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To see a list of previous articles, enter “Ukraine” in the Search Box on the upper right, on The Trenchant Observer web site, and you will see a list in chronological order.
Dispatches
1) Christoph B. Schiltz, “Herbst der Entscheidung – Drei Szenarien für den Ukraine-Krieg,” den 18. August 2022 (17:55 Uhr);
2) Christoph B. Schiltz, “Autumn of Decision – Three Scenarios for the Ukraine War,” August 18, 2022 (5:55 p.m.);
Analysis
Germany and appeasement of Russia
Olaf Scholz and Germany have become the leading practitioners of appeasement of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February.
Despite promises and noble language by Scholz, Germany has dragged its feet and in fact provided little military assistance to Ukraine. It is, in effect, pressuring Ukraine to make peace on Putin’s terms by withholding military aid.
If we have learned one thing about Olaf Scholz since the invasion, it is that you cannot take the chancellor at his word.
With Scholz as with Biden and Putin, to understand Germany’s policies you need to look at his actions and not his words.
Scholz remains the prisoner of the appeasers and “friends of Putin” in his own Social Democratic Party (SDP). The SDP is leading the so-called “Ampel” coalition, so named because the colors of the parties are the colors of a stoplight. Red for the SDP, yellow for the Free Democratic Party (FDP), and green for the Green Party, which is the party of foreign minister Annalena Baerbock.
So long as Scholz remains Chancellor, the appeasers in the SDP will be dragging Scholz’s and Germany’s feet in providing military aid to Ukraine, and will be using it as a weapon to force Ukraine to reach a settlement with Russia on Putin’s terms. These include territorial “concessions”–recognition of territorial gains acquired through military aggression.
No ceasefire or peace settlement involving such concessions will ever be reached, because they would violate peremptory norms of international law (jus cogens) and could never be recognized by other countries.
The likely consequence of Germany withholding military aid will be to contribute to Ukrainian defeats on the battlefield and the continuation of a long drawn-out conflict in the heart of Europe.
The shame of this two-faced policy of appeasement should be great for Germans, who through Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany taught the world what appeasement means.
That said, there is no guarantee that lessons, once learned, cannot be forgotten.
The military situation and outlook in Ukraine
Schilz draws on top military experts in providing a superb overview of the current military situation in Ukraine, and the different courses the war is likely to follow in the Fall, Winter, and Spring. He quotes Col. Markus Reisner from the German defense ministry, one of the top military analysts in Europe, as saying Ukraine is currently receiving only 10-15% of the weapons it needs.
Schilz’s analysis underlines the fact that Ukraine and its allies are losing the war.
The Trenchant Observer
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