From what I have read, the point of the tanks is to be able to go in fast and secure land they have taken back from Russia.
Putin does not have a “button” as such. No single person has, anywhere. So we aren’t going to die today 
More seriously, on the question of tanks – say Ukraine gets the ~300 western tanks it is asking for. What change does this make on the ground, what do they actually do with them?
A very good Q and it shows that despite modern weapons this business is closer to WW1 than we might expect. One thing which is obvious is that Russia does not have any decent anti tank weapons like the Javelin or the NLAW. Yet those are old – 20+ years – and surely Russia has acquired the full details by now via espionage or just getting hold of some, yet they have not been able to build them for some reason. The West has more modern versions of these too but as usual they aren’t going to Ukraine 
I guess a tank which can move fast (backwards too; the old Russian tanks are limited to ~5km/hr reverse which is often lethal) and shoot while moving and has IR vision will be effective.
But in actual conflicts the Bradleys destroyed more tanks than tanks did.
Is this a fair assessment of the Scholz government’s position – and that of the other parties and people in Germany?
LeSving wrote:
Are you sure it is big? And is it in fact red? Is it even a button ?
It’s generally a key plus a number of additional steps. Apparently on the British Polaris submarines, it was a key from a bicycle lock.
This is how the USA does it (Titan missile), it is very much NOT a big red button.
The safeguards are very good, which is why there has never been a nuclear accident. Even the most dodgy countries (e.g. Pakistan) have good security around this.
The Scholz situation came up a few posts back. That Times video is probably accurate. But he is only following roughly half of the German population… No politician can disregard that. It’s a topic which really only Germans can post on, in the same way as only French people can post on some French topics
The safeguards are actually part of the deterrent idea of nuclear weapons. In short, if you have nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes, you want other to know their capabilities (but not all details either) so that they know you have this ‘power’ but you also want them to know that you have good control over them. This part is about avoiding a situation where your enemy decide to strike you first because he feels that your nuclear weapons could be used by accident against him.
Jacko wrote:
Is this a fair assessment of the Scholz government’s position – and that of the other parties and people in Germany?
I too would be interested in our German forum members opinion on this. I saw that interview yesterday and thought it was ridiculous. I can’t believe for a moment that any significant proportion of the German population actually WANT Putin to win.
But maybe I’m wrong?
My impression is that Scholz knows that he’s going to authorise the tanks. But he’s playing for time to bring popular opinion along with him. That’s why he has said that the Ukrainians can be trained on them while German is deciding. Training will take a month anyway. So if Germany decides just as their training is coming to an end, then no time is lost and time have been given to get Germany public opinion on side. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
Yes this is possible but the political price paid by Germany internationally is huge.
This is good reading:
Wagner_Inc_a_Russian_warlord_and_his_lawyers_Financial_Times_pdf
Jacko wrote:
Is this a fair assessment of the Scholz government’s position – and that of the other parties and people in Germany?
It needs to be emphasised, and the video does mention this explicitly, that the government itself is split on this issue. The Greens and the Liberals are overwhelmingly in favour of supporting Ukraine with tanks. The Social Democrats, to whom Scholz belongs, are in two different camps. There is a strong faction especially on the left wing of the party which has historically seen its policy of rapprochement with Russia as a success, starting with Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik in the 1970s. Much later, the Schröder government courted Russia and saw this as beneficial for Germany to gain a new market and a continously cheap inflow of energy. Many of the current SPD party officials still have ties or origins in that era, being either colleagues or disciples of Schröder himself.
I assume most people here know that Schröder’s last action in office was to sign the agreement for the building of NordStream 1 and a few months later became a board member at GazProm. He also invited Putin to one of his weddings (I lost track because he’s at his 5th wife afaik).
Incidentally I am frome the state were Schröder was premier before moving to the chancellery in Berlin, and my mother once shook his hand in her function as representative of the state parents council, but I digress.
So Schröder and Putin became best buddies and his long-term ally Frank Walter Steinmeier is still president of Germany, and many in the SPD are closely affiliated with Russia. Naturally, they have a hard time accepting that they were wrong all these years. They still think there is a way to return to a status quo ante.
As I detailed above, they are very much in the minority among the government but hold very powerful positions inside the SPD leadership. And the Greens and the Liberals have not yet indicated an interest in breaking the coalition because of this topic, so for now the chancellor himself is the decisive factor.
It is very unclear even in Germany what Scholz actually wants. He is in general not a talkative person, and does explain his policies very rarely anyways. He is a mystery to me. He is not among the diehard group of russiophiles but certainly influenced by them to some degree, or he wouldn’t act the way he does. He also seems very afraid of triggering further Russian escalation or doing anything at all that might draw Germany further into this conflict.
The general population is likewise split between these two camps. The camp in favour of supporting Ukraine with tanks seems to grow every day though and most major media outlets are firmly inside it.
MedEwok wrote:
The general population is likewise split between these two camps. The camp in favour of supporting Ukraine with tanks seems to grow every day though and most major media outlets are firmly inside it.
One interesting detail is that the ‘opinion barometer’ of Der Spiegel (German news weekly, politically left of center) which has a largely left leaning or socialist readership indicates an overwhelming majority for sending tanks to Ukraine, something like 75 vs 25 percent.
