This is ridiculous. I mean the whole "we will respond to the Russian invasion" always in future tense. The Russian army has been in building its invasion force for months now. One would have thought plans for sanctions and military support (in the form of armament) have been put in place, to be acted on immediately if and when the invasion is put in motion. The current response from US and Europe leaders looks pathetic.
There probably aren't 50,000 Stinger missiles across all military inventories globally, never mind just Germany.
Most countries do not maintain a massive inventory of MANPADS, there is no use case for having that many. There have only been 70,000 Stinger missiles produced globally over the last 40 years and quite a few of those have been used up in various conflicts or are well past their shelf-life. Most countries with decent militaries have hundreds or thousands. Due to the shelf-life, maintenance, and obsolescence issue, it is rather expensive to stockpile a massive number of MANPADS if you don't expect to need them soon.
They don't go through them that quickly, for two reasons.
First, even advanced MANPADS like the Stinger missile have a very constrained scope of engagement, primarily helicopters and CAS aircraft in your immediate proximity due to the limited range. Situations where you can use them don't occur all that often because adversaries have a limited number of these aircraft to cover a lot of terrain. You need to be in the middle of a ground attack or staked out at an enemy airfield, and they run patrols around airfields to make sure someone with MANPADS cannot get within practical range.
Second, many wealthier western militaries expect to be able to suppress the kinds of aircraft that MANPADS are designed for with conventional Air Force and air defense assets; MANPADS are what you use when the adversary has a dominant air attack position. If the US or NATO ever finds itself in a position where some adversary has established clear air dominance or outright superiority, a great many things have gone horribly wrong. The only time MANPADS might be useful is clandestine or covert missions where there is almost no air support at all because you aren't supposed to be there.
The US maintains a large inventory of MANPADS, but mostly for situations like the Ukraine where an ally that has no ability to establish air superiority needs to suppress the ground attack assets of someone that does. Being able to airdrop a large number of MANPADS in a very short period of time is helpful in this scenario.
This stuff can be expensive. From what I can tell each stinger missile costs around $38k. So 500 of them is about $20 million worth of missiles. 50k would be $1.9 billion worth.
Germany has a strong streak of pacifism as a core Identity ever since WW2. That includes a prohibition against exporting arms into conflicts that needed to be waived here.
Yes, they will tend to err on the side of caution, even drastically so. They make up for it with lots of money and taking in a large number of refugees.
German politicians have occasionally tried a friendly approach towards Russia/the SU starting with Willy Brandt in the 60s. Those diplomatic efforts led to Gorbatschow having enough trust to dismantle the SU peacefully.
There were some business interests involved in the issue of SWIFT, mostly the fear that oil & gas deliveries will seize immediately. Beyond that, nobody believes that any meaningful trade will happen going forward. Only some drastic event, specifically the end of Putin, will allow for a reset of the relationship.
Besides, it doesn’t really matter if Germany send these arms. Germany is part of the EU, which has authority over trade, and is also seen as a block by the #russian government.
Germany’s army will transfer 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 “Stinger” class surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine to help it in its battle against Russia’s invasion, the government said Saturday. The weapons, which will come from the Bundeswehr’s own stocks, “will be delivered as quickly as possible to Ukraine”, said a government statement.
I wonder what's the actual use. As far as one can tell from news, they have ample of weapons - there were shipments like these since 2015, and now there were crates of machine guns placed on Kyiv streets for anyone to take. They lack the manpower in face of the attackers, and on this front the West will not help.
What would be the fastest way to get these to Kyiv? Fly them to Warsaw or further east and then on road from there I imagine. Might still take a couple of days, hope that's not too late.
Is this going to accomplish anything? I fear sending in more weapons will just lead to more deaths, I do not think there is any way for Ukraine to win this.
idk, it looks like they're holding their own.
If enough Russian troops die, what do you think is the most likely outcome?
Is freedom worth dying for?
Is denying others their freedom worth dying for?
Trump already sent Javelins. Glad the world was against this kind of defensive armament and made a big deal about it at the time. Glad they have finally come around, too late of course.
No, Trump was criticized for withholding that military aid to Ukraine in order to get them to help his reelection campaign by opening an "investigation" into Hillary. Mick Mulvaney, Trumps Chief of staff at the time, plainly admitted it:
> "I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy. That is going to happen. Elections have consequences."
This was quietly acknowledged within the administration to be illegal, but Trump didn't budge. The administration was finally forced to release the aid when the House started inquiries as a prelude to impeachment.
