Darrell Castle talks about the continual ascent up the escalation ladder in Ukraine by the United States and NATO. Things are starting to look a lot like 1937 again in Europe as a limited war with limited objectives is expanding into a full-blown combined arms conflict.

Transcription / Notes

UKRAINE—SOUNDS LIKE WORLD WAR lll

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 27th day of January in the year of our Lord 2023. I will be talking about the continual ascent up the escalation ladder in Ukraine by the United States and NATO. Things are starting to look a lot like 1937 again in Europe as a limited war with limited objectives is expanding into a full blown combined arms conflict.

Deals are in the making and have been for weeks to supply Western main battle tanks to Ukraine. Those deals will open the door for more and more advanced weapons to be introduced into the struggle. The Ukrainian President pleads for more advanced Western weapons telling the world that Russian “terror” can only be stopped on the battlefield. Several NATO countries have agreed to send advanced offensive weapons into the struggle.

Pressure to commit main battle tanks and thus expand the war into a combined arms struggle has been relentless and now it looks certain that the U.S. has succumbed to that pressure. The German Government has been under the most pressure and recently accepted the resignation of the German Defense Minister because of her reluctance to supply Leopard 2 main battle tanks. Poland’s tanks came from Germany and the U.S. and are not supposed to be exported without the permission of the country of origin, but now Poland says it with send them with or without permission.

The Ukrainian forces know that Russia is only waiting for weather conditions to improve before launching an all out offensive which could prove irresistible with the current supple of weapons. Ukraine has main battle tanks already from Poland and the Czech Republic but those are old Soviet cast offs which have been modernized. What they want now are the best in the world that being the U.S. Abrams, the German Leopards, and the British Challengers.

The Leopard is the primary tank for 13 European countries and they have about 2000 scattered around Europe. Those countries would all be expected to contribute under the new agreement. Finland, not yet a NATO member, and located on the Russian border said that it will also send Leopards. The U.S. is the crucial element in the deal because German Chancellor Scholz said that his position depends on that of the U.S. If the U.S. is in and willing to send Abrams tanks then Germany is in as well. German tank maker RheinMetall says it can make 139 more tanks and have the first batch ready by April or May of this year.

The British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to provide Ukraine with its main battle tank, the Challenger 2. Britain is to start by sending 14 Challengers but that is far short of the 300 main battle tanks Ukraine asked for. Don’t worry if you were afraid the war might calm down because the Biden administration is right there to make sure it doesn’t. From Reuters:

“The United States aims to break the dynamic of grinding warfare and near-frozen front lines on Ukraine with newly announced military capabilities that it hopes will breath fresh momentum into Kyiv’s battle against Russian forces, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday.”

The U.S. has announced its latest weapons package worth about $2.85 billion but these new weapons are offensive and designed to be game changers. The first part of the package includes 50 Bradley fighting vehicles, a medium armored platform armed with a 25-mm gun designed to provide safe transport for soldiers on the battlefield. The Bradleys are designed to complement and fight alongside the U.S. Abrams tanks and are a perfect combo for the plains of Eastern Ukraine.

The U.S.