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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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I don't think the price of a dozen (or even several dozens) tanks plays a significant role in the trillion-dollar budgets/GDPs here. It's sounds like a B-movie plot rather than something that actually happens. The US is trying for a long time to get Europe to do 2% of military expenses that they agreed to, and I think it still didn't happen, Germany barely getting to 1.5. With this level of spending, I don't thing fucking the economy is a big concern.

Also, from what I understand, the manufacturer of these tanks said that they can't make too many more than they do now anyway, at least soon, so I am not sure who is being fucked by replacing them with Abrams, if that indeed might happen. Also, according to the Wiki, Germans plan to replace them anyway by 2030, which again makes the plan of fucking the German economy by temporarily replacing some tanks not a viable plot.

Also, Germans until this point objected to Poland sending L2s to Ukraine too, which does not have any potential to affect German economy at all, except maybe Poland buying more modern tanks to replace the old ones (where Leopards would be the first choice since they already have everything set up for them) - again, nothing fucking German economy here. And now Netherlands wants to buy some L2s from Germany to give it to Ukraine - again, no fucking the German economy I can detect here. I am not sure whether the Germans would agree - but I think it'd be a good deal for them, unless there are some non-economic reasons not to do that.

Europe has cca .. 3600 Leopard 2s. If eventually say, 1000 get sent to Ukraine, to replace the destroyed Ukrainian T-64s, that'd mean a lot of lost contracts for Germans.

so I am not sure who is being fucked by replacing them with Abrams, if that indeed might happen.

The war stimulated defense spending, it's reasonable to expect they'd have attempted to revive the manufacturing.

If 1000 gets sent to Ukraine, the war will end pretty soon after. But right now we're not even near that level of commitment, good thing if they manage 10% of that. So far I understand it's more like 1%: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/01/22/germany-okays-a-dozen-polish-tanks-for-ukraine-hundreds-more-could-follow

But I don't see how it's "a lot of lost contracts for Germans" - if these tanks are already bought, the contracts are already paid for. Now imagine they all get sent to Ukraine and stay there (either somehow destroyed, or hanging around keeping the peace after the victory). I imagine they would need eventually to be replaced. Since the rest 2600 are Leopards, and having similar tanks is easier than having different ones, for obvious reasons, that mean the same Europeans now come to the Germans and say "give us more of those Leopards, we need to replace those we sent to Ukraine". I'm not sure I understand - how is this a loss for Germany in your book? Of course, if somehow Americans had a Jedi trick that would make the owners of those 2600 to replenish the missing 1000 with Abrams, that would be a lost opportunity for Germans - but I don't see how it would suddenly happen. As far as I know, militaries don't just jump to an entirely different supplier on a dime. If they planned to replace L2 with Abrams, that decision wouldn't be caused by giving tanks to Ukraine - it'd be taken independently, and there would not be additional loss to Germans to allow the tanks to be given to Ukraine - if country X intends to no longer buy Leopards, it'd not buy regardless of what happens to existing Leopards, whether they go to Ukraine now or sold to Saudi Arabia in 5 years.