Hacker News Reader

> and the strategy behind the German government's policy towards Russia for 15 years.

Seeing what the likes of Gerhard Schröder is doing and given other economic incentives that favoured Germany I don't think that was the main idea behind it.

View on HN

Well, there's Schröder, of course, definitely a bit embarrassing now. But there were also those for whom this actually was a legitimate foreign policy strategy. I do believe DE's current president and former foreign policy minister, F.-W. Steinmeier, genuinely thought increasing business with Russia was the way to keep Europe's annoying neighbour civil.

Was Germany during this time not opposed to the idea of essentially group buying Russian gas rather than letting it be used as a political bat? If so, why?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com