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Europe deciding to depend on Russia for their energy and not focusing on defense spending is the unbelievable part to me, but they've been doing this for quite

• ivan_gammel 3y ago
  It was reasonable not to see Russia as enemy. It was well integrated into European trade and some political structures (PACE, NATO-Russia council etc) and there were even talks about visa-free travel between Russia and EU. What went wrong was the glacial speed of integration, letting the nationalist sentiment and disappointment in West grow. Post-WWII Europe was pacified through a political union between Germany and France, post-Cold War Europe should have done it too. Putin could be another Orban in the worst case.
  • manmal 3y ago
    Did you mean someone else than Orban?
    • ivan_gammel 3y ago
      Name another enfant terrible in EU who undermines democracy but does not go too far to be expelled.
      • TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
        Scholz. Modern Russia is far better at political subversion than it is at outright conquest. Every country in Europe has captive politicians and far-right parties being funded and enabled by Moscow. Like Germany's AfD which - as a matter of record - has been cultivated, promoted, and steered in a pro-Russian direction. Scholz is clearly playing the same game, obstructing aid to Ukraine in every possible way. Geert Wilders in NL makes anti-Russian noises in public while threatening to cut support to Ukraine. Portugal has Chega, France has National Rally and Le Pen, the UK had Brexit and Boris Johnson - who installed the son of a top KGB operative to the House of Lords. The US has Trump and Maga. And so on. Every single one of these has proven Russian links. Ukraine is just a distraction. The real war has been happening elsewhere. Many leaders - and most voters - still haven't realised what's happening. And should Le Pen win in France and Trump in the US, that would leave the UK's one active nuclear submarine as Europe's sole protection against Russian nuclear threats.
        • holoduke 3y ago
          [flagged]
          • jacquesm 3y ago
            Absolutely each and every one of those is far right, borderline fascist and getting more so by the day. There is plenty of evidence of Russian funds bankrolling these (and others), no need to suggest this is a conspiracy. What you believe doesn't really matter.
            • holoduke 3y ago
              [flagged]
              • jacquesm 3y ago
                And Hitler was a vegetarian. What Geert Wilders yells to get votes has zero binding on what he is able to accomplish or really intends to do.
                • holoduke 3y ago
                  You should read the party objectives. State media is often a bit biased and even in the west you can fell victim to propoganda.
                  • jacquesm 3y ago
                    You're hilarious. Geert Wilders is a populist, not a politician. The party objectives are Geert Wilders' dog whistles and promises to the gullible, it isn't a serious political party even though it has attracted the largest voting bloc simply because there is no governance structure in place, the party is Geert Wilders, the rest is just window dressing. The idea that 'even in the west[sic] you can fell[sic] victim to propoganda[sic]' is true but it has nothing to do with my view of Wilders, the PVV or the general Dutch political situation. And as for state media, guess what GW wants to get rid of?
      • SEJeff 3y ago
        I mean in France, you've got Marine LePen. In the Netherlands you've got Geert Wilders. Robert Fico wanted to take Slovakia back to a past when oligarchs dominated the state. PiS wanted to turn poland into the arsenal of the EU and got a really good start on it, etc. Nationalism is having a renaissance since Trump won in 2020, but it turns out overall to be a terrible way to run a country.
        • wonderwonder 3y ago
          How are they undermining democracy though? You may not like their politics but what have they done to say they are anti democratic?
          • n4r9 3y ago
            Things like a strong and independent media, legal system, parliament and police force are crucial to democracy. It can be justifiable to argue that someone is anti-democratic if they advocate a narrative that erodes trust in any of these.
            • wonderwonder 3y ago
              That's an interesting idea. Covers both political parties, with the left undermining trust in the police, and Supreme Court. The right in the FBI and journalism.
              • n4r9 3y ago
                It's context-dependent, but that's the basic idea. In the UK for example, we currently have quite a right-wing government in power, which is: * Undermining our Supreme Court by trying to force through a migrant deportation scheme which the court has ruled unlawful * Eroding the Police Force's independence by claiming they are biased in their approach to protests * Trying to defund and delegitimise the BBC It might be because I'm fairly left wing myself, but I think you have go pretty far into authoritarian-left territory (think Stalinism) before you start becoming seriously anti-democratic. Before that point most leftists are pretty keen on giving power and choice to ordinary people and communities.
  • dralley 3y ago
    It was not reasonable after 2014. Nordstream 2 was after 2014.
  • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Fundamentally what actually went the worst was the absolutely awful way that capitalist market systems were, on the whole, rolled out in the eastern bloc in the 90s. Poverty, corruption, and massive wealth disparity were the results. And into the chaos, strongmen came in, and promised and gave some stability.
    • hkpack 3y ago
      Late USSR was not better at all in these countries.
      • thriftwy 3y ago
        It depends. Consumption standards weren't higher, but people had stable income, low-ish crime and industrial economy. Of course it was also untenable.
  • xdennis 3y ago
    > It was reasonable not to see Russia as enemy. That's naive. Russia allowed Germany to unify, but not Romania. It was very clear to eastern Europeans that they needed to join NATO before Russia can attack them again. Ever since the 1500s Russia has always sought to expand under the excuse of being encircled. Listen to any Russian propagandist now and they sound no different to ones from hundreds of years ago. They say Russia needs natural bothers. Well, there are no borders until the Carpathian mountains. If they do conquer the Carpathians, they'll just move the goal posts, just like they didn't stop at the Ural mountains. It's naive to not see Russia as the enemy because it has always been so.
• ethanbond 3y ago
  The strategy of economic integration as a way to reduce military tension has worked very well in many other instances. It doesn't seem like an obviously insane thing to have tried.
  • philwelch 3y ago
    The strategy seems to have gone 0-2 with Russia and China; can you name an instance in which it succeeded?
    • illiac786 3y ago
      EU?
      • philwelch 3y ago
        That's putting the cart before the horse; countries only join the EU after they're already politically aligned with the current membership. Turkey, for instance, has been kept out of the European Union precisely because of these types of concerns; a strategy of economic integration would have entailed allowing Turkey to join the EU in hopes that the EU would be a positive influence on the country. Edit: I'm being throttled so I'll respond to similar comments here. TheOtherHobbes similarly notes: > The EU. France and Germany used to be deadly enemies. No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon. In particular, France and Germany weren't peacefully reconciled through economic integration. There was a war, and the victors of that war installed democratic governments in both France and West Germany and inducted both countries into a broader alliance. > Same with US states. Texas etc keep muttering about secession, but the economic complications make it an insane idea. It took about two decades after Texas was admitted to the union for the states to fight a civil war against each other. genman says: > Remember WW1? WW2? Not personally (I'm not that old) but those were not instances of economic integration easing military tensions; they were instances of extremely bloody world wars. And the First World War in particular was already deemed impossible because of the degree to which European economies were already economically integrated. That theory did not pan out. wolverine876: > The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. The EU was specifically intended to prevent another war. Again reversing cause and effect. The Allies won the Second World War and installed friendly governments across western Europe (and also in Greece); following this, those friendly governments formed the EU.
• dilyevsky 3y ago
  > They walked right into it Why past tense? Still walking...
• navane 3y ago
  I get not believing the cry wolf. But not when the wolves are literally tearing people up in front of you.
• ako 3y ago
  Isnt the US depending on china for production just as much as Europe is depending on Russia for gas.
  • stcroixx 3y ago
    Yes and I'm dead set against it. When that blows up in our face we deserve it for allowing it to happen. The best we can hope for is China ruins their own economy rendering them impotent.
    • AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      Don't hope too much for that. Authoritarian regimes with collapsing economies often find war a useful distraction for their populations. China could do an awful lot of damage on the way down.
      • ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
        So your saying it's going to be self fullfilling prophecy when trying to depend less on china?
  • SEJeff 3y ago
    The US imports more goods from Mexico than China, but we do import a lot of stuff from China. It is clear from both sides that is problematic. They've been exporting less AND we have been moving supply chains to import less from them. It is quite problematic as it appears the US and China are slow crawling to a direct confrontation.
  • mlindner 3y ago
    Almost all of Europe’s fossil fuels came from Russia whereas China is not even the largest trade partner of the US. Also energy dependence is much harder to get off of than production dependence.
  • dclowd9901 3y ago
    I suppose if we can’t survive without cheap plastic bullshit.
• plufz 3y ago
  Even though that is troublesome I think the absolute biggest issue was the West “helping” liberalize the Russian economy. I.e. giving away huge amounts of the Russian states resources to corrupt oligarchs with great help from London banks. It really set the stage for Putin in a big way.
• foxandmouse 3y ago
  After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Germany quickly moved away from nuclear power, with the last plant closing down in late 2023. Germany leads in renewable energy, but this swift change has left them with a big gap in energy security that might last until 2038.
  • macromagnon 3y ago
    Where can I get more information on this? Wasn't fukushima total disaster in that it was badly maintained and in a bad location? These two pre-conditions don't seem to apply to the plants germany had.
    • foxandmouse 3y ago
      here's a wiki article to get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany , https://www.jstor.org/stable/24324663 https://www.jstor.org/stable/24324663 this is a better source if you're iterested enough
• surfingdino 3y ago
  Not deciding, but being told to do so by Germany who is infiltrated by Russians at every level of government, industry, and media. Allowing Germany to unify and giving the keys to the future of Europe to Germany was the biggest mistake the USA and Britain made after 1989.
  • jacquesm 3y ago
    The same move could have had a completely different outcome so it is hard to lay the blame with the USA and Britain. A unified Germany unlocked Poland and the Baltics as well as the Balkans, Romania and even Bulgaria. It did not work out quite as planned because Putin went mad but it could have worked if Russia focused on creation rather than destruction for a while. But with people that power hungry ratio goes right out the window.
    • surfingdino 3y ago
      Nothing will go "as planned" in that part of the world for as long as individual states like Germany will be signing agreements with Russia without consultation or participation of the Eastern European states. The problem of Western Europe is that they look at Eastern European countries as "lesser", former dependencies and haven't accepted them as equal partners.
      • jacquesm 3y ago
        Yes, that's a very valid point, the Western countries in the EU do not properly value the input from their Eastern colleagues on these matters. It's a very annoying thing. I have spent a good chunk of my life East of Berlin both before and after the wall came down and I have zero illusions about the situation at the moment. The question is how long it will take the rest of Europe to wake up to the new reality and it is incredible how lax the response has been so far. You'd think that they would get the message by now but all we get is half-assed measures.
        • surfingdino 3y ago
• michaeltimo 3y ago
  This! When Trump had an statement about this in the UNGA five years ago, German politicians laughed and they walked right into it.
• wkat4242 3y ago
  The US for all their huge defense spending has been involved in a lot more wars than the EU. So defense spending as prevention of war isn't really a thing either. Nor is winning them (forget Afghanistan?)
  • SCM-Enthusiast 3y ago
    instability in the middle east was and still is the plan. As long as we keep the middle east from united under some new ottoman empire, the US is happy. If we wanted to 'win', it would require taking over afghan which no one wanted to do.
  • selfmodruntime 3y ago
    The prospect of a union of most islamic states in the middle east is legitimately scary. In this sense, keeping the ME scattered is „winning“.
• lukan 3y ago
  "Russia is doing what they've always done and always will do." Do you think those stereotypes are really helpful in understanding geopolitics? Traditionally what russia has always done(after it conquered its east), was being invaded, loosing lots of land, let the invader bleed out in the winter and then push back and win new territories. Then russia as a monarchy was quite different to the sowjet union, the result of a marxist revolution with marxist agenda. And russia after the sowjet union was first weak and now they try to find strength in the traditional empire values again, religion and tsar. But it is not a given, that they will keep that, only if it works out for them. I hope it doesn't.
  • selfmodruntime 3y ago
    > Do you think those stereotypes are really helpful in understanding geopolitics? In some kind of way, yes. Cultures differ, sometimes drastically so. It is important to evaluate stereotypes based on history and their merits. You said it yourself. Historically, Russia has faced many cyclic periods of expansion and reduction. They are currently being reigned by a patriotic figure with a record of dwelling on Russia‘s great past. Given enough time or an effective military response, chances are high that their next leader will be more favorable of peace.
    • lukan 3y ago
      "It is important to evaluate stereotypes based on history and their merits." "Russia is doing what they've always done and always will do." What part of history implies, that russia (unlike e.g. Germany, France, UK, US,..) always started wars and always will be?
• hayst4ck 3y ago
  I think it makes a lot more sense if you separate a country from their elite. It seems quite clear that the German elite class had been wholly corrupted by Russia who offered them enrichment at the cost of Ukrainians and ultimately long term German security. It makes a lot more sense when you look at how America's own elites sold out America to China. All of this (charitably assuming good faith) was founded on the idea of inevitability. People thought peace was an inevitable result of trade, liberalization was an inevitable result of prosperity, and democratization an inevitable result of capitalism.
• ekabod 3y ago
  France has done nothing of what you said.