A German reluctance to fan the flames of war in Europe would, in the past, have been widely welcomed. So much for the past. The hesitation of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to send his Leopard tanks to Ukraine for a spring battle in Donbas now looks alarmingly like a peace offering to Vladimir Putin.
A large western armoury has already been built up in Ukraine, but German tanks are of a type ideally suited for the coming struggle. Delay in sending them demoralises Kyiv and is a godsend to Putin’s depiction of Nato as divided and losing heart. While Germany may be frantic for Russian gas, this is not the moment to show weakness. Scholz must be pressed to release his tanks, and those he controls in Poland and Spain.
That said, every move the west makes should be judged against its consequences. This has become the west’s proxy war. The US approved about $50bn in aid for Ukraine in 2022, with about half earmarked for military spending. Even if the hot war has stayed local, the economic assault on Russia is now global. Food and energy prices have soared worldwide. Malnutrition and famine loom over Africa and South America. Everywhere inflation and recession are threatened.
Initially, German, French and other EU leaders were keen to minimise the war’s scope. They telephoned Putin and played down sanctions. London and Washington were more belligerent, as their embattled leaders, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, strove for the populist elixir of a foreign war. A desperate Johnson could hardly keep away from the streets of Kyiv – and still cannot, holding “talks” with Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the weekend. Kyiv now has all the pledges it could want of support until Putin is defeated and toppled.
Germany’s reluctance thus raises the question of at what point does the war move from open chequebook to an uncontrollable cataclysm. Whereas a year ago the talk was of ceasefire negotiations and 2014 frontiers, Russian atrocities have led to any such talk bringing down the wrath of social-media demons.
As it is, a full-frontal nuclear conflagration is allegedly being held at bay by a backroom deal between Washington and Beijing, as reported by Owen Matthews in his book Overreach. Putin’s Chinese friends assure the west that he will not “go nuclear” as long as Nato does not stray on to Russian soil. Certainly that is a line Biden and Nato have conspicuously and carefully observed. But the temptation to breach it grows ever stronger from the pro-escalation lobby lurking behind every western defence budget.
Putin appears intent on sending his convict army to their Waterloo in Donbas this coming spring, which is all the more reason for Germany now to send its tanks. Afterwards, there must surely be some sort of negotiated ceasefire. The costs of what began as a bitter territorial dispute in eastern Ukraine are astronomical. There will never be “total victory”. Years of war cannot hope to secure Moscow’s surrender of Crimea. There must come a time when the west’s interest with regard to Russia reverts to what it has been throughout history. It is called containment.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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