TThe greatest nightmare of the Cold War was that the gigantic Russian tank armies would not only overwhelm their immediate neighbors, but sweep across the plains of northern Germany, capture western cities like Hamburg and take them hostage, confusing all our calculations of a cautious ladder. escalation. Now we have promised to supply Ukraine with a NATO tank army, there is a new version of this terrible dream: will the war get out of control?
It is hard to imagine that a relatively small number of laid down tanks to match their bills would be a game changer. In the Battle of Kursk in 1943, which is still taught in Russian military academies as one of the mainstays of World War II, Hitler had 50 divisions.
