How to Decide Which Weapons and Resources to Give to Ukraine

[mystery-ak]

 How to Decide Which Weapons and Resources to Give to Ukraine
War is wasteful. Leadership is knowing what you want.
by Roger Kaplan
January 25, 2023, 8:47 PM

Leopard or Abrams? Ukrainian freedom fighters need tanks, these are the types they need, and the Free World dallies and bickers.

The bickering is papered over with the announcement that the U.S. is sending 30 of these mighty war-making machines to Ukraine (with instructors), but the question of whether the Biden administration and its allies in the Free World camp have fully considered this matter remains. Ukraine needs tanks, that much is understood. Military experts will explain that you do not conquer (or win back) territory without tanks.

We understand what the Ukrainians want: for a year, they have been taking death and destruction unseen in Europe since the Balkan wars of the 1990s, fighting back against an aggressor regime that denies their very nationhood.

Do we want them to win? Or to fight the Russians to a draw? This is a legitimate question. Maybe it was intelligently debated behind the headline-grabbing matter of just how many tanks should be supplied by whom, the U.S. or Poland or Germany.

The difference between repulsing the aggression and defeating Russia is not a question to be settled in barstool debates or by headlines, but on the plains where two enemy Slavic nations have irreconcilable views of the relations between them and the types of societies they want. Western — U.S. and European — leaders maintain that the Ukrainian view is closer to the Free World nations’; the Russian view, they say, represents a direct, and ultimately mortal, challenge to the Free World, indeed a continuation of the tyrannous politics that the Bolshevik Revolution unleashed on the world in 1917. So the issue for the Free World is: do we give them what they need to win or do we give them enough not to lose?

more
https://spectator.org/how-to-decide-which-weapons-and-resources-to-give-to-ukraine/

[EdinVA]

Give?  How about none.... sell, maybe..

[Fishrrman]

No weapons, not even for sale.
Tell those Ukranians to get to the bargaining table, pronto.

[Free Vulcan]

If NATO had done this out of the gate and allowed Ukraine to buy enough to defend itself (with our money unfortunately) instead of holding back, this might have been over already.

Now that Russia is committed and dug in, pride is on the line, and everything is the stray dog's breakfast, who knows if it will make things better or worse. Horse is kinda out the barn door already.

[Right_in_Virginia]

No weapons, not even for sale.
Tell those Ukranians to get to the bargaining table, pronto.

 

[Hoodat]

The original Leopard was a Chrysler design.  I would rather see the European partners increase their commitment of Leopards, LeClercs, Challengers, etc., than to push Abrams tanks into the battle, even though the Abrams is superior to the Leopard 2.

There's been talk of developing a Leopard 3 for well over a decade now.  Perhaps we could help push this effort in exchange for European cooperation.

[Free Vulcan]

The original Leopard was a Chrysler design.  I would rather see the European partners increase their commitment of Leopards, LeClercs, Challengers, etc., than to push Abrams tanks into the battle, even though the Abrams is superior to the Leopard 2.

There's been talk of developing a Leopard 3 for well over a decade now.  Perhaps we could help push this effort in exchange for European cooperation.

That's how it should have been done - the EU taking leadership chipping in equipment from the beginning, and the US assisting. What we have now is a SNAFUBAR quagmire.

[Hoodat]

That's how it should have been done - the EU taking leadership chipping in equipment from the beginning, and the US assisting. What we have now is a SNAFUBAR quagmire.

There's a reason for that.