About a week ago, I suggested that Germany was holding off on sending Leopard to the Ukraine until the US sends Abrams tanks to the former Soviet Republic because they wanted to be sure that there were pictures of both tanks being destroyed on the battlefield, which would minimize potential impacts on their tank sales.
The US pushed back hard, suggesting without providing much data, that the M-1 was too much of a tank for the Ukrainians, while the Leopard was.
Secretary of Defense, and tool of the Military Industrial Complex, Lloyd Austin was reportedly apoplectic over this.
Well, it now appears that, the United States blinked first, and will be sending about a dozen tanks to the Ukraine:
The United States appears poised to start a process that would eventually send dozens of its M1 Abrams battle tanks to Ukraine, US media reported, in a reversal that could have significant implications for Kyiv’s efforts to repel Russian forces.
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The move follows reports on Tuesday that Berlin has succumbed to huge international and domestic pressure and was set to announce that it will send German-manufactured tanks to Ukraine, and allow other countries to do the same.
An official US announcement that it will send just over 30 tanks is expected to come on Wednesday, a US official told the Associated Press.
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While eventually backtracking, Berlin had said it would only send the Leopard tanks to Ukraine if the United States agreed to send its own tanks.
“The only reason the United States would send M1 tanks to Ukraine is to give Germany the political cover it requires to unlocking the Leopard tanks,” said Mark Cancian, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
I know that some folks will suggest that my ascribing all of this to crass military salesmanship is excessively cynical, but it appears to me that pretty much any US military endeavor in my lifetime has been motivated in significant part by defense contractor profits.
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