If NATO Won’t Give Ukraine Offensive Weapons, “Defensive Tanks” Will Do

It is no secret that Ukraine needs defensive NATO-standard armored vehicles. Speaking at the Pentagon in mid-September 2022, a forward-thinking “senior military official” noted that Ukraine “may need to transition to NATO compatible” armored vehicles, and that “tanks are absolutely on the table.” But as 2023 looms, NATO-compatible tanks—even less heavily-armed defensive-oriented ones—are still stuck on the proverbial table.

Ukraine has no easy path forward. For modern armored vehicles, there just aren’t too many viable options available. Unless a free-wheeling, on-the-move arms export powerhouse like South Korea rolls up with a surprise offer, only German or American tanks are available in sufficient numbers for Ukraine to start thinking about accumulating a standardized “single model” tank force for the future.

Under normal circumstances, Germany and the United States would be falling all over themselves to “capture” Ukraine’s long-term tank business. But front-line battle tanks are tricky things. For better or worse, tank suppliers get tied to their clients, associated with every future conflict they get into. Both Germany and the United States might support Ukraine today, but neither Germany nor the United States seem particularly eager to see their front-line tanks become the public “face” of the Ukrainian army, highlighted whenever Ukraine and Russia face off in the future.

But Ukraine cannot wait much longer.

Facing the prospect of more heavy combat, Ukraine is at an uncomfortable inflection point, caught between new NATO equipment standards and old Warsaw Pact gear. While former Warsaw Pact members are diligently handing over their old-but-refreshed Soviet-era tanks, and Ukraine’s mechanics are doing wonderful work in keeping Ukraine’s aging armor in the fight, the old Soviet tank designs have a limited lifespan, and the prospect of Ukraine’s continued battlefield appropriation of abandoned Russian vehicles seems slim.

Ukraine can ill-afford to maintain their bewildering array of donated and captured tanks. According to the weapons tracking site Oryxspioenkop.com, Ukraine has captured some twenty different configurations of various Russian tank models. No army can field such a mess for very long.

Unlike former Warsaw Pact countries that took several leisurely decades to convert their arsenals to NATO-standards, Ukraine is being forced to make the transformation overnight and under fire. To manage this transformation, Ukraine needs a path forward with “defensive armor” so it can start training and developing the in-country know-how and support infrastructure modern tanks need to be effective.

Redefine Older NATO Armor As Defensive

Complicating matters, Ukraine’s transformation to a NATO arsenal has been waylaid by timorous bureaucrats that preemptively defined tanks as “offensive” weaponry and deemed “escalatory” by Russia’s erratic leadership.

The concerns are misplaced. Modernized T-72s are already flowing into Ukraine with little response from Russia, so drawing the line at modern tanks seems an absurd exercise in unilateral demilitarization. But if it helps, NATO should tinker with their overly-broad parameters, adopting a simple definition for “defensive armored vehicles.”

A defensive armored vehicle could simply be older, lighter Western vehicles that maintain, say, a 105mm main gun (rather than the larger caliber main guns on modern main battle tanks). That points Ukraine firmly towards Leopard I tanks, M-60 Patton Main Battle tanks, early-model Abrams tanks and even the U.S. Army’s unwieldy up-gunned, eight-wheeled Strykers.

While Ukraine certainly wants modern Leopard II and Abrams main battle tanks, neither Germany nor the U.S. seem eager to funnel their “top-shelf” weapons into the Ukraine conflict. In December, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz indicated that Germany would not offer Ukraine tanks for at least another 12 months. In Washington, a quick holiday visit to the White House by Ukraine’s president—mimicking Winston Churchill’s epic trip to the White House in 1941—failed to get Ukraine new tanks either.

But redefining older NATO tanks as “defensive” gives NATO’s cautious sensibilities a path towards rationalizing Ukraine’s grab-bag of battlefield spoils and second-hand Warsaw Pact cast-offs. At least NATO can define a path forward for Ukraine, and start training future Ukrainian tankers and maintainers in the gear they may soon receive.

For example, if Ukraine knew Germany would offer Leopard I’s, they can focus more maintainers towards their already-donated Gepard anti-aircraft tanks, which is built on the Leopard I chassis. Or, if America’s balky-but-big-gunned Strykers are available, Ukraine can direct resources towards really maintaining their donated set of LAV armored vehicles.

Defensive tanks make sense. A NATO-standard tank armed with an 105mm gun is not going to go toe-to-toe with Russia’s dwindling supply of top-tier tanks. The older NATO tanks can be a boon on the Ukrainian battlefield, but they’re not capable of carrying out a full-fledged assault on the gates of Moscow.