US Leaning Toward Sending Main Battle Tanks to Ukraine: Report

The Biden administration is reportedly leaning heavily toward supplying Ukraine with a sizable number of Abrams tanks in the coming days.

An announcement could come as early as this week and coincide with Berlin’s long-awaited agreement to send Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv. Germany has also consented to Poland’s and other countries’ demands to send German-made tanks to resist Russia’s unprovoked invasion.

The development comes as reports indicate Putin may launch a winter offensive to regain the strategic initiative with newly mobilized troops. Ukraine is also planning its own counteroffensive, with Russian forces depleted after repeated failed assaults against strategic cities and towns like Bakhmut in the vital Donbas region.

The Wall Street Journal explains:

The shift in the U.S. position follows a call on Jan. 17 between President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which Mr. Biden agreed to look into providing the Abrams tanks against the judgment of the Pentagon. A senior German official said that the issue had been the subject of intense negotiation between Washington and Berlin for more than a week and appeared to be on the way to resolution.

Military officials have argued publicly that the Abrams tanks require a substantial amount of training and logistics support and therefore aren’t appropriate for this moment in the conflict.

In a contentious meeting last week at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the U.S. and its allies failed to persuade Germany to allow other nations to send German-made tanks, exposing the first serious rift in the alliance that has supported Kyiv.

Previously, the Pentagon had ruled out providing the tanks to Ukraine, saying they were too complicated for the Ukrainians to maintain and operate. But White House and State Department officials were described as being more open to providing Abrams to break the diplomatic logjam holding up Leopard deliveries.

A group of Democratic and Republican lawmakers has come out, urging the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with several Abrams. A request which has met with backlash from other GOP representatives.

If the administration reverses course and deploys technologically superior Abrams tanks alongside the nearly as good Leopard 2, it may be the death knell for the Kremlin’s war of aggression.

At this hour, the White House isn’t responding to requests for comments on its policy. Though all indicators are significant changes are coming.

The Abrams’ one weakness is its poor fuel economy, though that shouldn’t come as a surprise given its weight at 55 tons. It also carries enough fuel to travel up to 300 miles without refueling.

In a recent piece, National Review‘s Robert Zubrin attempted to dispel some of the perceived downsides critics point to when it comes to supplying Kyiv with America’s main battle tank — as well as what’s at stake for the region:

There are certainly logistics and training issues associated with the Abrams. This is true of all weapons systems. But setting up the required logistics is just a matter of doing the necessary work. M1 Abrams tanks have been delivered all over the world, including 1,100 to Egypt, 218 to Kuwait, 450 to Saudi Arabia, and 380 to Morocco — with others delivered or scheduled for delivery to Iraq, Poland, Greece, Australia, and Taiwan. Furthermore, not only are Abrams tanks operated by 20-year-old American high-school graduates, they are currently being used in combat in Yemen by Saudi kids. Ukrainian soldiers can certainly be quickly trained to use them. According to retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey, an experienced Ukrainian tank crew could be trained to use the Abrams in 30 days.

Delaying delivery of necessary arms risks defeat, which is an outcome America cannot afford. If Ukraine loses the war, Russian forces would advance to the borders of NATO countries Poland and Romania, and the expansionist Putin regime would be greatly strengthened both economically and politically. Furthermore, by conquering Ukraine, Putin would delist the million-man Ukrainian army from the West’s order of battle and eliminate Russia’s gaping strategic weakness along its southwest border. With this weakness cured, Russia would be free to invade the Baltic states. Under such circumstances, the U.S. would be forced to reposition massive armed forces to defend Europe. This would greatly weaken our ability to defend Asia, both by draining our treasury and directly diverting our military capabilities.

But the strategic catastrophe resulting from the failure to adequately arm Ukraine would be far worse than even this implies, because it would fatally undermine the deterrent effect of America’s military. President Biden set the current disaster in motion when, rather than maintain a deployment that since 2014 was costing the lives of about ten soldiers per year, he ordered U.S. forces to flee Afghanistan. This “America won’t fight” signal was read by Putin as an invitation to invade Ukraine — an invitation he accepted with alacrity by assembling Russian invasion forces on Ukraine’s border within two months of our self-imposed rout.

We can defend Ukraine without risking a single American soldier. If we choose defeat rather than accept the extremely modest costs in armaments that it would take to secure victory, why would anyone, in particular Chinese dictator Xi, believe for a minute that we would risk our entire Pacific fleet to defend Taiwan?

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