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I think it's a poor argument. "Germany, which was halfway a Soviet satellite state, bought fuel from the USSR forty years ago, therefore all German purchases of
by totalZero 6y ago
I think it's a poor argument. "Germany, which was halfway a Soviet satellite state, bought fuel from the USSR forty years ago, therefore all German purchases of Russian fossil fuels are perpetually justifiable."
What kind of world do you live in where you resist a clear need for self-preserving adaptation to the new reality, simply based on past behavior during a time of upheaval and fragmentation?
- iSnow 6y agoWestern Germany was not halfway a Soviet satellite but firmly in NATO - coincidentally the nation where the IRBMs to take out Moscow would have been launched. And yet it bought gas from the USSR which had been super correct and never tried using it for leverage against Western Germany. Eastern Germany was an own nation and they got preferencial prices for gas from the USSR as part of their block.
- vkou 6y agoI should have paid better attention in history class, because I have never before heard of Western Germany being described as 'halfway a Soviet Satellite state'. Should I run this theory by my German friends, to see what their take on the subject is? I have, however, lived in both East and West, and I have to say, the new reality of Russia's imperial ambitions are... A bit more tempered than the USSR's imperial ambitions over most of its existence. Now, if my historical and political education only came from modern political pundits, I might see the events of the past decade as something entirely unexpected, unprecedented, and existential. They aren't, though. They rarely are. The pundits see every crisis as unexpected, unprecedented, and existential. We wouldn't have much use for them if they didn't.