NZZ report: US defense industry plans to replace European Leopard 2 MBTs with Abrams in order to gain foothold in the EU tank market

11 comments

  1. According to NZZ, the US is offering countries willing to send their Leopard 2 MBTs to Ukraine replacement in the form of US Abrams MBTs, with the goal of future defense industry cooperation. Th goal is to get more European countries to buy US made tanks in the future and break the supremacy of the Leopard in Europe.

    NZZ reports that these offers are made via back channels, including the promise of long term defense cooperation. The US knows very well that the German defense industry cant replace that many Leopard 2s (if send to Ukraine) and is trying to capitalize from that situation. That’s why the US also doesnt want to send Abrams to Ukraine, because they want to sell them to the countries who send their Leopards to Ukraine.

  7. This article is kind of speculative. It’s based on two quotes; one from an anonymous German arms manufacturer saying the US offered Abrams to allies, and one from Scholz complaining about the state of the German arms industry.

    Connecting these two things into an accusation that Scholz is holding up aid to Ukraine because he wants to stop the US from selling tanks seems like a stretch to me. And I don’t buy that everyone else in Europe is hesitating on sending their own tanks or that the US is hesitating on sending Abrams out of concern for the German arms industry. I don’t even really like Scholz as chancellor, but accusing him of holding up aid to Ukraine in the hopes of keeping the US from selling tanks is a pretty nasty accusation that I don’t see any real basis for.

    It seems much more likely to me that the real reason for the holdup is that everybody is a little worried that this will be seen as a big escalation in Moscow. That’s why nobody wants to be the first to do it. Poland has made noises about it but hasn’t actually submitted a re-export request to Germany; Germany says they’ll approve Poland’s re-export request if they actually submit one, but they don’t want to do it themselves unless the US does it; Washington says Germany should go ahead if they want but is making up excuses about gas turbines and aircraft fuel not to send Abrams; the UK only sent 10 in the hope of assembling a larger coalition, but they also don’t want to send significant numbers by themselves.

  9. Both are platforms that are more than 40 years old, they could be used to fill the gaps as a temporary solution during this crisis, but no more than that…neither are the future.

  10. Man, what a shame that the country who happily jumped into the F-35 program, is not very enthusiastic about both MGCS and FCAS and has sabotaged several european weapon program is suddenly wondering if the US aren’t gonna curtail their market share

    I feel very sad. You cannot believe how sad it’s making me.

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