Of leopards, and Ukraine.
I am asked why the Germans are so reluctant to send their tanks to Ukraine, while the Americans and the French and the Italians have sent thousands and thousands of tanks show the same reluctance, and the answer is, indeed , a very dry question: why should they?
The first point to note is that the US and the British are giving arms and aid to the Ukrainians according to the Lend-Lease formula. The Lend-Lease formula has a small detail that is hardly mentioned, which is that at the end of the war Ukraine will be asked to return the weapons and ammunition, or they will have contracted a debt (for the value of the material NOT returned) with the USA .
And it is not an unknown thing, given that the UK themselves finished paying, in 2008, the Land-Lease of the Second World War. The Russians out of pride repaid him in 1965, causing an internal economic crisis in the USSR.
As a result, the US is simply mortgaging post-war Ukraine, and you can rest assured that in order to practice better return terms, the Ukrainians will have to give up quite a lot to the usual Wall Streeters.
The problem is that the European nations do not have this legal process, whereby aid is given "gratis et amore dei". Ultimately, that is, while the UK and the USA are driving the Ukrainians into debt, the Europeans do not have the legal form of Lend-Lease, which is why the Ukrainians put so much pressure on EU countries: European arms are free, American ones they are buying by making mortgages.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_Democracy_Defense_Lend-Lease_Act_of_2022
Look at chapter three:
We speak of "return", "reinbursement" and "repayment". The Ukrainians are, that is, making debts and mortgages.
The second reason is that you will NEVER get a German to do something without a plan.
In the mind of the average German, one should do:
- NATO decides what it wants. It is decided, say, that the Ukrainians must win, and it is decided that “winning” MUST be, say, taking back Krimea and the areas annexed by the Russians.
- Once you decide what you want to get, then you decide how to get it: what the Ukrainians need, when they can give those things, and how to use them to get the goal.
Strategically, I mean, that war isn't even being fought. Typically, NATO reacts to Russian actions, and the Russians therefore maintain the initiative. They attack in force, and then we give the Javelins and Himars (plus various MLRS). Then they bomb the power plants, so let's give them air defense. Then the Russians prepare the offensive, so let's give them the tanks.
What happens when the Russians also deploy the air forces in the next maxi-offensive? That Western tanks will be blown up for months before it is possible to give F-16s, F-18s, A-10s and more to the Ukrainians, due to technical times.
The best thing would be, as Clausewitz also suggests (but also Lao Tzu and Machiavelli): “if you go into battle without knowing PRECISELY what you want to achieve, and by what means to achieve it, you will be defeated”.
By doing so, it seems, NATO is cooking up a recipe for disaster. It is not clear what exactly "Ukraine wins" means, if it concerns Crimea, if it concerns Dombass, etc. And the means are decided during the battle, reacting to Russian initiatives.
As if that weren't enough, it is normally ensured that Ukraine cannot attack Russians and Belarusians on their territory, so it is Russia that establishes the place and moment of the battles: another ingredient in a recipe for disaster.
If the Russian generals had the skills of an average traffic policeman, they would have already won by changing methods and places faster than a new type of weapon from NATO arrives in reaction.
The second point, therefore, is that what we are doing for the Ukrainians is USELESS, for the simple reason that there is no strategy.
Having said that, the German political class is well aware that this war hides two conflicts. One is Russia-NATO, one is Industry-USA versus European Industry.
Germany managed to defuse the "methane gas" bomb, avoiding the recession:
And now they know very well that in any case they will be put under pressure in terms of public spending. Because'? As America's monstrous debt grows at will, there are fears that the German state may subsidize its industry (directly or indirectly) using its own money.
It's time to make them spend it elsewhere, and have it wasted in a war without strategy, that is, a war designed to last forever, is one of the ways.
According to many, it is very difficult for Leopard 2 to change anything. Even if we leave aside the new tank just presented to the masses, the Leopard II tank is produced in different versions: the one in use among modern nations is the 2A7, which is the seventh release of improvements.
What can be exported to Ukraine for regulatory reasons is the 2A4, which is the minimum base: to do this, the 2A7 class tanks will have to be disassembled and retrofitting will be done, a procedure that takes a year with all the tests .
But even having tanks of the 2A4 type, Ukraine (which does not lack tanks because it has captured them in spades from the Russians themselves), the advantage is not very great. The pressure is therefore political, there are no military "technical" issues, after all there cannot be because (as I said) there is no strategy.
However, I still don't understand this joy in the idea of Germany starting to project military power. Already the budget increase was (and is) problematic, ditto with the hypothetical purchase of F-35 aircraft. And in general , we know well that
if the Germans rearm, many European chancelleries will sleep much, much, much worse than before. Nobody in Europe is happy to have Germany as a military power. France and Poland first.
The Germans know this well, and until now they have always let the army remain weak (although not as weak as described by the foreign press, but the German generals have put up an art of low profile), for this very reason: a Armed Germany projecting military power is an element of fracture in the EU.
And this is probably another piece of the usual Anglo-Saxon project to destabilize the EU from within. Not for nothing, the Poles are the ones who are more assertive in this: and if you consider past history, a Pole pushing Germany to arm itself makes little sense, unless he is someone else's puppet.
Finally, there are political reasons: if you want warmongers you will find them on the right. If you go into the current tripartite government, you will find the Greens who are traditionally pacifist, the SPD which is traditionally pacifist, both parties which are traditionally anti-NATO, plus the FDP, which after the renewal you don't understand what it is.
Only the Italian press knows how a government of pacifists, declared such for the last 50 years, can be expected to be enthusiastic about arming and mobilizing, and sending weapons.
Continuing, it must be said that from all the films we have received from Ukrainian propaganda, we note, how to say, a certain tendency towards waste. We have hundreds of footage of Ukrainian soldiers firing Javelins ($200,000) at Russian trucks worth, generously, about $30,000, where a simple RPG or PanzerFaust III would have sufficed. You see Himars missiles used for objectives that are altogether laughable for a munition that costs almost a million dollars. Two million euro IRIS-Ts are used against $60,000 Iranian drones that are perfectly within the reach of a traditional flak.
The weapons sent from the West are being abused beyond the manuals: when the first German hotwizers returned, it was seen that the barrels were worn out from being used with firing rates not recommended by the manuals , and ammunition bought on "other markets" . The Ukrainians don't give a shit, they think the western fools will give them more anyway, just show a little civilian blood.
On the other hand, a lot of Ukrainian weapons can be produced under license, and Ukraine has produced several interesting things, among which I might mention Neptune missiles, Stugna missiles, Vilkha missiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Vilkha or the Hrim-2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrim-2
If it is true that the Russians have destroyed the factories, it is also true that these missiles could be built under license, as the Saudis do with the Hrim-2, or built out of range of the Russians. But the Ukrainians don't do that, for the simple reason that they are evidently good businessmen: what's mine is mine, what's yours I want because the children cry.
And in this way, public opinion is starting to see Zelensky as someone who has mistaken Europe for a supermarket where he goes in and serves himself, doesn't pay anyway, and obviously only wants the best of the best.
In my opinion, this European resistance (the Germans are the ones who, on the continent, have given the most aid, which you can find all reported here: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine- 2054992
) can explain to Kevin Zelensky that Europe is not a supermarket where he enters and takes what he wants without paying, complaining even if it is not the first choice. What both the British and the Visegrad countries have previously forgotten, with the problems we already have.
I think there are too many reasons not to release the leopards so far.
I have kept at the end of the paper the reasons why EVERYONE is so reluctant to send carts. To understand this we need a premise: this war is, for the arms industry, the equivalent of a fair. For which, all the marketing comes.
Those who use social networks have already had the impression that, to name one, the impact of the "HIMARS" has been, so to speak, "vaguely amplified", while the goodness of some competing systems has been minimized, including also some Italian systems. I give some examples.
- in many videos I have seen Russian tanks explode without the classic initial flame of HE explosives. This tells us that it was probably a "Vulcano", a munition produced in Italy ( https://electronics.leonardo.com/it/products/vulcano-155mm ), which does not use HE charges. It was, says the propaganda, a "HIMARS".
- You can see, the various videos, the volleys of missiles that only the M270 can launch. The propaganda says “HIMARS”.
- We see vehicles and tanks hit by what appear to be MILANs, and other systems given to the Ukrainians: they always remain HIMARS, or at most they say Javelin.
- Although IRIS-T has shot down 100% of targets so far, it still says <US system of your choice>
And I could go on. The point is that this war is a fair one for the military industry, but we have already seen that all marketing goes to the Americans: apparently, the Ukrainians with HIMARS also cook us breakfast.
Message: There's an arms industry issue below.
Now let's take the tanks. They break down a lot and need to be fixed a lot, which is why you need a consistent supply chain. If it is not done, it happens that the tanks break down and remain in the field, often hit because they are immobile, when the pieces cannot arrive in time.
No country wants arms marketing to see its tanks hit and destroyed in battle, simply because the Ukrainians won't repair foreign tanks, but will simply request more, with photos of injured children attached.
And that's why everyone wants German tanks to fall into the trap. For this, you can swear that Rheinmetall, which produces them and wants good marketing, will spend YEARS preparing them.