The Smoke Eater for Jan. 29, 2023
Zelenskyy's birthday present, the Colin Powell of Czechia, and a mongoose.
Good morning, this is The Smoke Eater for Monday, January 30, 2023, and I’m not building a playhouse for the children.
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ABOVE THE FOLD
The US and Germany have finally agreed to send tanks to Ukraine. The decision follows months of hand-wringing in the West, pleas from Ukrainians, and threats from an autocrat hellbent on keeping his fledgling county relevant in the 21st century.
For the last few months weeks, Germany and the US have been mulling over whether to send Ukraine modern tanks to combat invading Russian ground forces. While Ukraine has had access to old, Soviet-era tanks, the fear against sending the Ukrainians new, heavy artillery was it could provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin even further -- which is more of a concern if you're in London, Paris, Prague or Berlin as Russia's increasingly vocal and prominent ultra-nationalists have started banging the nuclear drum over the last few months.
As usual, there’s been grumbling form penny pinches, panic attacks from the ignorant, and some military brass have groused about letting the new neighbors borrow the Chrysler.
The desire to splurge on heavy weapons kicked into gear in December, just before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to the US Congress. A few days before Zelenskyy's address, senior Ukrainian military officials sat down with the The Economist and warned of a renewed Russian offensive in late-winter or early-spring. Officials in Kyiv cautioned that the offensive would follow a new mobilization drive that could include major cities and industrial sectors, with a goal of growing the Russian ranks by as 500,000 new soldiers.
A few days after the Economist piece, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu called for a major overhaul of the Russian military. Aside from changing the military hierarchy, a change to the biannual draft would target those aged 21-30 (instead of 18-27) for one year of military service, with a goal of adding 695,000 soldiers to the Russian armed forces -- for a total of 1.5 million.
The potential for a second Russian mobilization has been floating around for some time. Russophiles, and those following the war, have argued Russia's initial invasion screw-ups and the clusterfuck of the "partial-mobilization" last fall suggests Putin is taking calculated political risks. They argue Putin is hesitant to go all-in because of the potential blow-back at home and abroad.
BONUS: The Spectator's Owen Matthews recently sat down with Newlines' Michael Weiss for the Foreign Office podcast and noted that the war still hasn't really affected the average Muscovite — but that may be coming to an end.
BELOW THE FOLD
The debate on sending any weapons to Ukraine goes back to 2014. At the time, the Obama administration refused to send "lethal aid" in response to Russia’s invasion of southern and eastern Ukraine.
At the time, the Obama administration was guided by a foreign policy doctrine that Obama once simplified to reporters on Air Force One as, "Don't do stupid shit." He didn't want the US sucked into another bloody overseas shitshow. His attempt at ending the Bush administration's disastrous war(s) in Iraq and Afghanistan had backfired. Russia’s Wagner Group was already fucking around (and finding out) in Syria and Afghanistan. Obama and his team asked themselves, "Why should we care?"
Speaking before a joint-session of Congress, then-Ukrainian Pres. Petro Poroshenko pleaded for weapons, saying "Blankets and night-vision goggles are important, but one cannot win a war with blankets."
Somewhat prophetically, Poroshenko added, "The outcome of today's war will determine whether we will be forced to accept the reality of a dark, torn and bitter Europe as part of a new world order."
The Obama administration settled on sanctions, financial assistance, anti-mortar munitions, radios, helmets, body armor, night vision goggles, vehicles and patrol boats. The package was called, "non-lethal aid."
In 2016, the Trump campaign fought to remove any mention of arming Ukraine during their presidential nominating convention. As a candidate, Trump boasted about his close ties with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin. Trump would later be impeached for attempting to withhold a congressionally mandated $391 million worth of lethal aid to Ukraine (sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenades, radars, communication systems, and medical supplies) when a newly-elected Pres. Zelenskyy asked for anti-tank Javelin missiles. In demanded a quid pro quo, Trump demanded Zelenskyy manufacture a political scandal against Trump's political rivals for use in the 2020 US presidential election.
Most Americans only understood Ukraine through Trump’s impeachment. And because of the Bush administration’s cowboy colonialism in the Middle East, populists on the far-left and far-right began expressing isolationist views.
Meanwhile, Putin had already gotten away with multiple invasions throughout Europe. He’d bombed parts of Chechnya beyond recognition, and seized territory in Georgia without much consequence. Ukraine might have fought a bloody civil war and overthrown corrupt politicians, and instituted reforms aimed at joining the European Union and NATO, but it was still locked in a frozen conflict with an emboldened Russia. Putin had gotten away with another invasion and as long as the fight dragged on, he couldn't lose.
But everything changed Feb. 24, 2022, the night his next invasion began.
The primary argument against sending tanks has been a fear of escalation. Some think it could lead to an attack on Poland, triggering NATO's Article 5 defense commitments. And as these invasions are fundamentally about resources, it’s unlikely Putin will use a nuclear weapons — especially if it ruins Russia’s tenuous alliance with China.
The US was against sending the M1 Abrams because of the logistics hurdles involved. The Abrams, designed in the 1970s and rolled out in the 1980s, weighs in around 70 tons and is manufactured in Lima, Ohio. It utilizes a gas turbine engine, an armor system made of depleted uranium. The US' agreement says M1's headed for Ukraine must come from the manufacturer, not military stocks, so they're going to have to be either be shipped over and sent to the theater by rail, or flown in on C17 Globemasters (which can carry two at time).
There's rabbit hole arguments about training tank crews, maintaining the Abrams' jet engine, its fancy armor, and other gizmos, bells and whistles, but the bottom line is the US doesn’t want it to fall into the hands of Russia (and by extension, China, Iran, North Korea, etc). Though former Abrams' crew members will note the tank’s exhaust system functions as a water heater, stove and clothes dryer.
Comparatively, Leopard 2s are manufactured in Germany, and already in use by most NATO countries and allies, including Austria, Canada, Chile, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. About half of those countries have already said they will send Leopard 2s, or expressed openness to the idea.
Because Leopards are so prevalent throughout Europe, it makes more sense (on paper) to use the Leopard 2 as opposed to the M1 Abrams. It has a V12 twin-tubro diesel engine, so fuel and parts will be easier to acquire. And simply getting them to the frontlines won't require regular flights across two continents and an ocean.
Though it makes more sense for Germany to take the lead sending heavier weapons, you need to go back to World War II to understand their reluctance.
Many in the German government are trying to avoid the image German tanks rolling through Eastern European villages as it evokes memories of Nazism. Germans have been culturally averse to the cowboy militarism so common in the US, particularly since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But following the invasion, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was still fairly new to the job, declared the invasion to be a "zeitenwnde," and an "epochal tectonic shift" where "the goal of advancing peace, prosperity, and human freedom calls for a different mindset and different tools."
“Germany and Europe can help defend the rules-based international order without succumbing to the fatalistic view that the world is doomed to once again separate into competing blocs. My country’s history gives it a special responsibility to fight the forces of fascism, authoritarianism, and imperialism. At the same time, our experience of being split in half during an ideological and geopolitical contest gives us a particular appreciation of the risks of a new cold war.” - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, “The Global Zeitenwende: How to Avoid a New Cold War in a Multipolar Era,” Foreign Affairs
Earlier this month, polls showed Germans were almost evenly divided on whether to send tanks to Ukraine. People older than 65 were on board, they remembered Stalin’s expansionism and the struggles of the Cold War, but younger people were reluctant, they remembered Uncle Sam schilling cheeseburgers in the Middle East. Scholz's traffic light coalition government of social democrats, liberals and greens were leaning into the idea, but they all had their anti-war and/or pacifist factions. On the other end of the political spectrum, the far-fight crackpot caucus, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), remains opposed, arguing it was Russian T-34s that defeated Nazi Germany — a half-truth exaggerated and extolled by propagandists and their useful idiots — and they point to the contentious Soviet war memorials in Berlin as some kind of validation for convoluted arguments about the righteousness of Putin's genocidal imperialistic goal of restoring old Soviet borders.
FUN FACT: There's crosstalk about 83 year-old T-34s being pressed back into service, but Soviet-era T-34s haven't been confirmed in Ukraine. There's at least one video floating around social media that reportedly shows T-34s from Laos being delivered to Russia, but this archival footage from the 2019 Victory Day parade.
Germany and the US had tried to side-step the issue. The US had already announced it would send the Patriot surface-to-air defense system, as well as Bradley and Stryker armored fighting vehicles. Germany had similarly announced that it would send Marders.
But armored fighting vehicles (arguably) are not tanks. They're more like a heavily armed and armored school buses that bring a few soldiers to-and-from a battlefield.
All this hemming and hawing came to a head Jan. 11 when, during a meeting in Lviv, Ukraine between Zelenskyy, Polish Pres. Andrezej Duda and Lithuanian Pres. Gitanas Nauseda, Duda said Poland would send a, "company of Leopard tanks...as part of coalition-building."
On Jan 12., France announced it would send its AMX-10RC light tank.
A few days later, on Jan. 14, Downing Street released a statement outlining a call between UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Zelenskyy where Sunak said the UK had agreed to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks, and other munitions.
Duda's announcement had effectively kicked open the door. But German export restrictions on Leopard 2s say a country can’t re-sell (or donate) the tank without German approval.
And nobody risks flouting German bureaucracy. It only leads to more paperwork.
The US and Germany were backed into a corner: it wasn’t clear if Poland would actually send Leopards without approval, but the threat was there. People began leaking to reporters that the Germans would only send tanks if the US sent tanks, and the US was still against sending the Abrams.
On Jan. 20, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Ramstein for a meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group (Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia), Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleski Reznikov, and Germany's new Defense Minister, Boris Psitorious. The expectation was that this would result in a decision to send tanks, but it ended with more frustration and indecision.
Pistorius would later tell reporters that Germany would, "balance all the pros and contras [sic] before we decide things like that...I am very sure that there will be a decision in the short term but...I don’t know how the decision will look.”
The pressure on Scholz suddenly grew. People began protesting in Berlin, op-eds were piling up, and the polls were shifting in favor of tanks.
But the US was still against sending the Abrams. According to the Washington Post, a compromise was reached to eventually send new Abrams tanks to Ukraine, just without the specialized armor. It’s been suggested that delivery could take months (or years).
On Jan. 24, Spiegel reported Germany would unleash the Leopards. Hours later, Scholz confirmed the decision in an address to the Bundestag. Shortly thereafter, US Pres. Joe Biden appeared in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, flanked by Sec. Austin and Secretary of State Tony Blinken to announce the US would send the Abrams to Ukraine.
Coincidentally, it was Zelenskyy's 45th birthday.
THE BACK PAGES
Former chair of the NATO military committee, Petr Pavel will become the new president of Czechia after a landslide victory over populist billionaire and former prime minister, Andrej Babis. Speaking to supporters and the press on Saturday, Pavel said, "Values such as truth, dignity, respect and humility won. I am convinced that these values are shared by the vast majority of us, it is worth us trying to make them part of our lives and also return them to the Prague Castle and our politics." Zuzana Čaputová, Pres. of Slovakia Zuzana Čaputová, traveled to Czechia to mark the occasion. Throughout the second round of the election, polls showed Babis, a bomb-throwing euro-skeptic with questionable ties to Russian oligarchs, trailing behind Pavel. During recent debate, Babis said that he wouldn't defend Poland and Baltic states if attacked, prompting Pavel to remind Babis of Czechia's NATO defense commitment. Babis tried to walk back his statement after facing domestic and international criticism. Pavel had campaigned as a calm and collected pro-western war hero who backed Ukraine. Though Czechia’s president is mostly mostly ceremonial (the president selects the Prime Minister), the president does assume more powers during wartime — a scenario some Czechs see as likely. During a phone call after the election, a friend in Prague likened Pavel to late-ret. US Army Gen. Colin Powell, telling me, "Now there's a European general in power in the heart of Europe...It changes a lot of things."
Russian ex-pats hoping to dodge Putin's war in Ukraine have immigrated to places like Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Turkey (Türkiye). Millions have fled, particularly since Putin announced the partial mobilization last fall. Turkey has grown fed up with the new Russian diaspora and begun denying residency permits, making resettlement more difficult. Some Georgians are pissed at the Russians, particularly because of after Russia’s 2008 invasion. Over in South America, some Russian ex-pats, particularly those in the LGBTQ+ community, are finding a more welcome atmosphere, Meduza reports. In a related story, the Russian Government has now banned independent media outlet Meduza, calling it a, "undesirable organization," and threatening people who link to Meduza with prison. Meduza has operated in exile in neighboring Lithuania since the start of the war.
Another wealthy Russian businessman has been found dead after falling off a roof. Pavel Antov, 65. owner of a sausage company, and his friend, Vladimir Bydanov, 61, were both on holiday in India when Bydanov was found dead of a heart attack just before Christmas. Witnesses claim both men were binge drinking (heavily) throughout the trip. Several days after the death of Bydanov, Pavel is said to have locked himself in his hotel room for several days without food. Before his death, witnesses claim to have seen Antov angrily making his way to the roof of the hotel. Last summer, Antov retracted a social media post some Russians saw as critical to the war. Indian authorities are said to be conducting an elaborate investigation as some officials raise questions over the circumstances surrounding Antov's death. Considered a Russian ally, India has thus far remained neutral in the war, using it as an opportunity to buy cheap Russian oil.
The White House has declined to say whether it will send 25mm shells with depleted uranium to Ukraine. Weapons firing depleted uranium are contentious as they've been linked to very serious health and environmental hazards.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired Nadhim Zahawi, chair of his ruling Conservative Party, for a "serious breach" of ethics rules. Zahawi, who had been known to critique his liberal opposition's spending policies, faced criticism over a multimillion dollar unpaid tax bill as head of the UK Treasury. Zahawi argued his failure to pay taxes on around £5 million ($6.2 million) was, "careless and not deliberate," and that press reports on his failure to pay to his, his subsequent fine, and his initial refusal to disclose the information did not meet a standard of, "legitimate scrutiny of public officials."
The Iranian Defense Ministry says an overnight drone attack on the city of Isfahan Sunday damaged what state news agency, IRNA, calls, a "workship," and a, "ammunition manufacturing plant," according to the BBC. Over the last few years, Iran has been the target of suspicious attacks on various infrastructure, but the ruling government's closed society and state-run media offers little concrete details. Citing absolutely zero evidence, some shitposters think the attack may have targeted a factory for Saheel drones being used by Russia in Ukraine.
ONE MORE THING...
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