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It's not such a mystery. A lot of the policies were decided from a combination of shorter-term political calculus and a rather optimistic view about the harmoni
by abalashov 5y ago
It's not such a mystery. A lot of the policies were decided from a combination of shorter-term political calculus and a rather optimistic view about the harmonising effects of the liberal economic order, globalism, free trade, democracy, interdependence, peace dividends, and other Thomas Friedman things.
It's easy to forget now after a few years of erratic Trump and populist protectionism talk, but it was not long ago at all that was basically conventional wisdom in the US, too.
- zdragnar 5y agoTrump warned them, and the German delegation laughed in his face. He claims he gave a gift of a white flag to Merkel to waive in surrender to the Russians after negotiations to block the Nord pipeline fell through. But, Trump wasn't alone in thinking this way. In the 2012 election, Romney called Russia the USA's number 1 geopolitical foe, and Obama laughed it off. Meanwhile, several high profile poisonings, siding with Assad in Syria, behind the scenes antagonising in Iran, etc. all made one thing abundantly clear: Putin is no friend of "Western liberal economic order", and the uneasy truce was not in any way guaranteed to last. If nothing else, putting all of your eggs in one basket and hoping he played nicely with your natural gas supply was the sort of foolishness that shouldn't be given positions of power.
- throwaway894345 5y agoI’m can buy a certain amount of “liberal economic order” for things like household goods or perhaps putting your energy supply in the hands of a democratic nation, but putting your oil supply in the hands of a dictatorship seemed foolish well before Putin invaded Ukraine.