Make or break this spring in Ukraine

Once again, the Biden administration is mired in a protracted negotiation with itself over the weapons platforms it will or will not provide Ukraine.

The Biden White House is engaged in a standoff with the German government over whether to provide armor—American M1 Abrams tanks and German Leopard 2 tanks—to Ukraine. Both are reportedly open to the prospect, but only if both do so simultaneously. The impasse masks a fractious internal debate within both the German and American governments over the risks associated with providing Ukraine sophisticated weapons systems and their escalatory effect on Russia’s war of territorial conquest.

We’ve seen this movie before. The Biden administration agonized over whether to provide Ukraine with long-range artillery and rocket systems, but it overcame its reservations. The White House didn’t want to provide Ukraine with Patriot anti-missile batteries because an American presence in Ukraine would be required to operate them. Only when the administration discovered it could train Ukrainian soldiers to operate those systems on foreign soil did it relent. This superficially tense debate over whether to give Ukraine armor may follow a similar trajectory, especially given the recent influx of advanced weaponry into Ukraine.