Honestly speaking I guess no one besides the inner circle around Olaf Scholz knows the answer to this. Maybe a bit of all what you mentioned. Plus historically rather close (at least emotional) ties of the SPD to Russia. There may be hopes to make Business with Russia again when the dust has settled. Basically the Swiss Business model.
The Greens and the Liberals (the latter less surprising them historically being rather the pro Trans- Atlantic's) are boiling. In Interviews they are almost acting as opposition despite being part of the Government. But they can't rule against the chancelor.
Having mostly abandoned Ground based Air Defense/having no missile defence while being in minutes striking range of (nuclear) Iskander-M Ballistic Missiles, having no own Nukes with Long Range Carrier systems, having a rather crippled Army after decades of drastic military shrinking and 'peace- dividend' probably also doesn't really help courage.

Here are the 2,000 Abrams tanks being kept in storage by the US Army.
IMO they should all be moved to Europe and about half of them given to Ukraine straightaway.

Sierra Army Depot
Doyle, California
40°12'9.01"N 120° 8'54.50"W

All totaled, Wikipedia says there are 26,000 armored vehicles there.

Somehow the link I provided to the KML file highlighting the main railroad lines in Ukraine has been lost.
So I will post it again: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fg3wwdyzrl...roads.kmz?dl=0

If there is anybody who thinks this is in any way privileged or difficult to obtain information, they are naive to an extreme, and living in an ancient past.

Google Earth presents all this information in graphic form with geographical coordinates, my KML file merely highlights what's already there.

The idea that a Russian gunner or missile launch director would need my file to select targets is laughable. The Russians built those railroads after all.
And if a Russian commander, gunner or missile launch director would use Google Earth to find coordinates (which is possible) they would consider my file clutter, and turn it off so that they could see the track better.

And as I said this information is available in many forms and is freely available on the internet all one has to do is Google it: https://www.google.com/search?client...ih=875&dpr=1.5
The information in my KML file is presented in the first visual in the first link in the list of sites Google calls out for that search, and they list dozens if not hundreds of hits.

Never mind Google maps, the Russians have a few satellites of their own with better cameras. If I can follow a railway line from 2,000 feet then I dare say that Ivan can too. If the track bed is not visible then the trees are a bit of a clue.

I agree completely. I was pushing back against the silly idea that my highlighting of the railroads would give Russians intelligence of any kind. Russia has intimate knowledge of Ukraine including Ukraine's geography. They have their own satellites which provide much better resolution than Google (Maxar) gives and they also have video and photos taken from lower flying aircraft as well as photographs taken from ground level. They aren't complete boobs, they obviously have the means to distribute this information to their artillery spotters and targeting specialists.

I'm exasperated at the very idea of having to explain this.

If we don't send tanks doesn't this increase the likelihood that Russia will continue to invade Ukraine right up to NATO borders?
This seems to me to be the bigger risk to WW3 than sending tanks and defeating Russia.
We either show Putin NATO is strong and a force to be reckoned with or show him we are weak,
We know where showing Putin we are weak will get us. It gets us right where we are now.

Actually it will get us several hundred miles further west, or north. "Must have a corridor to Kaliningrad"

I agree. The entire Free World needs to go all in, now.
Russia is at its weakest. If allowed to conquer territory, it will strengthen.

Announced today, Finland sends additional 400M€ worth of "heavy weaponry and ammunition" to Ukraine. This shipment alone triples the Finnish support so far.
As usual, Finnish authorities do not share any detailed info of the shipment so no idea if this includes Leos. But to scale this a bit the Swedish announcement yesterday of 50 CV90's, 12 Archers and additional goods like NLAWs was in the same 400M€ range.

In various discussions about using Abrams in Ukrinie, the type of fuel and fuel-consumption have been highlighted as major problems. The following article comparing the two tanks (not deeply technical ) gives relative consumption :

Leopard 2 - 530l/100 km diesel
Abrams - 700l/100 km kerosine ( the engine is multi-fuel and can use diesel )

https://www.focus.de/politik/ausland...183487159.html

The 30% higher consumption is a lot, but perhaps not as much as I had imagined from all that I have read about the Abrams "enormous consumption ". The multi-fuel ability cancels what I had believed was the much greater problem i.e. the need for a dedicated supply of kerosine.

:E

Dutch says they will look at F16 if asked. can they carry Brimstone?

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1a16c71a61.png


As of yesterday!

….and Australia ?

Blogging of the meeting in Ramsteim
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-64343274

And Taiwan.

600 million in support about 450 million of that was in military support

M113, bushmasters, drones, and 100 million line of credit to buy what they want

It's ok Russia mobilising troops, but when they attack like this, they are just fertilizer.

Worried, who's worried?... let's hope that radar is at least screwing up his TV signal