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Comment by matmatmatmat | Hacker News Reader

I'm not in favor of giving Putin money, but I am in favor of dependencies. Dependencies are what keep people from invading each other's countries when there's trouble. People are unlikely to start bombing their customers.

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The trouble with Nord Stream 2 is that it removes the dependencies which keep Russia from invading Eastern European countries like Poland by creating a route to sell gas to the richer parts of Europe that doesn't go through them, whilst also creating a dependency that would make it painful for the rest of Europe to take action if Russia did such a thing. This is probably not good for peace in Europe.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'm obviously a bit late with this, but I wanted to add that I'm not sure how much of a deterrent gas routes through other countries were for Russia to begin with, e.g., it did not seem to help Ukraine much.

I take your point and I sort of agree, but I'm really excited for how the transition to clean energy will reduce the Kremlin's influence. Even without exporting so much energy, I suspect/hope Russia's remaining economy will still be too dependent on exports to risk attacking anyone (especially considering that China et al would probably strongly oppose an attack on its most lucrative clientelle, however much it might otherwise detest them).

I suspect/hope Russia's remaining economy will still be too dependent on exports to risk attacking anyone

Why would Russia attack anyone? What would be the point of such an attack?

Why US is allowed to attack anyone, destroys whole countries and kill millions of people, including hundreds of thousands of civilians and everybody is ok with it (recent examples: Libya, Afghanistan, Syria)?

> Why would Russia attack anyone? What would be the point of such an attack?

I was responding to the GP's hypothetical.

> Why US is allowed to attack anyone, destroys whole countries and kill millions of people, including hundreds of thousands of civilians and everybody is ok with it (recent examples: Libya, Afghanistan, Syria)?

If you can rephrase this so it doesn't sound like overt flame bait, I might respond. Otherwise we risk a flame war and I don't have energy for that.

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