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>Much more troubling: Few people worldwide have the attention span and stamina to read a text of the length off an academic paper and engage its contents. You

• it_citizen 3y ago
  This is very simplified. A lot of western countries, Germany first, believed that if we traded and opened up to those countries, they would naturally tend to adopt western values. It turned out to be incorrect. China being an even better example. But it was not a crazy assumption at the time, and coming after the fact is hindsight 20/20. Honestly, even knowing how things turned out, I am proud that the west tried.
  • ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    >if we traded and opened up to those countries, they would naturally tend to adopt western values. You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that your argument is "Germany didn't know that Russia invading 3 countries was bad and it hoped Russia would come around if it just kept buying gas from them and pumping trillions in their economy which Russia spent on its military would make them more peaceful". It's safe to assume that either Germany doesn't know when to take a hint that after 3 invasions, your trading partner is not gonna come around, or Germany was actively ignoring Russia's warmongering for it's own benefit. Either way it looks bad on Germany and no made up excuses are gonna cut it.
    • it_citizen 3y ago
      I am glad Germany didn't stop trading with the US after they invaded Irak by producing fake witnesses, or the second time by fabricating proofs, or Afghanistan. Diplomacy is not black and white.
      • spamizbad 3y ago
        As an American: It should’ve. If a firmer hand was taken it could’ve saved thousands of lives. France and Germany wagged its finger but basically waved us through.
        • this_user 3y ago
          There was nothing that could have been done from the outside to stop that. The only people who could have made a difference were the citizens of the United States, but about 80% of them thought the invasion was a good idea.
    • ivan_gammel 3y ago
      Germany did not ignore Russian military invasions, which can be easily demonstrated by specific actions that German government took at that time. Notably those actions were not much different from what USA or other European countries except a few with anti-Russian paranoia did. Besides, there were two, not three invasions. Chechnya is not a country.
      • practice9 3y ago
        > Chechnya is not a country. There was a Chechen Republic of Ichkeria that existed until getting slaughtered, occupied, and retrospectively written out of the books by Russia. Yeltsin (and later Putin) was a baddie that West hoped to trade with, so they were willing to push aside the issue of Chechnya calling it an internal conflict. But in reality the level of Russian war crimes was unparalleled, sometimes even worse than what's happening in Ukraine. Internationally no high-ranking Russian officials or military officers were ever prosecuted or actually condemned for these war crimes. Most countries have turned a blind eye and didn't act with urgency: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2020-04-15/massacre-at-samashki-and-us-response-to-russias-war-in-chechnya https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2020...
  • nr2x 3y ago
    And yet the USA and Poland were screaming at the top of their lungs to not do nord stream and the German public didn’t care. At all.
    • pydry 3y ago
      Of course they didn't care. The USA were screaming because they wanted to flog more expensive LNG to Germany and Poland was screaming because they wanted their transit fees. The US screamed so loudly that Nord Stream exploded.
      • nr2x 3y ago
        [flagged]
      • throw0101b 3y ago
        > The USA were screaming because they wanted to flog more expensive LNG […] The US has been screaming at DE since the 1980s, decades before fracking and LNG was a thing: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod_pipeline#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod_pipeli... * https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/03/blinken-secretary-state-alliances-nato-ally-versus-ally/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/03/blinken-secretary-state...
        • nr2x 3y ago
          No, no, no - that would mean there wasn’t a deep strand of sympathy for Russian ethnic-totalitarianism at play at the highest levels of the German establishment. And of course it’s not like AfD actually, exists, or that the German security apparatus is riddled with Russian spies and Nazis.
  • permo-w 3y ago
    did we really think that or was it just a rationalisation of the desire for profit?
    • it_citizen 3y ago
      Good point. I think both? Nations are not single minded. Political parties, individuals, companies, diplomats, each might have their own particular interest. But I remember not long ago, "trade and free market will bring democratic institutions" being a pretty popular opinion.
      • tuukkah 3y ago
        Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
  • Haga 3y ago
    [dead]
• marcod 3y ago
  Yes, to me it's much more about politicians wanting a short-term win, over long-term stability at a cost.
• nr2x 3y ago
  I literally cannot fathom how Germans still don’t see this. It’s a certain flavor of arrogance and greed to watch your neighbors be slaughtered and think “hey, we are getting cheap gas - surely this isn’t a problem”. Germans like to say how much they learned from their history, but when shit got real they funded the aggressor and benefited from Putins corruption.
• ivan_gammel 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    >Russia invading Chechnya is like USA invading Texas. Chechnya was an independent country in 1991, as was Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and other ex-USSR republics post 1991. It had no right invading Chechnya.
    • dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Chechnya was an independent country in 1991, as was Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus and other ex-USSR republics post 1991. Chechnya is different from the others; the others were constituent republic of the USSR that became independent when the USSR dissolved; Chechnya was part (and not an administratively distinct part) of the Checheno-Ingush ASSR, which was not a direct constituent of the USSR but of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which became the Russian Federation.
    • olegious 3y ago
      Your comparison is a poor one. Chechnya wasn't ever an independent country. They declared independence, but it was never recognized as an independent country by anyone, including any countries in the West.
    • ivan_gammel 3y ago
      You’d better open Wikipedia or something to find at least basic facts, because what you are saying is 100% not correct. Chechnya was not a political entity on the same level as Ukraine and under Soviet constitution could not leave the union. It was an autonomy within Russia and dissolution of USSR did not automatically grant it independence. Moreover, in 1991-1992 the political entity was called differently and was replaced officially by two regions, one of them being Chechnya, only later. So called “invasions” were in fact a civil war between separatists on one side and loyalists and Russian army on the other side in 1994 and counter-terrorist operation in 1999 (because that was after Beslan, Russian 9/11).
  • 3y ago
• Mlller 3y ago
  “Eastern Europe has been parroting […] Germany stuck its fingers in its ears” Or perhaps Germany couldnʼt hear them, because their actions spoke louder than their words – a majority of Eastern European countries had made themselves more dependent on Russian gas than Germany: - Hungary: 110.4 percent - Latvia: 100.1 percent - Finland: 92.4 percent - Estonia: 86.5 percent - Czechia: 86.0 percent - Slovenia: 81.0 percent - Slovakia: 75.2 percent - Bulgaria: 72.8 percent - Germany: 58.9 percent “Some of the countries have a figure above 100 because they import more than required for domestic consumption and export other energy products.” per https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/3260553-these-european-countries-are-the-most-dependent-on-russian-gas/ https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/326055...
  • tuukkah 3y ago
    Your list does not illustrate what you claim. E.g. Finland was not at all dependent on Russian gas, because Finland does not use much gas, so 92.4 percent of nothing. Meanwhile, Germany's gas imports were huge and you cannot leave 58.9 percent of your population to freeze in the winter anyway. EDIT: Also, Finland has this in the laws: > There is an alternative fuel obligation, so that in the event of a gas supply disturbance, other fuels can be immediately substituted. It's as if they prepared for an event like this ;-)
    • Mlller 3y ago
      Sorry for my unclarity, but I understand the point at issue (of GP and this thread) to be how a prolongation of mutual economic relations with Russia was not justifiable morally, not how well a country could cope with an abrupt end of these relations economically or in terms of the well-being of their own population. You seem to argue with regard to the latter, and I would concur, although the linked article shows that after Germanyʼs 58.9 percent went down to zero, they either, in fact, could let their population freeze (household consumption went down) or got over it in other ways (a considerable part of the 58.9 percent was industrial consumption).
      • chrysler 3y ago
• bnhjt 3y ago
  Why single out Germany? War hawk Tony Blair condoned a BP deal after the invasion of Chechnya: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1046295978238979863 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1046295978238979863 There is a pipeline from the Nord Stream terminal in Germany to the UK. Nord Stream is owned by Russia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands. Gas was resold to plenty of EU countries, including Eastern European ones. Poland and Ukraine collected transit fees for Russian oil/gas long after Nord stream was blown up.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• jltsiren 3y ago
  Chechnya was a civil war within the internationally recognized borders of Russia, not an invasion. The only foreign power that had recognized independent Chechnya was Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. There was a general feeling in the early and mid-2000s that Russia was finally changing for the better. The economy was growing and the quality of life was improving for many Russians. While no one mistook Putin for a democratic leader, he wasn't particularly bad as far as semi-authoritarian leaders go. The invasion of Georgia in 2008 was a turning point, because people didn't believe Putin would go to war to prevent the expansion of NATO. But it wasn't a particularly big shock, because military interventions as an extension of foreign policy were quite common in the 1990s and 2000s. It was more unpleasant with "their side" doing it, but as long as "our side" was also doing it, military interventions were a legitimate policy tool. International politics is pretty childish in this respect. After the invasion, politicians had much less favorable views of Putin. But they continued dealing with him, assuming that he would act based on rational self-interest. The real shock in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine was not the invasion itself but the irrationality of it. If Putin could miscalculate his actions so badly, it made no sense to treat him as a rational actor anymore.
  • redeeman 3y ago
    but what is rational? a great great many people in Denmark obliterated the savings they spent a few decades making just to make it through this mild winter only freezing moderately, some even having to sell their homes and a large number (small percentage, but still large number) looking into retiring on the public pension that is not much. Would they be better off if the west had not gone all in on the anti-russia sanctions and funding ukraine? the people in the US/EU that were crying snot because russians were streaming gas burners running 24/7 while some Europeans had to equip their winter jackets in their homes. the extreme amount of wet firewood being burned smoking up entire neighborhoods so that people would not freeze to death. Are the people inhaling that smoke better off? is it rational for them to cheer "putin man bad" (asserting that they did, i do not know if they did)