Mar 11, 2022 07:57 PM
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk...ed-germany
INTRO: . . . At the heart of the shift is Germany’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels—which, until recently, was not seen as problematic by German leaders. Quite the opposite: it was part of a deliberate, decades-long effort by Germany to maintain comity with the huge, nuclear-armed neighbor against whom it fought in two bloody twentieth-century wars.
Germany chose its dependence on Russia because it saw the economic links created by fuel imports—physical links, in the form of pipelines through Eastern Europe and under the Baltic Sea—as integral to keeping peace and integrating Russia into the rest of Europe.
On February 22nd, Germany’s new Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced a curtailment of that dependence on Russian energy. The country was halting Nord Stream 2, a new gas pipeline from Russia that would be capable of providing Europe with fifty-five billion cubic metres of gas per year, at a time when the rest of the Continent’s gas production is declining.
Not only would this leave Germany without a crucial source for its energy supply; it was an admission that the strategy of Ostpolitik—accommodation with Russia, which Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party had embraced, at least in spirit, for more than fifty years—was a failure.
On February 27th, Scholz made an even more stunning declaration. After having already decided to send heavy weaponry to Ukraine, Germany would vastly increase its defense spending -- by one estimate, making it the third largest military spender in the world, after the U.S. and China -- and shift its entire posture toward military engagement.
“President Putin created a new reality with his invasion of Ukraine,” Scholz said. “This new reality requires a clear response. We have given it.”
The following day, Finance Minister Christian Lindner told the broadcaster ARD that Germany would now “get one of the most capable, most powerful armies in Europe, one of the best-equipped armies in Europe in the course of this decade.”
More than seventy-five years after the Nazis were vanquished, Germany would allow itself to think and act as a regional power again, complete with pride in its military capability... (MORE - details)
INTRO: . . . At the heart of the shift is Germany’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels—which, until recently, was not seen as problematic by German leaders. Quite the opposite: it was part of a deliberate, decades-long effort by Germany to maintain comity with the huge, nuclear-armed neighbor against whom it fought in two bloody twentieth-century wars.
Germany chose its dependence on Russia because it saw the economic links created by fuel imports—physical links, in the form of pipelines through Eastern Europe and under the Baltic Sea—as integral to keeping peace and integrating Russia into the rest of Europe.
On February 22nd, Germany’s new Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced a curtailment of that dependence on Russian energy. The country was halting Nord Stream 2, a new gas pipeline from Russia that would be capable of providing Europe with fifty-five billion cubic metres of gas per year, at a time when the rest of the Continent’s gas production is declining.
Not only would this leave Germany without a crucial source for its energy supply; it was an admission that the strategy of Ostpolitik—accommodation with Russia, which Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party had embraced, at least in spirit, for more than fifty years—was a failure.
On February 27th, Scholz made an even more stunning declaration. After having already decided to send heavy weaponry to Ukraine, Germany would vastly increase its defense spending -- by one estimate, making it the third largest military spender in the world, after the U.S. and China -- and shift its entire posture toward military engagement.
“President Putin created a new reality with his invasion of Ukraine,” Scholz said. “This new reality requires a clear response. We have given it.”
The following day, Finance Minister Christian Lindner told the broadcaster ARD that Germany would now “get one of the most capable, most powerful armies in Europe, one of the best-equipped armies in Europe in the course of this decade.”
More than seventy-five years after the Nazis were vanquished, Germany would allow itself to think and act as a regional power again, complete with pride in its military capability... (MORE - details)