The author ignores another important part: betting on Russia was a bet on domestic security. Tying European countries together through commercial interdependence had a demonstrated track record of causing the longest period of peace in Europe in over a millenium. Well, why shouldn't that work in the case of Russia as well?

Well we all know why is didn't work in the case of Russia. As this article well shows, Germany made a number of mistakes that amounted to not hedging this bet.

But given the philosophies of Europe and the USA in the late 90s-mid 2010s, this approach can't be called utterly foolish.