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"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe

"Russia's decision to halt gas supplies via Europe's key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has increased the chances of power shortages." Europe's decision, Germany especially, to be reliant on Russia for energy when they could have not shut down nuclear plants and built more.

j-pb 4y ago
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  Not trying to argue with you, just trying to understand as someone from a neighboring country — could you elaborate a bit more about what happened with the Conservative Party undermining the green energy effort? And how close would Germany realistically have been to being completely self-sufficient by now if that didn’t happen?
  - throw827474737 4y ago
    Blocking wind power and grid efforts everywhere, stopping planned storage efforts, man we even shut down pump storages etc over the last decades that would be so necessary to have any chance to support and realize base load with renewables. Right now we are shedding cheap bio gas and wind power production again (and that given we build up much too little as we could have) while the power stock exchanges have fun gambling. On top this constant nuclear narrative, which is not even much significant for current power production, this is all beyond any funny. Google translate those for few alternstive povs: https://www.klimareporter.de/strom/deutschland-fackelt-gas-ab https://www.klimareporter.de/strom/deutschland-fackelt-gas-a... https://www.makawind.de/index.php?show=news https://www.makawind.de/index.php?show=news https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Pumpspeicherkraftwerken#Aufgegebene_Projekte https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Pumpspeicherkraftw...
    - chess_buster 4y ago
      Oh yeah, I forgot. All of that, too. And this is the look of the politician in question https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Peter_Altmaier_Portrait.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Peter_Al...
  - chess_buster 4y ago
    Many things: * Blocked Biogas by imposing a limit on installed capacity * blocked solar by imposing a limit on yearly added installed capacity (1GW) * introduced the so called EEG-Umlage that made storage technologies unprofitable when used to store renewable energy * introduced a shitshow of bureaucracy to prevent new solar and wind projects from coming online * introduced another shitshow of bureaucracy to prevent new solar and wind projects from coming online on top of the existing shitshow * undermine EU law by just not implementing it, for example regarding neighbours giving energy to each other * introduced redicoulus "Abstandsregeln"/distance regulations, so for example open pit mines that use demolitions have an allowed min distance of 300m and windfarms 1000m * When China poured billions into the companies forming China's solar industry, while German's companies had no help with their investments and funding the list goes on and on and on and on...
  - usrusr 4y ago
    Realistically: not close at all. But significantly less close: in the last few years, German renewable buildup per capita effectively collapsed. Expressed in the most German units imaginable, buildup dropped from "world champion" to "failed to qualify for the tournament". Part of it is certainly caused by running out of low-hanging fruits, but yay can't be the only explanation.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- scifibestfi 4y ago
  No they were not. Their geolocation and battery technology means it wasn't feasible regardless. It was sabotaged to begin with. No other efforts needed. https://zeihan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/13-globalwindsolarpotential-cutaways-vi-01-scaled.jpg https://zeihan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/13-globalwinds...
  - j-pb 4y ago
    Location? Germany has huge amounts of wind, especially in offshore. Your own map even shows this. We also have plenty of solar, enough that the conservatives introduced a solar installation LIMIT to keep fossil fuel and nuclear competitive. As for storage, with large enough over-capacity it's really easy to retrofit old coal plants to work off head capacitors, and we have plenty of those. It's just no good if there is no political will to do it. And the "nuclear narrative" is one of the whataboutisms together with "breakthrough hydrogen tech" to distract from the solutions that are cheaply implementable today.
    - origin_path 4y ago
      The idea that this is just a matter of political will is nonsensical in the extreme, it's impossible to understand how anyone can believe this except via massive propaganda. Here's a graph of German solar/wind power production: https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&interval=month&source=sw&legendItems=0011111111111111111000 https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&... Notice how it frequently drops to near zero. For example the morning of the 22nd where total wind+solar production in Germany was just 1.34 GW. Peak load in Germany often reaches 65-70 GW. The people saying renewables cannot work and power must come from coal, gas or nuclear aren't evil conservatives, they are rational people who understand what renewables can and cannot do. The fact that the left systematically refuses to accept this reality is now not only destroying the European economy but flat out endangering lives. How long must the rest of us put up with this sort of rampant irrationality?
      - j-pb 4y ago
        You accuse other of irrationality, yet you prop up a straw-man that's been debunked over and over again. Nobody argues that renewables deliver peak power all of the time. The goal is to have enough capacity and intermediary storage to be able to deliver constant peak power with both combined. The current economic situation would be much better had we spend all our money on renewables and storage instead of nuclear and gas, which ultimately end up fueling the very regimes that give us trouble e.g. saudi arabia, iran, russia, instead conservatives implemented arbitrary constraints like the solar cap and maximum wind farm distance. Solar is already the cheapest form of energy per watt produced, investing into any other technology than the cheapest and most sustainable one is what's irrational.
ch4s3 4y ago
They also proactively chose in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq to avoid importing more natural from the US. Schroeder and co wanted to reconnect Western Europe to Russia and avoid any dependence on the U.S. I think we now all see who the more reliable partner for Western Europe has been. [edit] if you’re going to disagree, I’d be interested to hear your specific objections. The shift away from US natural gas is well documented.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  LNG is more expensive than Russian gas so it makes or made economic sense to do that.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Does it make sense now that the pipeline is shut down and Russia is in conflict indirectly with Western Europe?
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
      Hindsight is 20/20. There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical that russia would turn off the tap. There's always counterparty risk when importing things, the US could also decide to cut europe off from LNG if they wanted.
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        The US has been a stable ally since the end of WWII and really prior for countries other than Germany. It’s also quite hard for a president to just unilaterally suspend trade. US sanctions require acts of congress, and it would be hard to get an anti European majority in the senate. So no, there was never any risk of the US suspending trade. Meanwhile Russian has almost always been hostile to or at least in competition with Western Europe. Moreover Russia’s Duma follows Putin’s lead.
        from 4y ago
ajross 4y ago
It's upsetting that so many here want to take a genuine (and very scary) international crisis and use it to flog their own personal peeves. Needless to say, "German energy policy of the last two decades" and "Let's Invade Ukraine and Blackmail Europe!" are different decisions, and subject to different analysis. You can have reasonable opinions about both, but if your opposition to Russian adventurism and brinksmanship[1] is grounded only on your support for the German nuclear industry, I think you're not helping the discourse. [1] It's looking increasingly likely that they blew up Nordstream, which is dangerously close to an act of war against other nuclear powers.
- m348e912 4y ago
  Honest question. How did you get to the logical conclusion that Russia is the most likely party that bombed Nordstream?
  - ajross 4y ago
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      You don't have to believe that every government in the West is lying about it. You just have to believe that one government (the one who did it) is lying, and the rest don't know because they weren't told.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        You don't even need one government to lie; you only need a small portion thereof. And if you did it right, you could have setup this whole procedure ages ago and then have complete deniability.
        Izkata 4y ago
        You don't even need a small portion to lie, you can just take them at their word: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-german-chancellor-nord-stream-2-russia/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-german-chancellor-nord-st...
mrtksn 4y ago
This place started to think in memes I feel. Every issue comes with the automated arguments, the same ones every time. If the topic is energy someone must write the "they shouldn't have closed those Nuclear power plants, silly environmentalist". Anyway, France is full blown nuclear state and they are having energy issues too, because as it turns out nuclear power plants require long regular maintenance periods. Maybe there's no simple answer for energy issues and countries don't simply build or close down power plants over single issue? Maybe it wasn't done just to please some tree huggers? Maybe someone in Germany could have had crunched the numbers too and see the risks? Maybe some politicians were too close to fossil fuel money? Maybe it was considered as a way to keep the relationship with Russia profitable for Russia and encourage Russia to build good relationships with their primary customer? Maybe EU wanted to have Russia as a reliable petrostate as an alternative to the USA so they can do their thing without USA? Maybe they wanted to reduce their footing in Africa by not relying for them in Uranium production? Maybe it make more economical sense to use the non-nuclear solutions? Just maybe it wasn't a single issue decision even if it didn't play out as hoped? Europe is acutely aware of its tight energy situation, that's why they have been regulating the efficiency since decades, it's not coincidence that in Europe everything is very energy efficient. They squeezed it to the point where faster water heaters and more powerful vacuums were presented as Brexit benefits. Oh, I'm so fed up by this culture war.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Culture is preference. Democracy is voting preference. Authoritarians get fed up with competing preferences and squash other preferences/opinions but risk making the wrong decisions.
- mjthrowaway1 4y ago
  While the arguments are repetitive this isn’t a culture war. The EU made its bed (or more likely, imported it) and now has to sleep in it. Deindustrialization has been ongoing.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    In California, I get physical mail pamphlets that help me prepare for power outages and what I should do to reduce quality of life. It’s not from PG&E, but our city.
yrgulation 4y ago
It’s worse than you think. Germany blocked or was against a large number of alternative pipelines and was preparing to actively block nuclear at an eu level.
- stingraycharles 4y ago
  Why would they do that, what’s their motivation?
  - glogla 4y ago
    Being "green".
    - yrgulation 4y ago
      Not just that. Keeping east europe under developed and thus reliant on “eu funding” coupled with corruption and sheer incompetence.
      - glogla 4y ago
        Yeah, probably. The moment Germans started on EU level to push natural gas (which burns into co2) as green and push zero emission nuclear as not green, I stopped believing they are more than Russian puppets or useful idiots.
  - adambyrtek 4y ago
    So that Gerhard Schröder could get a job at Gazprom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relationship_with_Russian_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relation...
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      > In 2022, it was reported that Schroeder was paid nearly $1 million per year by Russian energy companies. Who knew sabotaging a continent’s energy policy was so affordable.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rr888 4y ago
Russia and Germany have been at war for centuries. The last few decades when their economies became co-dependent was a blissful peace. Beware the long term consequences of buiding a new wall between them.
- usrusr 4y ago
  But times when Germany/predecessors and Russia hand been allied haven't exactly been peaceful either. History is the worst foreign policy advisor of them all.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Exactly. You can't safely drive forward by just looking in the rearview mirror.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    The last time nowadays Russia and nowadays Germany were allies was at the end of the Napoleanic Wars and during Bismarcks, IMHO ingenious, coalition policy between the large European powers. Back then we talk about actual Emperors. After Bismarck, things deteriorated to WW1, followed by WW2, in between both, the USSR ans Nazi-Germany were short term allies for military build up and at the end to split Poland. After that, both sides were totally not allies. And after that we had the Cold War, which had Eastern Europe under Communist rule but without any active wars. Those were fought in Korea and Vietnam, withkut German participation.
- brabel 4y ago
  It's too late... the scene is already set up for the next big war. We're in a situation where the hate between both sides is very close to the surface, no one is trying to hide it anymore. All that's needed now is one excuse... as it happened so many times before, for centuries... one small thing - an important figure murder, a bomb that lands on the wrong side of the border (accidentally?)... the destruction of NordStream, which I thought would be enough to start a full scale conflict with Russia, but for some reason hasn't yet (though it remains to be seen). It's very clear that what we're seeing today looks exactly like what we saw just before other large wars: a mostly regional conflict that serves as a proxy conflict between the bigger players causes the hostile rethoric on both sides to grow more and more, until the population not only supports a conflict, but demands it. Whether or not the news are telling the truth (which anyone who was there in previous situations like this, including Iraq not so long ago, knows is full of lies and uncontested half-truths from both sides) doesn't even matter anymore. It's a matter of time, you can be sure of that.
barbariangrunge 4y ago
There is a penn and teller episode where they argued that globalization was creating world peace. Basically, when everyone’s economies are so entangled, they said, nobody would want to go to war because of how expensive it would be. Their model, I think, only works for democracies. When a dictator controls a country, and their quality of life remains unchanged and revolves mostly around delusions of grandeur (like an impetuous monarch centuries ago), that dynamic isn’t enough of a deterrent. It only works when the leadership is sensitive to the well being of the country and it’s people
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Even for dictators, economic costs are a real barrier. You can’t loot from a broken economy in the future or build vanity projects if there’s no money. Economic interdependence constrains authoritarians as well, just a bit less.
  - LeanderK 4y ago
    I think it is all a game of perception. If you think you can muscle your way through, either quickly enough so that no harm is done to your economy/population until your goal is reached or if you perceive a weakness in the opposition, a fear of taking action against you, then you see the move as possible. I think the line of thought that economic (co-)dependence makes conflict impossible or leads to a more harmonious relationship is probably the gravest error in german foreign strategy. I think it's a reason behind both our relationship with russia and china. But it assumes a rational actor who's concern is the well-being of its people. Putin doesn't care for his people, he cares for power. He want's to increase his power, the stability of his regime etc. He might have employed the same flawed thinking to come to the conclusion that europe won't help ukraine if it's dependent on russian energy. In reality, economic costs only become apparent after the harm is done. The greatest strategy crumbles if it is build on flawed assumptions.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      I don’t think that’s the strongest version of the argument. I would boil it down to something along the lines of economic relatedness building roadblocks and off-ramps on the way to conflict. Trade gives some opportunities for low risk retaliation that can be hashed out and deescalated prior to any shooting happening. It presents resistance that can slow things down. It obviously can’t prevent a determined large nation from barreling through, but it’s a layer of defense.
dehrmann 4y ago
That quote also mischaracterizes the decision. Cutting gas supplies was retaliation for sanctions. It wasn't really "Russia's decision" as much as it was western Europe's decision to back Ukraine.
sleton38234234 4y ago
I think there's a bigger lesson to learn in all this: Increasing Self sufficiency is really important both on the country level and individual level.
potatototoo99 4y ago
It was Europe's decision to halt gas imports, not Russia's.
d0mine 4y ago
"Russia's decision" to introduce sanctions against itself /s And many people just eat it up without questions :)

j-pb 4y ago

stingraycharles 4y ago
Not trying to argue with you, just trying to understand as someone from a neighboring country — could you elaborate a bit more about what happened with the Conservative Party undermining the green energy effort? And how close would Germany realistically have been to being completely self-sufficient by now if that didn’t happen?
- throw827474737 4y ago
  Blocking wind power and grid efforts everywhere, stopping planned storage efforts, man we even shut down pump storages etc over the last decades that would be so necessary to have any chance to support and realize base load with renewables. Right now we are shedding cheap bio gas and wind power production again (and that given we build up much too little as we could have) while the power stock exchanges have fun gambling. On top this constant nuclear narrative, which is not even much significant for current power production, this is all beyond any funny. Google translate those for few alternstive povs: https://www.klimareporter.de/strom/deutschland-fackelt-gas-ab https://www.klimareporter.de/strom/deutschland-fackelt-gas-a... https://www.makawind.de/index.php?show=news https://www.makawind.de/index.php?show=news https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Pumpspeicherkraftwerken#Aufgegebene_Projekte https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Pumpspeicherkraftw...
  - chess_buster 4y ago
    Oh yeah, I forgot. All of that, too. And this is the look of the politician in question https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Peter_Altmaier_Portrait.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Peter_Al...
- chess_buster 4y ago
  Many things: * Blocked Biogas by imposing a limit on installed capacity * blocked solar by imposing a limit on yearly added installed capacity (1GW) * introduced the so called EEG-Umlage that made storage technologies unprofitable when used to store renewable energy * introduced a shitshow of bureaucracy to prevent new solar and wind projects from coming online * introduced another shitshow of bureaucracy to prevent new solar and wind projects from coming online on top of the existing shitshow * undermine EU law by just not implementing it, for example regarding neighbours giving energy to each other * introduced redicoulus "Abstandsregeln"/distance regulations, so for example open pit mines that use demolitions have an allowed min distance of 300m and windfarms 1000m * When China poured billions into the companies forming China's solar industry, while German's companies had no help with their investments and funding the list goes on and on and on and on...
- usrusr 4y ago
  Realistically: not close at all. But significantly less close: in the last few years, German renewable buildup per capita effectively collapsed. Expressed in the most German units imaginable, buildup dropped from "world champion" to "failed to qualify for the tournament". Part of it is certainly caused by running out of low-hanging fruits, but yay can't be the only explanation.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
scifibestfi 4y ago
No they were not. Their geolocation and battery technology means it wasn't feasible regardless. It was sabotaged to begin with. No other efforts needed. https://zeihan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/13-globalwindsolarpotential-cutaways-vi-01-scaled.jpg https://zeihan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/13-globalwinds...
- j-pb 4y ago
  Location? Germany has huge amounts of wind, especially in offshore. Your own map even shows this. We also have plenty of solar, enough that the conservatives introduced a solar installation LIMIT to keep fossil fuel and nuclear competitive. As for storage, with large enough over-capacity it's really easy to retrofit old coal plants to work off head capacitors, and we have plenty of those. It's just no good if there is no political will to do it. And the "nuclear narrative" is one of the whataboutisms together with "breakthrough hydrogen tech" to distract from the solutions that are cheaply implementable today.
  - origin_path 4y ago
    The idea that this is just a matter of political will is nonsensical in the extreme, it's impossible to understand how anyone can believe this except via massive propaganda. Here's a graph of German solar/wind power production: https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&stacking=stacked_absolute_area&interval=month&source=sw&legendItems=0011111111111111111000 https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&... Notice how it frequently drops to near zero. For example the morning of the 22nd where total wind+solar production in Germany was just 1.34 GW. Peak load in Germany often reaches 65-70 GW. The people saying renewables cannot work and power must come from coal, gas or nuclear aren't evil conservatives, they are rational people who understand what renewables can and cannot do. The fact that the left systematically refuses to accept this reality is now not only destroying the European economy but flat out endangering lives. How long must the rest of us put up with this sort of rampant irrationality?
    - j-pb 4y ago
      You accuse other of irrationality, yet you prop up a straw-man that's been debunked over and over again. Nobody argues that renewables deliver peak power all of the time. The goal is to have enough capacity and intermediary storage to be able to deliver constant peak power with both combined. The current economic situation would be much better had we spend all our money on renewables and storage instead of nuclear and gas, which ultimately end up fueling the very regimes that give us trouble e.g. saudi arabia, iran, russia, instead conservatives implemented arbitrary constraints like the solar cap and maximum wind farm distance. Solar is already the cheapest form of energy per watt produced, investing into any other technology than the cheapest and most sustainable one is what's irrational.

ch4s3 4y ago

They also proactively chose in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq to avoid importing more natural from the US. Schroeder and co wanted to reconnect Western Europe to Russia and avoid any dependence on the U.S. I think we now all see who the more reliable partner for Western Europe has been. [edit] if you’re going to disagree, I’d be interested to hear your specific objections. The shift away from US natural gas is well documented.

cinntaile 4y ago
LNG is more expensive than Russian gas so it makes or made economic sense to do that.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Does it make sense now that the pipeline is shut down and Russia is in conflict indirectly with Western Europe?
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Hindsight is 20/20. There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical that russia would turn off the tap. There's always counterparty risk when importing things, the US could also decide to cut europe off from LNG if they wanted.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      The US has been a stable ally since the end of WWII and really prior for countries other than Germany. It’s also quite hard for a president to just unilaterally suspend trade. US sanctions require acts of congress, and it would be hard to get an anti European majority in the senate. So no, there was never any risk of the US suspending trade. Meanwhile Russian has almost always been hostile to or at least in competition with Western Europe. Moreover Russia’s Duma follows Putin’s lead.
      - from 4y ago

ajross 4y ago

It's upsetting that so many here want to take a genuine (and very scary) international crisis and use it to flog their own personal peeves. Needless to say, "German energy policy of the last two decades" and "Let's Invade Ukraine and Blackmail Europe!" are different decisions, and subject to different analysis. You can have reasonable opinions about both, but if your opposition to Russian adventurism and brinksmanship[1] is grounded only on your support for the German nuclear industry, I think you're not helping the discourse. [1] It's looking increasingly likely that they blew up Nordstream, which is dangerously close to an act of war against other nuclear powers.

m348e912 4y ago
Honest question. How did you get to the logical conclusion that Russia is the most likely party that bombed Nordstream?
- ajross 4y ago
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    You don't have to believe that every government in the West is lying about it. You just have to believe that one government (the one who did it) is lying, and the rest don't know because they weren't told.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      You don't even need one government to lie; you only need a small portion thereof. And if you did it right, you could have setup this whole procedure ages ago and then have complete deniability.
      - Izkata 4y ago
        You don't even need a small portion to lie, you can just take them at their word: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-german-chancellor-nord-stream-2-russia/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-german-chancellor-nord-st...

mrtksn 4y ago

This place started to think in memes I feel. Every issue comes with the automated arguments, the same ones every time. If the topic is energy someone must write the "they shouldn't have closed those Nuclear power plants, silly environmentalist". Anyway, France is full blown nuclear state and they are having energy issues too, because as it turns out nuclear power plants require long regular maintenance periods. Maybe there's no simple answer for energy issues and countries don't simply build or close down power plants over single issue? Maybe it wasn't done just to please some tree huggers? Maybe someone in Germany could have had crunched the numbers too and see the risks? Maybe some politicians were too close to fossil fuel money? Maybe it was considered as a way to keep the relationship with Russia profitable for Russia and encourage Russia to build good relationships with their primary customer? Maybe EU wanted to have Russia as a reliable petrostate as an alternative to the USA so they can do their thing without USA? Maybe they wanted to reduce their footing in Africa by not relying for them in Uranium production? Maybe it make more economical sense to use the non-nuclear solutions? Just maybe it wasn't a single issue decision even if it didn't play out as hoped? Europe is acutely aware of its tight energy situation, that's why they have been regulating the efficiency since decades, it's not coincidence that in Europe everything is very energy efficient. They squeezed it to the point where faster water heaters and more powerful vacuums were presented as Brexit benefits. Oh, I'm so fed up by this culture war.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
Culture is preference. Democracy is voting preference. Authoritarians get fed up with competing preferences and squash other preferences/opinions but risk making the wrong decisions.
mjthrowaway1 4y ago
While the arguments are repetitive this isn’t a culture war. The EU made its bed (or more likely, imported it) and now has to sleep in it. Deindustrialization has been ongoing.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  In California, I get physical mail pamphlets that help me prepare for power outages and what I should do to reduce quality of life. It’s not from PG&E, but our city.

yrgulation 4y ago

It’s worse than you think. Germany blocked or was against a large number of alternative pipelines and was preparing to actively block nuclear at an eu level.

stingraycharles 4y ago
Why would they do that, what’s their motivation?
- glogla 4y ago
  Being "green".
  - yrgulation 4y ago
    Not just that. Keeping east europe under developed and thus reliant on “eu funding” coupled with corruption and sheer incompetence.
    - glogla 4y ago
      Yeah, probably. The moment Germans started on EU level to push natural gas (which burns into co2) as green and push zero emission nuclear as not green, I stopped believing they are more than Russian puppets or useful idiots.
- adambyrtek 4y ago
  So that Gerhard Schröder could get a job at Gazprom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relationship_with_Russian_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relation...
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    > In 2022, it was reported that Schroeder was paid nearly $1 million per year by Russian energy companies. Who knew sabotaging a continent’s energy policy was so affordable.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rr888 4y ago

Russia and Germany have been at war for centuries. The last few decades when their economies became co-dependent was a blissful peace. Beware the long term consequences of buiding a new wall between them.

usrusr 4y ago
But times when Germany/predecessors and Russia hand been allied haven't exactly been peaceful either. History is the worst foreign policy advisor of them all.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Exactly. You can't safely drive forward by just looking in the rearview mirror.
- hef19898 4y ago
  The last time nowadays Russia and nowadays Germany were allies was at the end of the Napoleanic Wars and during Bismarcks, IMHO ingenious, coalition policy between the large European powers. Back then we talk about actual Emperors. After Bismarck, things deteriorated to WW1, followed by WW2, in between both, the USSR ans Nazi-Germany were short term allies for military build up and at the end to split Poland. After that, both sides were totally not allies. And after that we had the Cold War, which had Eastern Europe under Communist rule but without any active wars. Those were fought in Korea and Vietnam, withkut German participation.
brabel 4y ago
It's too late... the scene is already set up for the next big war. We're in a situation where the hate between both sides is very close to the surface, no one is trying to hide it anymore. All that's needed now is one excuse... as it happened so many times before, for centuries... one small thing - an important figure murder, a bomb that lands on the wrong side of the border (accidentally?)... the destruction of NordStream, which I thought would be enough to start a full scale conflict with Russia, but for some reason hasn't yet (though it remains to be seen). It's very clear that what we're seeing today looks exactly like what we saw just before other large wars: a mostly regional conflict that serves as a proxy conflict between the bigger players causes the hostile rethoric on both sides to grow more and more, until the population not only supports a conflict, but demands it. Whether or not the news are telling the truth (which anyone who was there in previous situations like this, including Iraq not so long ago, knows is full of lies and uncontested half-truths from both sides) doesn't even matter anymore. It's a matter of time, you can be sure of that.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

There is a penn and teller episode where they argued that globalization was creating world peace. Basically, when everyone’s economies are so entangled, they said, nobody would want to go to war because of how expensive it would be. Their model, I think, only works for democracies. When a dictator controls a country, and their quality of life remains unchanged and revolves mostly around delusions of grandeur (like an impetuous monarch centuries ago), that dynamic isn’t enough of a deterrent. It only works when the leadership is sensitive to the well being of the country and it’s people

ch4s3 4y ago
Even for dictators, economic costs are a real barrier. You can’t loot from a broken economy in the future or build vanity projects if there’s no money. Economic interdependence constrains authoritarians as well, just a bit less.
- LeanderK 4y ago
  I think it is all a game of perception. If you think you can muscle your way through, either quickly enough so that no harm is done to your economy/population until your goal is reached or if you perceive a weakness in the opposition, a fear of taking action against you, then you see the move as possible. I think the line of thought that economic (co-)dependence makes conflict impossible or leads to a more harmonious relationship is probably the gravest error in german foreign strategy. I think it's a reason behind both our relationship with russia and china. But it assumes a rational actor who's concern is the well-being of its people. Putin doesn't care for his people, he cares for power. He want's to increase his power, the stability of his regime etc. He might have employed the same flawed thinking to come to the conclusion that europe won't help ukraine if it's dependent on russian energy. In reality, economic costs only become apparent after the harm is done. The greatest strategy crumbles if it is build on flawed assumptions.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    I don’t think that’s the strongest version of the argument. I would boil it down to something along the lines of economic relatedness building roadblocks and off-ramps on the way to conflict. Trade gives some opportunities for low risk retaliation that can be hashed out and deescalated prior to any shooting happening. It presents resistance that can slow things down. It obviously can’t prevent a determined large nation from barreling through, but it’s a layer of defense.

dehrmann 4y ago

That quote also mischaracterizes the decision. Cutting gas supplies was retaliation for sanctions. It wasn't really "Russia's decision" as much as it was western Europe's decision to back Ukraine.

sleton38234234 4y ago

I think there's a bigger lesson to learn in all this: Increasing Self sufficiency is really important both on the country level and individual level.

potatototoo99 4y ago

It was Europe's decision to halt gas imports, not Russia's.

d0mine 4y ago

"Russia's decision" to introduce sanctions against itself /s And many people just eat it up without questions :)