Germany’s Unkept Promise

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz summarized his country’s approach to the war in Ukraine. “Despite all the pressure to take action,” he said, “caution must take priority over hasty decisions, unity over solo actions.” The line provided Scholz’s most explicit defense to date of Germany’s cycle of denial, delay, and cautious delivery of new weapons technologies to assist Ukraine’s effort against Russia. What appeared to be hand-wringing over sending Leopard 2 tanks earlier this year, Scholz assured the audience, was in fact his government’s latest prudent measure to achieve a decisive victory for Ukraine in the war raging east of the Dnipro River.

Scholz’s allies in Kyiv that Germany had reached a , an inflection point in history. During a special session convened in the Bundestag last February, he said his country would have to transform decades of conciliation toward Russia into a clear-eyed will to dissuade President Vladimir Putin from further aggression. Scholz identified the war’s central struggle as “whether we permit Putin to turn back the clock to the 19th century … or whether we have it in us to keep warmongers like Putin in check.” The challenge “requires strength of our own,” Scholz stated.