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Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

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Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#61

Post by [deleted] »

bnhjt wrote: post #31
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 don't need to read academic papers to know that Russia = evil. Eastern Europe has been parroting this for decades but Germany stuck its fingers in its ears and went "la-la-la-la, I can't hear you over the sound of my cheap gas brokered by our lord and savior, G…

Why single out Germany? War hawk Tony Blair condoned a BP deal after the invasion of Chechnya: 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…

[deleted]

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#62

Post by Mlller »

chrysler wrote: post #58
Mlller wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

The point is whether Russia could extort countries (eg: prevent from sending military aid to Ukraine) or not. While a little over half of all gas in Germany came from Russia, Germany was among countries with the highest proportion of gas in total fuel consumption. In comparison, countries like Finland indeed got virtually all their gas from Russia, but that was only a few percent of total fuel consumption and couldn'…

If that is the point (which is not clear to me from the start of this subthread), it is rather settled: The linked article shows that Germany could get over not buying Russian gas anymore well; and it sends vastly more military aid to Ukraine than Finland – Zelenskyy “noted that Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/world/europe/ukraine-zele...). (That this took sometimes painfully long has a sufficient reason in senses of guilt regarding war – in fact, both sides still draw arguments from the same history for violently contradicting claims on Germany.)

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#63

Post by rossdavidh »

While I agree that the worst envisioned outcomes did not come to pass, and certainly I do not think they would have been a moral (or even practical) justification for appeasement of military expansionism in any case, I am reminded somewhat of the Y2K debate. Was it never the threat it was imagined to be? Or was the great alarm in advance the reason why sufficient measures were taken to avoid catastrophe? Probably somewhere in between.

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#64

Post by _kbh_ »

redeeman wrote: post #59
H8crilA wrote: post #3

The winter was exceptionally warm, and no one could really predict that. But putting that aside, this whole episode was making me uneasy. To this day so many people in Europe cannot engage in strategic thinking. I think they simply do not believe that bombs can ever land on their own roofs. The understanding of foreign governments and their real intentions is often at a comical level, even when applied to actors that…

> That means sacrificing something small (like a gas shortage) okay.. tell that to the ones that simply cannot afford it > for something valuable (no major war in Europe). /me looks at Ukraine: there seems to be a war... /me looks at globe.. in... Europe. is the war lasting longer because the EU and US sends arms to Ukraine?

> is the war lasting longer because the EU and US sends arms to Ukraine?

The war is lasting longer because the Russians have decided that the number of dead Russians and recaptured positions that need to happen for the war to end is higher than what Ukraine has currently achieved.

This war could be over tomorrow if Russia decided to leave, if anything western weapons and aid are making the war end faster by speeding up Russias defeat.

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#65

Post by ivan_gammel »

practice9 wrote: post #52
ivan_gammel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 wors…

Chechnya as independent country did not exist in 1990s. There was no legal mechanism for it to leave Russia, no democratic process to leave, no recognition by other countries etc. Separatists committed numerous crimes against civil population in Chechnya and outside it and eventually switched to terrorist methods, attacking schools, hospitals and cultural events (e.g. Budennovsk, Beslan, Nord-Ost). Basically, they were Russian version of Hamas or other radical organizations in Middle East. Not the type you would ever negotiate any independence with.

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#66

Post by kjeetgill »

pydry wrote: post #37
jackfoxy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA didn't invade Texas. Texians (Anglo Texans who had migrated) and Tejanos (Mexican Texans) alike were fed up with Santa Anna's rule and successfully rebelled, forming the Republic of Texas which lasted for 10 years, at which point the Republic accepted the American offer of annexation in a referendum. The Mexican/American war spun out of the aftermath of the annexation.

>Republic accepted the American offer of annexation in a referendum. A bit like Crimea then.

Nothing alike. Texas had it's independence on it's own well before trying to become a state.

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#67

Post by kjeetgill »

pydry wrote: post #37
jackfoxy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA didn't invade Texas. Texians (Anglo Texans who had migrated) and Tejanos (Mexican Texans) alike were fed up with Santa Anna's rule and successfully rebelled, forming the Republic of Texas which lasted for 10 years, at which point the Republic accepted the American offer of annexation in a referendum. The Mexican/American war spun out of the aftermath of the annexation.

>Republic accepted the American offer of annexation in a referendum. A bit like Crimea then.

Nothing alike. Texas had it's independence on it's own for 10 years before becoming a state.

Russia invaded Crimea and annexed it in months — about 9 years ago.

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#68

Post by tuukkah »

Mlller wrote: post #62
chrysler wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is whether Russia could extort countries (eg: prevent from sending military aid to Ukraine) or not. While a little over half of all gas in Germany came from Russia, Germany was among countries with the highest proportion of gas in total fuel consumption. In comparison, countries like Finland indeed got virtually all their gas from Russia, but that was only a few percent of total fuel consumption and couldn'…

If that is the point (which is not clear to me from the start of this subthread), it is rather settled: The linked article shows that Germany could get over not buying Russian gas anymore well; and it sends vastly more military aid to Ukraine than Finland – Zelenskyy “noted that Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States” ( https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/world/europe/ukraine-zele... )…

> [Germany] sends vastly more military aid to Ukraine than Finland

The statistics disagree if you remember to compare per capita or per GDP. (Finland looks bad only if you include the refugee costs in a per GDP calculation - not many Ukrainians wanted to travel to Finland so far.) https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Also, one should take into account that the amount of unnecessary military hardware lying around is not the same in a country that is surrounded by Nato members vs a country that shares over thousand kilometers of border with the unhinged neighbour. Further, you might not be strategically able to reveal in public how much of your stock that acts as a deterrent you have given away while the war is going on.

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#69

Post by tuukkah »

it_citizen wrote: post #30
permo-w wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did we really think that or was it just a rationalisation of the desire for profit?

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.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Re: Not Even a Recession: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect [pdf]

#70

Post by Haga »

it_citizen wrote: post #12
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 don't need to read academic papers to know that Russia = evil. Eastern Europe has been parroting this for decades but Germany stuck its fingers in its ears and went "la-la-la-la, I can't hear you over the sound of my cheap gas brokered by our lord and savior, G…

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.

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