foreign policy Germany and the United States are sending Leopards and M1 Abrams tanks—but Washington’s desired endgame is still a mystery.
Matt Kroenig: Hi, Emma! Happy Birthday! It’s Debatable is nearly 3 years old.
Emma Ashford: So the column is now leaving the Terrible Twos? That will be a relief for our readers!
MK: Does that mean we have to stop throwing tantrums? I thought that was why readers came to this column. I was looking forward to a mutual meltdown this week over tanks, corruption, and classified documents.
EA: I thought you’d be happy about the tanks. After all, Germany and the United States have both now agreed to send tanks to Ukraine; the United States will send a battalion’s worth of M1 Abrams tanks, and Germany will send two battalions of its Leopard tanks. I’ve never heard so many happy commentators in Washington—the way folks are talking, it sounds as if these tanks could win the war in a matter of weeks.
MK: You
put it well on Twitter. The huge debate over tanks is really a proxy for the broader debate about strategy. Those who want to give the Ukrainians what they need to defeat Russia are in favor. Those who are more cautious or parsimonious were against.
I put myself in the former camp, so I am happy the tanks will be sent. But I am puzzled by the rapid about-face in both Washington and Berlin. And I am also not so naive as to think that a few armored vehicles are going to be the silver bullet that suddenly turns the tide of war.
EA: Let’s back up for just a minute, because I do think it’s an interesting political question. For readers who haven’t necessarily been following this closely, foreign-policy elites in Washington, Berlin, and various European capitals have been almost entirely consumed in recent weeks by the question of whether Germany would send tanks to Ukraine or not.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was hesitant to do so, and I think it was a more difficult problem than many in Washington gave the German government credit for. On the one hand, the Leopards are among the easier to master tank systems that could be transferred to Ukraine. On the other hand, there’s a host of good reasons why Scholz didn’t want to be in the lead on this, from escalation fears to German public opinion to the unpleasant historical echoes of German tanks killing Russian troops on the Eastern Front.
So I don’t quite understand why everyone has been so focused on this. The tank debate has taken on an outsized importance in conversations about Ukraine here in Washington.
MK: Where to begin? I agree. We have huge debates about each new step (Should we provide: Polish fighter aircraft, HIMARS, ATACMS, tanks, etc.?) without a clearly articulated strategy. If you don’t know where you want to go, any route can get you there.
But what I found more frustrating this week was the idea that Germany should lead on this. The Biden administration keeps making the mistake that Europe exists as a coherent entity and will act on its own without U.S. leadership. It is “lead from behind” 2.0. The United States is still the leader of the trans-Atlantic alliance, and, of course, Germany was not going to stick its neck out on this issue without the United States at its side.
I also found the Biden administration’s messaging frustrating. A few days ago, they strenuously argued that Abrams tanks make no sense in Ukraine because they are hard to operate and maintain. A few days later, they announced that the United States would send 31 tanks. Why not just say they are considering the issue but no decision has been made, rather than swing from one extreme to the other overnight?
EA: I think it’s pretty clear that the Abrams tanks are only being sent in order to facilitate the German tank transfer, given the obvious drawbacks in the plan. For one thing, the Abrams are being purchased from manufacturers, not pulled from U.S. stockpiles, so they won’t get to Ukraine for at least six months or more. And, as you note, even the Biden administration has been clear about how operationally challenging these tanks can be—in particular, the fact that they consume massive amounts of fuel.
But I’m frustrated for the exact opposite reason: If Washington really wants Europe to step up, then why is Washington stepping in to save face for Berlin? Again and again in this conflict, we have seen the White House jump in rather than push for European states to do more. Other than the Eastern European states closest to Russia—and the United Kingdom—most countries in Europe aren’t stepping up as they should in the military space.
The more important question might be whether these tanks will really make a difference. You alluded above to the idea that these are weapons without a strategy.
MK: Yes. We agree that Washington is providing weapons piecemeal without a strategy. I suspect we disagree strongly on what the strategy should be. I think the goal should be for Ukraine to win. Instead of debating each weapons system, let us state victory as the goal and give Kyiv the weapons it needs to fight this war the way NATO would fight it: combined arms operations with fighter aircraft, tanks, infantry, long-range artillery and missiles, air and missile defenses—everything except nuclear weapons!
So the provision of these tanks on their own will certainly help but only at the margins. At this rate, the United States is prolonging the conflict by giving the Ukrainians a drip, drip, drip of weapons—just enough to stay in the ring but not enough to knock the Russians out.
EA: That’s half right. Washington debates every individual weapons system: Will ATACMS allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia territory and thus escalate the war? Will tanks allow Ukraine to threaten Crimea and thereby cause nuclear escalation? The debate is backward: U.S. leaders should be deciding their strategic goals and limitations and then framing the choice of weapons within that.
I do disagree with you about giving the Ukrainians everything they ask for. Washington has its own interests, which don’t always align with Kyiv’s, and simply responding to every request with a debate about whether to send a certain system is not the way to manage those interests. It’s a recipe for a slippery slope into overcommitment.
I also would quibble with your statement that the United States is providing the Ukrainians with a “drip, drip, drip of weapons.” By my estimate, the U.S. government has provided a huge fountain of weapons. It’s practically an Old Faithful-level geyser of weapons to Ukraine. The United States has sent so many weapons that U.S. military leaders are getting worried that the country isn’t keeping enough for its own troops! The problem isn’t too few weapons. The problem is that Washington appears to be completely incapable of having an actual discussion about how and where it wants this war to end.
MK: But you and I are capable of having that discussion, and my answers to your questions are clear. Strategic goals: Ukraine takes back its sovereign territory, including Crimea. Russia loses and pays war reparations. The limitations: no nuclear weapons. The choice of weapons: everything else Ukraine needs to win.
EA: What about the problem of declining U.S. stockpiles of weapons and ammunition? Should the United States and its allies just empty out their stocks? There are real problems with increasing the production rate on many of these systems and ammunition types. Giving Ukraine everything it asks for risks leaving the United States exposed in other potential conflicts.
Never mind the escalation risks of openly supporting Ukraine’s desire to retake Crimea, a peninsula that holds the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet!
Mr.BadGuy
Publisher
These soldiers are from a country whose president is a Jew Zelensky. Orthodox churches are also being destroyed in this country. Synagogues are not touched. Surprisingly, it turns out that Jews get along well with the Bandera Nazis.