It takes the Chancellor months to declare his no to the Taurus delivery. His statements are understandable. But Scholz acts aloof. He believes he alone has the overview. What he didn’t understand was that if Putin wants a big war, he will start it.
Rushing decisions about arms deliveries to Ukraine has never been the Federal Government’s specialty. As a defense minister, you sometimes ask for patience, for example when it comes to the Taurus. “If it takes another week or two until a decision is made, then so be it,” said Boris Pistorius at the first “Westphalian Peace Conference” in Münster, the name of which is intended to commemorate the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. As Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is known for his indecisiveness, hesitated, the minister did not want his information to be understood. Because: “We’re not talking about programming a coffee machine here.”
That was on September 15, 2023. Since then, Scholz has successfully avoided putting the Taurus out there – and has also managed to disguise his lack of determination to help a country that is being terrorized on a daily basis as prudence. For two years now, there has been a gap between the – correct – warnings about Putin, including the global consequences of a Russian victory over Ukraine, on the one hand, and the German arms deliveries on the other. This does not hide the fact that the Federal Republic is the most important European supporter of military technology for the attacked country.
After the Munich Security Conference, the prediction of the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, leaked out. He made it clear to a few participants that he would no longer listen to the West’s vows of help and unity and that his homeland would be left alone, as has been apparent for many weeks or is already the case. Scholz provided proof. This is all the more astonishing since he rightly asked at the Munich meeting: “Are we doing enough when we all know exactly what a Russian victory in Ukraine would mean? Namely, the end of Ukraine as a free, independent and democratic state Destruction of our European peace order, the worst shake-up of the UN Charter since 1945 and, last but not least, the encouragement of all autocrats worldwide to rely on violence to resolve conflicts.”
Super promoter and peace chancellor
Scholz, who had been urged for months by the Americans and other NATO countries to do more for Ukraine, is trying to turn the tables and praise himself as a super-supporter of Ukraine and calling on allies to do the same. At the same time, he categorically rejects the delivery of the Taurus – with an argument that experts reject as wrong and that is seen as an affront in Great Britain. During an embarrassing appearance in Dresden, he portrayed himself as a peace chancellor and chanted “diplomats instead of grenades.”
Scholz didn’t even take part in the Taurus Bundestag debate. It was left to poor Pistorius, who then had to squirm like an eel in order not to take a position as to whether the “long-range weapon systems” in the traffic light factions’ proposal meant the Taurus or not. When he decided to explain his position publicly a few days later, it was not in the Bundestag, but at a conference of editors-in-chief of the German Press Agency. That alone seems strange given the important topic and shows once again that Scholz and his PR consultants have weaknesses in political communication.
Even sadder than the reactions of experts and the British were the Chancellor’s statements, which left one amazed. “I explained why that was out of the question – and it stayed that way.” No, he just didn’t explain it. One has to assume that Scholz – as with his Cum-Ex information – thinks the rest of the population is ignorant or stupid. Where and to whom had he explained his position? Is this the next memory lapse? Shortly before the Munich Security Conference, he missed the opportunity to explain in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” “why that is out of the question.” He limited himself to the sentence: “Germany is supplying the weapons that are now important.”
Scholz apparently thinks he is the only one who thinks
The Chancellor lives in a bubble in which only his closest advisors count – no one else. Even SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich had not heard of the Chancellor’s public statement “why this is out of the question.” He announced in ZDF’s most recent “Report from Berlin” in his typical gibberish manner: “If the Chancellor explains very soon what has prevented him from delivering Taurus so far and perhaps in the future, then perhaps one will or others recognize that the requests to speak out in the past months and years obviously have no basis, at least no political understanding.”
Why it took Scholz months to specifically justify his rejection of the Taurus delivery in front of an audience remains his secret. Anyway. The guesswork is over. So now the population knows what the Chancellor is thinking: “We must not be linked to the goals that this system achieves at any point or place.” This was followed by a sentence that speaks for Scholzen’s arrogance, as if only he, the great thinker, was thinking about it and surveying the situation: “I’m surprised that some people aren’t moved at all, that they don’t even think about it, so to speak participation in the war can come about through what we do.”
His reasoning is understandable. You don’t have to share them. In any case, it is tragic for Ukraine. Putin, about whom Scholz warns and warns, can see himself confirmed: the West is divided and weakens Ukraine the longer the war lasts. While French President Emmanuel Macron is thinking about ground troops, the Chancellor’s knees are shaking, even though Putin has not carried out a single threat that he or one of his cronies made if Germany were to hand over this or that weapon to Ukraine. What Scholz, the oh-so-smart Chancellor, still hasn’t understood: If Putin wants a big war, he will start it.