How fast did the rest of Europe cut ties with Nazi Germany after World War II started? Current level of feeding Russia's war machine looks bizarre.
Must be fun looking in at all this from the sidelines.
We sent our soldiers to every shithole america decided to "bring democracy to", but now, ukraine has become so important, that we are willing to destroy our own economy and "passively fight" until the "last dead ukranian", to achieve what exactly?
it is often forgotten that this is exactly what the US did for the first 2-3 years of the war. Germany swallowed up the wealth of Europe. Britain had already swallowed up the wealth of a quarter of the world. the US swallowed up both of their wealth and ended the war with 2/3 of the world's gold
this is a simplification, but it's also huge overarching story of WW2 that is often missed. people know the US and Russia became the world's two superpowers, but there's very little attention paid as to how the US came to be one of them
Some ideas to evaluate, in no particular order. Some are (close to mainstream), others elephant's shit:
- accelerated LNG terminal buildouts (butchering Nordstream 2 and making it a terminal at the coast, ...)
- EU level natural gas purchasing
- carrots for lowering per capita energy consumption: insulation, contests, subsidies, ...
- temporary ban on use of cars with >= 3l engines
- 100 km/h EU wide maximum speed limit
- no private jet traffic except for medical emergencies
- temporarily extend/unmothball coal and nuclear electricity plants - temporary regulatory relaxation on wood harvesting for heating purposes
- 24/7 production at any and every solar panel, wind turbine, insulation and heat pump manufacturer - faster rollout of planned (hvdc) interconnects - EU wide helicopter money for paying energy bills or lowering them: per capita, differentiated by climate zone
- (possibly) concentrate large solar and green hydrogen projects in southern EU (higher immediate returns)
- intensive direct wage support for employees in temporarily loss-leading energy intensive sectors
- ..._
Also, your question is far more complex and not comparable to the russo-ukraine war.
For one, the geo-political situation prior to WW2 and especially compared to today might aswell be from a completely different planet. Prior to world war 2, a intranational political union like the EU did not exist, not to mention most countries in europe weren't democracies at the time.
Here anti-Russian notion was written in genes in cruel ways for generations
There're plenty of polls about views on Russian-Ukraine war. And views are pretty one sided.
Another division is people who were moved here by soviet government. It's not uncommon that the old generation, born outside of Lithuania, lives in Russian media, sometimes not even speaking Lithuanian after decades of living here. Yet their (grand)children are well integrated into Lithuanian society, including anti-Russian notion.
.... and then we have our own bunch of Russofiles for various reasons. Including among youth, and even what you'd call liberal youth. Some famous people now do incredible stunts to cover pre-Russian-invasion actions. While others stick to their guns.
I have a declared fascist father in law, and he sided with Putin from the very start (his opinions are generally an unimaginative mirror of what he reads in the major Italian newspaper he reads)
Same will be for anyone who is doing business with Putin's fascists today.
The US is a democratic country so far, Russia is not.
It’s incredibly childish, stupid and dangerous to pretend that these countries are all equally evil.
And while none of those countries may be involved in a military conflict right now, they've been in the past. Recently.
So given there is no good country selling gas right now, I prefer to get the cheapest one. Thanks.
It’s important to understand that Russia is a much bigger threat to European safety than the Saudis.
When it comes to defending central european borders, your whataboutism isn’t helpful.
You may call this cynical. But I think that this whataboutism that leads to inaction is the most cynical of all.