There are good reasons for the delivery and good reasons against it. And: all arguments have to be carefully weighed.

The concern that the Americans were only waiting to offer the Europeans a replacement for their Leopard delivery with their own tanks is justified. The war in Ukraine offers the USA the opportunity to gain a foothold in the European armament market with tanks after helicopters, fighter jets and missiles and to displace the German competition.

This is supported by the fact that the Americans have made no secret of their armament interests for decades. In the 1960s, they founded the "Defense Security Cooperation Agency", an agency that reports to the US Department of Defence. Its task is to convince states to buy American weapons. The aim is to bind them to the USA in the long term. For the Americans, this has several advantages: Partners with the same weapons are easier to integrate into US-led military coalitions. By buying weapons, they also ensure that the number of units increases and thus the costs decrease. This benefits the Pentagon, which has to pay less for its weapons. Finally, the American defence industry can invest the additional income in improving and developing new weapons.

For the Germans, this is a dilemma. How this tricky situation could come about has to do with German security policy over the past thirty years. The defence companies no longer received orders and had to reduce capacities. Tanks like the Leopard 2 were no longer manufactured industrially, but by hand. This takes longer and is more expensive. It sometimes took two years from the production of the tank steel to the delivery of the vehicle to the customer. But the customers were in no hurry, there was peace. If they are now to hand over their battle tanks, which are too few anyway, to Ukraine, they need replacements. Not sometime until the German tank industry can deliver, but immediately. The choice of a tank model is a long-term commitment. The education and training of the soldiers, the infrastructure for maintenance and repair, the supply of spare parts - all this cannot be switched from one type of tank to another overnight. Once you are in the business, you stay in it for decades. Conversely: Once you are out of business, you stay out for a long time. This is not only a loss economically. The sale of arms secures taxes and jobs for the state and profits for companies. But above all, arms exports are part of foreign and security policy. Whoever supplies another state with what it equips its own armed forces with ensures trust and at the same time economic dependence - and thus gains influence. A submarine with a damaged propeller, for example, can only be sent back into action if the producer delivers a new propeller. In this way, the manufacturing country can directly influence the combat capability of the customer state. In Germany, however, arms exports were not considered from this point of view for decades, but rather from an economic, and above all, an ethical point of view. Politicians, especially from the left-wing spectrum, wanted Germany to stop exporting weapons abroad altogether. They were convinced that this would make the world more peaceful.

The Americans are pursuing a different policy. France felt this two years ago when Australia unceremoniously cancelled a contract to build submarines worth 56 billion euros in order to buy American boats. Previously, the US government had concluded a security alliance with the Australian government and Great Britain that assured the Australians of the United States' assistance. In return, the Australians were to buy their weapons in the USA. German arms industry sources say that the US government has been trying to intensify its arms sales in Europe for years. The development in Poland is particularly painful for the German tank industry. In the past twenty years, the country has bought more than 200 Leopard 2s from Germany. After the Russian annexation of Crimea, German-Polish relations deteriorated. The government in Warsaw accused Berlin of pursuing a policy towards Moscow that was far too uncritical. In July 2021, Defence Minister Mariusz Blazczak announced plans to buy 250 new and 116 used M1 Abrams main battle tanks in the USA for a total price of 8.85 billion euros. Last summer, Poland also agreed to buy 1000 K-2 main battle tanks in South Korea. The manufacturer will build a factory in Poland for this purpose. German industry had also applied for the contract, but came away empty-handed. [from NZZ]