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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz poses in front of an anti-aircraft gun tank Gepard at the Putlos military training area in Holstein, Germany, Aug. 25.
Photo:
morris macmatzen/pool/Shutterstock
A list of the world’s mysteries might include what was Stonehenge’s purpose? What is the origin of dark matter in the universe? And why on earth is German Chancellor
Olaf Scholz
stalling tank deliveries to Ukraine?
Mr. Scholz is dragging his feet on new tanks as Kyiv begs the West for the weapons to build on the momentum of its recent advances against Russia’s invaders. Berlin in April promised to provide Cheetah anti-aircraft tanks, and then waited until July to start delivering them. As of this week, Berlin’s defense ministry says 24 have been sent.
Germany could also send its Marten infantry and Leopard battle tanks, and a growing chorus of German leaders and foreign allies says Mr. Scholz should. That includes Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party and chairwoman of Parliament’s defense committee Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a Free Democrat. Both parties are part of the coalition government with Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats. The opposition Christian Democrats also support sending more tanks.
Even Mr. Scholz’s party, long a bastion of pro-Russian pacifism, is changing. Social Democrat
Michael Roth,
chairman of the Parliament’s foreign-affairs committee, is a vocal advocate for more weapons deliveries.
Mr. Scholz claims to fret that depleting Germany’s stock of tanks by sending them to Ukraine would undermine Berlin’s ability to defend North Atlantic Treaty allies. Those allies disagree. Germany “must do more,” U.S. Ambassador
Amy Gutmann
said on Sunday. Polish Prime Minister
Mateusz Morawiecki
said in an interview over the weekend that Berlin’s chronic delay sending military aid to Ukraine “seriously calls into question the value of the alliance with Germany,”
NATO Secretary-General
Jens Stoltenberg
underscored the point last week: “The use of these stocks actually helps to increase our own security and reduce the risk of any aggressive actions by Russia against the NATO Allied countries.” He said some 80% of Russia’s land forces are tied up in Ukraine, and a Russian defeat there would make an attack on NATO less likely.
Mr. Scholz may still harbor doubts that Ukraine can win the war. Some German foreign-policy experts purport to worry that German arms could cause
to view Germany as a combatant, or that Ukrainian gains could goad him to use a nuclear weapon.
But the illusion of a Putinist Russia content to live within its borders should have been shattered long ago. The best way forward, for Germany and Europe, is for Ukraine to keep winning on the battlefield so Mr. Putin will be forced to withdraw or negotiate out of weakness. Mr. Scholz’s tank stall is a danger to Ukraine and NATO, and a disgrace for a Chancellor who six months ago promised a bolder Germany.
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Appeared in the September 16, 2022, print edition.
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