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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Germany should cancel Nord Stream 2. Shot across the bow of Gazprom and Russia.

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder oversaw the shutdown of Germany's nuclear industry. He is now chairman of the Russian gas conglomerate Rosneft.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41447603

The shutdown of Germany's nukes is a result of corruption at the most senior level, and represents one of the greatest betrayals of the German people, of Europe, and of indeed the planet given the additional emissions.

If the EU is really serious about Russian and energy independence, they should be begin a mass program of nuclear power building across the bloc.

But its more likely that all of the senior European bureaucrats and politicians are corrupted at some level.

Corruption, and, you know, widespread support among the German population. So I guess a betrayal of the Germans, by the Germans.

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/deutschlan... (2011)

https://atomkraftwerkeplag.wikia.org/de/wiki/Meinungsumfrage...

If you explained to those same people that the replacement is going to involve a lot of coal and Russian gas, and that the decision was based on a corrupted chancellor, would they still support the decision?

If the chancellor was corrupted, then what about senior media controllers and leaders of the Greens movement?

Germans know very well, that Schröder was corrupt. They still support the Energiewende. But Trump bullying Germany to stop buying Russian gas, so the US can sell its more expensive fracking gas to Europe isn't a perfect signal of sincerity either.

That would likely hurt Germany (by reducing options).

A stronger Russia, weaker Europe, and changing climate hurt Germany considerably more in the long run.

(Shame our politicians can't see past autumn...)

So anything goes as long as Germany comes first? And really, is it in Germany's interests to support dictatorships as the wave of illiberalism rolls further west? How exactly?

Germany and it's neo empire, AKA EU, is spineless and pathetic and deserves to die the slow death it is facing while China and Russia crushes the last hope and light left in the world. Germany just can't help itself, time and again making the world a worse place. Germans truly learnt nothing, disingenuously saying "never again" while gladhanding with a authoritarian power openly engaging in genocide: https://neveragainrightnow.com/

Well since Russia is now the USA's largest external supplier of oil [1], perhaps they can get the ball rolling? No need to whine at the Germans.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-24/russia-oi...

Who again is spineless?

Your own article says Russia is the third-largest supplier.

Look at the red line at the end of the time series.

Yes, the graph shows it surpassed Saudi Arabia ... into third place, as the article said.

The US imports many times more from Canada.

I don't think the USA is particularly reliant on any external supplies of oil these days, whereas the same cannot be said for Europe and gas.

Then surely it makes it even easier for the USA to decline said Russian oil?

Come, show those Germans what decisive, principled action looks like.

> perhaps they can get the ball rolling?

A European plane with European passengers was downed. No Americans. Putin would not have signed off on a similar operation with an American plane.

U.S. geopolitical focus is presently in the Pacific. Getting sidetracked with whatever is going on between Berlin and Moscow doesn’t serve our interests.

How will the US make up for that oil? Not through internal drilling and extraction as the environmental wing of the party in power would never allow it. Closer ties to Middle Eastern states that have their own terrible human rights abuses?

Europe has consistently been a bigger trading partner with Russia: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rus?subnatTradeValueSel...

And can't Germany do anything right without US holding their hand? But to be fair yes, Biden is equally pathetic and sad for gladhanding with Russia.

That would be much more than a shot across the bow, given how much the Russian economy and federal budget depends on gas revenues.

Maybe Russia can get it's shit in order?

I think that would be a shot at the bow. A shot across the bow would be to maybe stop buying gas from Russia for a week or two during the summer. I have no clue how much that would cost, but I have started to think that it might make sense also as an supply chain disruption exercise.

Does Germany have other sources available to it? Otherwise it'd be like a "boycott" where you just move the purchases to another day.

They could import it from US. Not sure how much more expensive that would be, especially since Russia has a strong reason to have a very competitive price (since supplying EU is also a strategic asset)

They should threaten to recommission their nukes.

Why would that bother Russia?

They already have thousands pointing at them and about seven thousand ready to fly back anyone dumb enough to attack them.

A few more German nukes doesn't change their risk at all.

I believe parent is referring to nuclear power stations, which Germany began phasing out after Fukushima.

Germany has never had nuclear weapons of its own, though the US has had around 60 warheads in Buchel (edit: and currently probably has about about 20 warheads) as part of the NATO Nuclear Sharing deterrent, and the Soviet Union deployed some nuclear warheads in East Germany for a time.

Edit: maybe thousands of warheads were in Germany at the height of the cold war, though a quick look through Wikipedia isn't clear about the peak number of warheads.

correction: are stationed in Buchel

During the cold wars, there were at times thousands of warheads in Germany.

Thanks. I know a guy who was trained to place demolition charges on the US warheads in Buchel in case the base was overrun, and I had gotten the false impression from him that all of the warheads had since been removed.

> Germany should cancel Nord Stream 2. Shot across the bow of Gazprom and Russia

Unlikely to happen until Merkel is out. She has been incredibly weak when it comes to Russia.

Why create a billions of dollars worth investment ruin when we can also complete it and go the "stick and carrots" route? Let it sit but demand concessions from Putin. He wants to sell the gas, after all...

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