Hindsight is a lazy excuse. Securing your energy and making yourself depend by and on a more than questionable regime isn't just stupid. It's beyond that. You don't need a lot of brain cells to understand that that isn't a great idea.
It sounded good: if they trade with us they can't go to war with us without loosing their economy. The EU was build on this idea.
And with trade there also follows prosperity and then people will demand democracy.
This is not true at least from 2008 when Russia attacked Georgia, 2014 when they annexed Crimea. Everyone said to Germany to not go with Nord Stream 2 because Russia will use it politically but they ignored that because social contract depends on cheap energy from Russia, competitiveness of German economy depends on cheap energy too. Germany plan was to sell gas coming from Russia to the rest of EU with margin, one of the reasons gas is considered "green" source of energy by EU legislation.
If this were true then the Middle East would be full of peaceful democracies.
But the reality in Europe's oil supplying countries is rather different.
Come on, the whole Energiewende was full of wishful thinking. Nuclear power plants were going to be closed while there was no prospect on another energy source that could fill the gap. So gas was suddenly declared a 'sustainable' energy source, conveniently ignoring the CO2 emissions and the fact that gas is not renewable.
And now Germany is reopening coal power plants. How sustainable is that?
There’s trade and there is supply. US and China have lots of trade, real conflict limit. Not impossible, but a factor.
German industry is supplied by russian gas. Throwing away nuclear power and making oneself dependent on foreign energy suppliers lets them influence your decisions.
You’re right but what then was the USSR and now is Russia et al. has so huge borders and neighbors foreign to th Europe concept that thinking that (and knowing who ruled it) was worse than wishful thinking.
> they can't go to war with us without loosing their economy
Have those people ever looked at how much wars cost? We are talking about creating cities from scratch to support the war effort amounts of cash. Hundreds of thousands of able bodied workers, stuck walking the countryside instead of working impact. We are talking about entire industries repurposed to produce war time supplies. Countries have been willing to fuck over their economies a lot harder to support their war machines than anything the EU could ever hope to do to the Russian economy.
That never sounded good to anybody with good judgement. Russia is largely self sufficient for basic goods (food, energy), meaning that while their economy takes a hit, it’s a financial problem more than an existential crisis. The same can’t be said for Germany, who have systematically destroyed domestic energy production and now are facing an unprecedented economic catastrophe. Not just a financial problem, but a real economic problem of being able to acquire sufficient quantities of the basic inputs to a contemporary first world economy.
Trump famously pointed out the folly of this strategy to a chorus of arrogant snickering from the contingent of German bureaucrats. Not so funny now…
That wasn't the reason, Russia was simply the lowest cost supplier by far. They have an entire network of pipes developed over decades to deliver gas to Europe and Germany.
In fact, If Germany diversified LNG supplies it would make war less likely because Russia would have less leverage. Every geopolitical commentator for a decade has pointed out that Russian gas supplies were a weapon that could be used to deter Europe.
It's easy to say it's an excuse without considering the world today. Saudi Arabia could easily grind the entire world's economy to a halt if they so desired. China could do even worse. And Russia is already demonstrating what they can do. And these are just the well known examples. Look to essentially any field (perhaps rare Earth metals, especially those involved in electric components) and it's the same story.
The entire idea of an advanced or post-industrial economy is largely a facade. Absolutely everything we ultimately consume and use is dependent upon the most basic of skills, labor, and resources - the sort that 'advanced' economies strive to outsource as much as possible to 'developing' economies. But of course this doesn't change the fact that said skills/labor/resources are still the true backbone of your economy. Instead you've simply inverted a power relationship and become completely dependent upon those nations with said 'developing' economies.
Democracy and long-term thinking don't go well together.
People say this about shareholder owned companies with profit driven quarters but it's far more true for elected politicians who are judged myopically -- or, judged with superstition, as with nuclear energy in Germany -- on things like the current gas price. You see this manifest everywhere in politics. Why do you think federal debts are growing so much? Because voters create incentives for politicians to act myopically and kick the can down the road.
I also suspect part of it is deliberate malevolence. Stealing the upside for ourselves, while our children (federal debt) or foreigners (global warming) pay the downside.
Another part is that liberals have been sleepwalking. We bought into Fukuyama's End of History narrative. Fascism and war was a relic of the 20th century. In reality we were resting in the shade of America's unipolar hegemony. That's an American export that Europe had been free riding off. If America's relative standing weakens further, expect more conflict.
This is still arguing from hindsight and conveniently neglects the dependence of Russia on the EU: The EU was Russia's single largest customer of natural gas and an important purveyor of machines and technology. A valid reasoning at that time was that Putin would not risk this income / trade and furthermore Russia could be pacified or kept in check by ever increasing economic ties to the EU. Unfortunately Putin decided that tanking Russia's economy was totally worth it and/or speculated the EU confronted with the specter of an energy crisis would quickly falter and let him annex Ukraine without much fuss.
Furthermore Russian gas was cheap which made the development of alternatives a rather unpopular proposition. Try to explain to the people and the industry that gas will be more expensive because Russia might pose a problem and alternative sources need to be put in place. In hindsight it was stupid to not address the dependence on Russian energy but that is precisely the clarity hindsight provides. While the actions leading up to the current situations were taken, it wasn't all that clear that the problem could become very real.
We could all have continued living in an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity in Europe, but instead Putin choose a course of action in which everyone is losing big time. What a colossal waste.
number6|3 years ago
lossolo|3 years ago
misja111|3 years ago
Come on, the whole Energiewende was full of wishful thinking. Nuclear power plants were going to be closed while there was no prospect on another energy source that could fill the gap. So gas was suddenly declared a 'sustainable' energy source, conveniently ignoring the CO2 emissions and the fact that gas is not renewable. And now Germany is reopening coal power plants. How sustainable is that?
graeme|3 years ago
German industry is supplied by russian gas. Throwing away nuclear power and making oneself dependent on foreign energy suppliers lets them influence your decisions.
pfortuny|3 years ago
josefx|3 years ago
Have those people ever looked at how much wars cost? We are talking about creating cities from scratch to support the war effort amounts of cash. Hundreds of thousands of able bodied workers, stuck walking the countryside instead of working impact. We are talking about entire industries repurposed to produce war time supplies. Countries have been willing to fuck over their economies a lot harder to support their war machines than anything the EU could ever hope to do to the Russian economy.
ibeckermayer|3 years ago
Trump famously pointed out the folly of this strategy to a chorus of arrogant snickering from the contingent of German bureaucrats. Not so funny now…
https://youtu.be/FfJv9QYrlwg
cpleppert|3 years ago
In fact, If Germany diversified LNG supplies it would make war less likely because Russia would have less leverage. Every geopolitical commentator for a decade has pointed out that Russian gas supplies were a weapon that could be used to deter Europe.
msie|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
somenameforme|3 years ago
The entire idea of an advanced or post-industrial economy is largely a facade. Absolutely everything we ultimately consume and use is dependent upon the most basic of skills, labor, and resources - the sort that 'advanced' economies strive to outsource as much as possible to 'developing' economies. But of course this doesn't change the fact that said skills/labor/resources are still the true backbone of your economy. Instead you've simply inverted a power relationship and become completely dependent upon those nations with said 'developing' economies.
hackerlight|3 years ago
People say this about shareholder owned companies with profit driven quarters but it's far more true for elected politicians who are judged myopically -- or, judged with superstition, as with nuclear energy in Germany -- on things like the current gas price. You see this manifest everywhere in politics. Why do you think federal debts are growing so much? Because voters create incentives for politicians to act myopically and kick the can down the road.
I also suspect part of it is deliberate malevolence. Stealing the upside for ourselves, while our children (federal debt) or foreigners (global warming) pay the downside.
Another part is that liberals have been sleepwalking. We bought into Fukuyama's End of History narrative. Fascism and war was a relic of the 20th century. In reality we were resting in the shade of America's unipolar hegemony. That's an American export that Europe had been free riding off. If America's relative standing weakens further, expect more conflict.
redprince|3 years ago
Furthermore Russian gas was cheap which made the development of alternatives a rather unpopular proposition. Try to explain to the people and the industry that gas will be more expensive because Russia might pose a problem and alternative sources need to be put in place. In hindsight it was stupid to not address the dependence on Russian energy but that is precisely the clarity hindsight provides. While the actions leading up to the current situations were taken, it wasn't all that clear that the problem could become very real.
We could all have continued living in an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity in Europe, but instead Putin choose a course of action in which everyone is losing big time. What a colossal waste.
baybal2|3 years ago
[deleted]
miguelazo|3 years ago
benjaminsuch|3 years ago