Drumbeat for Scholz to send Ukraine Taurus missiles

The German government is under heavy pressure to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine. To be more precise, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is the one being pushed by his own defense and foreign ministers – with Annalena Baerbock, his foreign minister, giving speeches pushing for the Taurus missiles to go there.

The Taurus cruise missile is a long-range weapon that would need to be mounted on a Ukrainian fighter jet – most likely one of Ukraine’s Su-24 planes, currently equipped with the British Storm Shadow cruise missile. It’s likely that appropriate interfaces would need to be installed on the Ukrainian jets.

How can a government survive when it is completely fractured? Why would a chancellor allow this kind of opposition in his governing ranks?

Part of it is because Germany is led by a coalition government that is wobbling badly. His fellow senior officials know that Scholz is a pushover: All you have to do is provide some political cover for him. He resisted sending Leopard tanks to Ukraine until the US “persuaded” him by agreeing to send Abrams M-1 tanks along with the Leopards.

David Cameron, once Britain’s prime minister and now foreign minister, proposed a solution. Britain would send more Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine and Germany would supply Taurus missiles to replace them in the UK. This scheme sounded promising, but Scholz did not like it. His foreign minister, on the other hand, endorsed Cameron’s proposal.

A vexing question is just how many of the Taurus missiles actually are in working condition. Reliable numbers are hard to come by, but some reckon that Germany has 600 Taurus cruise missiles (in different models) in its inventory. Only 150 or so are certified operational, although that number may be an