Der Zeitgeist

Sure, and that's been the party line here, just be patient, quote Hemingway, etc.  And may you all be correct, and soon.
But to repeat: Ukraine can only make progress with a deliberate offensive.  Russia doesn't just crumble, it has to be pushed.
But if they can't pull off that offensive with the Western wunderwaffen, then Putin eventually wins by default. There will be no coup, and no revolution.
To date, it looks to me like Russia's ability to defend territory has *increased*, not decreased, on aggregate, since Feb 2022, even with regression to a (rocket-enhanced) 1940s infantry-centered army.
Their frontline formations now seem adequately manned and far less AFV-tied, which was their fatal flaw for most of 2022. And as I and others predicted a year ago, they've ditched BTGs, and moved to a VDV grenadiers-and-mortars model, with 152mm (enough so that the Ukies have to assume it will arrive) on call. 
All in all, it seems they are getting better, not worse, at killing Ukrainians although that data is foggy, by design. It's only their jawdroppingly costly offensives that are clouding that.
My read is that with a little quiet help from China on the basic tech side (already happening), they can keep this game up for another year. 
Unless Ukraine can transform the ground game again, but I don't think it's NATO mech that does that.
IMHO.
 

As far as I understand, there's no way Germany would be able to agree to that since we're signatory to and have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which is very clear on these points:
Countries that ratify the convention will be obliged "never under any circumstances to":
Use cluster munitions; Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions; Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

New German public opinion survey results just came in from ZDF Politbarometer/Forschungsgruppe Wahlen.
Pretty solid 54% majority there favouring the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Breakdown among supporters of our different parties on the right of the chart. It breaks down similar to previous surveys, with support being highest among Green party voters, and lowest among right-wing AfD and left-wing Die Linke.

If anyone misses the fun "what the hell is wrong with Scholz"-discussions we had, get ready for the ultimate "Estonia wants to send German-made DPICM artillery rounds to Ukraine"-Clusterfu***. 😅
 

I feel a bit neglected: now that we deliver the tanks, nobody is interested in Germany anymore!

FYI, this is the aftermath of the 'Panzerdeal' here in Germany.
Very unsurprisingly, all the pro-tank parties (Greens, FDP, half of SPD, CDU) are happy while the anti-tank parties are not (Left, AfD, other half of SPD). Of course, there's some grumbling from the opposition (and from some in the coalition, too) that that was too slow.
But the main point of criticism from nearly everyone was, that the chancellor failed to explain his reasoning while he was doing it.
Judging Scholz just by the results, most pundits (and I) have to grudgingly admit, that he did quite well.
From an inner politic view, he was not too early and didn't rush it. He was also not too late, to create enough turmoil in the coalition for any lasting damage. Thus, he has appeased the reluctant half of the population, while also (finally) pleasing those who wanted to have sent tanks long ago.
In the foreign politics field, he managed to create a broad coalition of nations who will send heavy tanks. Not only in Europe, but the US, too. Getting the US to commit Abrams is a success - no one knows who will be next in the Oval Office.
OTOH he did aggravate a lot of people, especially in the EEC. Weighing this with the effects inside Germany, that is still a win for him. So he put the German interests before foreign ones - that kind of behavior is quite common for many nations, but not from Germany (in the past).
I guess this will be some kind of 'new normal' that others have to get used to.
So from a German perspective, Scholz couldn't have done it better (that is a strange sentence). Everyone is a bit upset, but the issue has been resolved.
However, since he didn't explain himself (see above), we don't know if this is the intended outcome or just luck. And I guess we never will...

In Ukraine against the Russians, very likely but when we are talking US/NATO next-war, this little shindig in Ukraine is the “sampler”.  You are basically describing the western doctrine that got us through the last 30 years of dominance.
Question is, “is that doctrine over?”
Problem #1 - Air superiority.  The war in Ukraine is what massive air denial looks like and it is very likely to get worse not better.  Against another nation or coalition with significant ISR (space to ground networks) and dispersed cheap air denial systems gaining air superiority is the lynch pin we may very well get stuck on.  If the answer is “we will never ground attack until we have air superiority” then we have just highly incentivized opponents to develop and field air denial capabilities.  And then there is the “air superiority below 2000 feet” problem.  The direction of things is favouring swarming autonomous systems capable of lethal effects.  Against that our current doctrine is weak as traditional air superiority means less, and massed conventional force is the opposite direction one wants to go.
Problem #2 - Our tanks need gas too.  Our western doctrine of conventional mass requires enormous effort to secure its LOCs under the old rules.  We saw insurgents cripple our supply lines for short periods of time.  Against a peer opponent our current LOCs are extremely vulnerable because we are massing and burning a lot of energy to achieve overmatch.    Take Problem #1 and project it into our rear areas and we might simply run out of gas before we can crush anything.
Problem #3 - We still think and act linearly.  I am getting the sense that against an opponent wired the same way we are, enabled the same way we are, we are in fact at a disadvantage.   The issue is that our doctrine still looks at the problem sets as linear manoeuvre problems.  Against an opponent that creates and projects a force that is fighting along a non-linear game plan we already know we are vulnerable - we saw this in COIN.  However when that opponent is a peer force, well it changes the game in ways we are not well set up for.
Problem 4 - Will.  The elephant in the room is not even a military problem.  Right now in police forces we don’t know who to trust if the problem at hand is along a divisive fault line.  And I am not talking about the US here, I am talking about Canada.  This is bigger than How We Fight but is directly going to impact both the inputs and outcomes.  So if we get into a peer war, I am not convinced our internal integrity will hold longer than theirs.  This is a precondition more important than air superiority and we do not even think in these terms while our opponents do.
So as an example to pull this all together in your western crushing offensive - in the East somewhere in ten years NATO/US face off against an unnamed peer adversary who counters your entire scenario with -
Ubiquitous ISR built on a backbone of space to sub-surface networks integrated into civilian architectures with enough ambiguity to make us pause and argue on legalities of hitting them.  They can see us, all of us better than we can see them because we are all formed up enmasse while they go a different way.
Air denial on a scope and scale that makes air superiority impossible.  The air space becomes a Wild West.
Employs fully autonomous systems (air/ground) with no human-in-loop while we are going to be stuck within our legal frameworks.  Swarming lethal unmanned clouds pollute the battle space.  
Focuses on deep system attacks going back through our LOCs, SLOCs and all the way back to industry.
Employs non-linear hybrid and dispersed warfare - we are the snow, they are the fog.  Think 21st century Mongols while we continue to fight in blocks and squares.
Has built in trapdoors and poison pills so deeply in our backfield that we funded the blind spots.  We start taking casualties and the cracks widen on the first day.
Russia is nowhere near playing at this level.  All it has is the nuclear equation, which is so last millennium.  However I can think of one nation that is heading in this direction, and it literally wrote the rules on on some of this over two thousand years ago.

As far as I understand, there's no way Germany would be able to agree to that since we're signatory to and have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which is very clear on these points:
Countries that ratify the convention will be obliged "never under any circumstances to":
Use cluster munitions; Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions; Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

As far as I understand, there's no way Germany would be able to agree to that since we're signatory to and have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which is very clear on these points:
Countries that ratify the convention will be obliged "never under any circumstances to":
Use cluster munitions; Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions; Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

As far as I understand, there's no way Germany would be able to agree to that since we're signatory to and have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which is very clear on these points:
Countries that ratify the convention will be obliged "never under any circumstances to":
Use cluster munitions; Develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer to anyone, directly or indirectly, cluster munitions; Assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention.

"The Scholz effect"

Former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany. 😄
 

I don't want to overdo it with the "Scholzology", but this article makes some good points about German domestic politics and public opinion surrounding the Leopard decision. It should auto-translate well.
 

The German government has now officially confirmed yesterday's press reports about sending Leopard 2 to Ukraine as part of a broader coalition. Overall goal is to quickly provide equipment for 2 battalions of Leopard 2. 
 

It already started over here. The chair of the parliamentary defense committee was asked what she thinks about sending fighter jets next, and she said she couldn't quite see this yet. Headline was "Strack-Zimmermann rules out sending fighter jets to Ukraine!!11!1". 😄

Exactly. The hustle never stops. 😄

The German government has now officially confirmed yesterday's press reports about sending Leopard 2 to Ukraine as part of a broader coalition. Overall goal is to quickly provide equipment for 2 battalions of Leopard 2. 
 

The German government has now officially confirmed yesterday's press reports about sending Leopard 2 to Ukraine as part of a broader coalition. Overall goal is to quickly provide equipment for 2 battalions of Leopard 2. 
 

The German government has now officially confirmed yesterday's press reports about sending Leopard 2 to Ukraine as part of a broader coalition. Overall goal is to quickly provide equipment for 2 battalions of Leopard 2. 
 

It will get even worse. The next few months will be hell for Ukraine. Russia can't wait, they'll have to throw everything in before any of the new western stuff becomes operational. 

Former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany. 😄
 

Former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany. 😄
 

Germany will send at least one company of Leopard 2A6.
 

It will get even worse. The next few months will be hell for Ukraine. Russia can't wait, they'll have to throw everything in before any of the new western stuff becomes operational. 

In Ukraine new mass mobilization wave has started since the end of December. Zelenskiy only yesterday made a statement he gave order to prepare reserve of servicemen. Some high-ranked military chiefs told new brigades will be established. Though one of these generals told these brigades will receive new westren weapon. If this not a "smoke screen" I don't understanf this. We already had some dissatified voices of veterans, about why Bradleys will get 47th assault brigade, which even didn't smell gunpowder   

Former Ukrainian ambassador to Germany. 😄