Russia’s back. Instead we are needlessly giving Russia more time to figure something out. This is war. You don’t f*ck around with squabbling over needing other countries to step up first. You kill the enemy as quickly and decisively as you can. NATO politics is helping Russia here. 12 Challenger tanks from the UK is a nice little help, but Ukraine needs an order of magnitude more than that to make a difference. While I appreciate the United Kingdom attempting to kick Germany in the arse to get a move on, the ploy has failed. 12 NATO main battle tanks being the most NATO could scrape together is downright embarrassing. It starts to make me wonder if there is some deeper rot within the organization. NATO has one real purpose which is to provide a unified front against Russia. While other conflicts could arise in which NATO might take a part, Russia is the only serious threat to the European mainland. China is Taiwan’s and the United States problem. The US assisting Taiwan would not trigger article 5 of NATO unless China fired on US ships. China would be a primarily naval conflict in this regard and Leopard 2 tanks would be unlikely to be needed. So that leaves Russia for Europeans to worry about. Given NATO’s Air Force superiority and Russia being far more of a paper tiger than expected, NATO could send every single combat ready Leopard 2 to Ukraine and be just fine on the defensive. Germany, the hold up, doesn’t even border Russia! Russia would need to get through a well defended Poland which would include US combat troops. I’ve seen no mention of how many Abrams being sent to Ukraine it would take to convince Germany to release the Leopard. 12 Challengers wasn’t enough. So presumably 12 Abrams wouldn’t be enough either. Would Germany play a “that’s not enough game” constantly upping the number it wants to see from the US? And if it takes 50 Abrams to get 50 Leopard 2s released then that would be the most freaking idiotic mix of main battle tanks ever. It would be just enough of each of 3 different tanks to create an insanely complicated logistical nightmare for Ukraine. If Germany’s demand is to see 100 Abrams or more from the US, then what is the point of releasing the Leopard in smaller quantities? Unless this is a ploy to extract some other concession from NATO or the US, this is in reality a German “no”. Which only begs the question of why. Is Germany hiding something? Are there not enough Leopard 2 parts to service even a small number of Leopards in active combat? Rheinmetall recently said it would take a year to refurbish the tanks it has on hand before sending them to Ukraine. Is the Leopard 2 too expensive for Germany? Do they not wish to ramp up production? Can Germany keep its commitments to its NATO allies? Poland is already getting Abrams, is there a reason the Leopard 2 wasn’t good enough for them? Meanwhile, why hasn’t the US properly understood Germany’s reticence and gotten the ball rolling with the Abrams? While I advocated in the past for the Bradley as a “make do” tank, its armor is not sufficient versus the Russian T-72s. It’s great for what it is, but at this point why does Ukraine need to “make do” when they are fighting our common enemy? The US has thousands of Abrams. We could give Ukraine 400 without batting an eye and if only a quarter are functional at any one time for maintenance purposes that is still a functioning Armored Brigade worth of modern main battle tanks for Ukraine to punch holes in Russian lines with. Ukraine needs US Abrams tanks now (really 2 months ago). The US needs to foot the bill for their deployment and upkeep until such a time as Russia is no longer a threat. The German Leopard is not the answer. From a pure tank point of view, it’s just fine. But Ukraine needs a reliable supplier of its main battle tank. It needs a supplier able to afford the expense of it, have enough spare parts and replacements, and one that can keep its commitment. There’s something rotten in Germany related to the Leopard tank. I don’t know what it is, but I won’t be surprised when I hear it. Meanwhile Russia is getting a break because NATO can’t get its act together. Follow me on Mastodon at @olandt@mstdn.social Click here to create a new Mastodon account and follow me. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/19/2148024/-NATO-politics-to-Russia-s-rescue Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/