Obviously we should have started diversifying from Russian gas back in 2014. But hindsight is 20/22.
In the Soviet era, South Ossetia was an autonomous oblast within the Georgian SSR. After Georgia declared independence from the USSR, South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia. They fought a war, and Russia eventually backed South Ossetia and brokered a deal. There have been Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia ever since.
South Ossetia never gained international recognition, and in 2008, the Georgian president made an attempt to recapture it. He thought that if he was fast enough, the Russians wouldn't have time to respond and he could present them with a fait accompli. It appears that the Russians knew what was coming, and they immediately sent troops through the tunnel into South Ossetia after the Georgians moved in. Russian forces drove the Georgians back, all the way into Georgian (pre-war) territory.
The Russians then recognized South Ossetia as an independent state, though pretty much no one else does.
There are different political factions (and in particular, nationalist factions) that heavily push their point of view and that will attempt to control articles that they care about. Look at the talk page or edit history of any article related to a contentious historical topic that pits different Eastern European countries against one another, and you'll see what I mean. There's even a long-standing fight over the nationality of Copernicus, a man who lived before the establishment of modern nation-states.
What is clear in the war over South Ossetia is that the Georgian president, Saakashvili, made a decision to retake the territory with a full-scale invasion. Up until that point, there was sporadic fighting over between Georgians and Ossetians, but the EU report on the conflict found that the Georgians were the first to launch a full ground invasion. Saakashvili had long made full reunification of all Georgian territories a major goal, and he had previously brought another region, Adjara, back under the control of the central government.
German industry is supplied by russian gas. Throwing away nuclear power and making oneself dependent on foreign energy suppliers lets them influence your decisions.
Come on, the whole Energiewende was full of wishful thinking. Nuclear power plants were going to be closed while there was no prospect on another energy source that could fill the gap. So gas was suddenly declared a 'sustainable' energy source, conveniently ignoring the CO2 emissions and the fact that gas is not renewable. And now Germany is reopening coal power plants. How sustainable is that?
Who said anything about democracies? Or that they are peaceful on the inside? They need to be stable and reliable trading partners and that usually works splendid when they get something out of it. In fact that works rather splendid for the countries that aren't on everyone's shit list. The really ugly truth is how much of the moral standards are conveniently forgotten when trading with authoritarian countries sporting despicable human rights records.
> Come on, the whole Energiewende was full of wishful thinking.
Such is the widely accepted view on the internet. And it is completely unimpeded by facts.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...
Trump famously pointed out the folly of this strategy to a chorus of arrogant snickering from the contingent of German bureaucrats. Not so funny now…
Have those people ever looked at how much wars cost? We are talking about creating cities from scratch to support the war effort amounts of cash. Hundreds of thousands of able bodied workers, stuck walking the countryside instead of working impact. We are talking about entire industries repurposed to produce war time supplies. Countries have been willing to fuck over their economies a lot harder to support their war machines than anything the EU could ever hope to do to the Russian economy.
In fact, If Germany diversified LNG supplies it would make war less likely because Russia would have less leverage. Every geopolitical commentator for a decade has pointed out that Russian gas supplies were a weapon that could be used to deter Europe.
People say this about shareholder owned companies with profit driven quarters but it's far more true for elected politicians who are judged myopically -- or, judged with superstition, as with nuclear energy in Germany -- on things like the current gas price. You see this manifest everywhere in politics. Why do you think federal debts are growing so much? Because voters create incentives for politicians to act myopically and kick the can down the road.
I also suspect part of it is deliberate malevolence. Stealing the upside for ourselves, while our children (federal debt) or foreigners (global warming) pay the downside.
Another part is that liberals have been sleepwalking. We bought into Fukuyama's End of History narrative. Fascism and war was a relic of the 20th century. In reality we were resting in the shade of America's unipolar hegemony. That's an American export that Europe had been free riding off. If America's relative standing weakens further, expect more conflict.
Furthermore Russian gas was cheap which made the development of alternatives a rather unpopular proposition. Try to explain to the people and the industry that gas will be more expensive because Russia might pose a problem and alternative sources need to be put in place. In hindsight it was stupid to not address the dependence on Russian energy but that is precisely the clarity hindsight provides. While the actions leading up to the current situations were taken, it wasn't all that clear that the problem could become very real.
We could all have continued living in an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity in Europe, but instead Putin choose a course of action in which everyone is losing big time. What a colossal waste.
The entire idea of an advanced or post-industrial economy is largely a facade. Absolutely everything we ultimately consume and use is dependent upon the most basic of skills, labor, and resources - the sort that 'advanced' economies strive to outsource as much as possible to 'developing' economies. But of course this doesn't change the fact that said skills/labor/resources are still the true backbone of your economy. Instead you've simply inverted a power relationship and become completely dependent upon those nations with said 'developing' economies.
Similarly, look at the state of the Bundeswehr. All it can muster in terms of SPHs delivered to Ukraine is about 20 PzH2000. Great equipment, but just 20 pieces is very little. Again, if only someone (many someones) pointed out the insufficient spending on military...
On top of all of that Scholz is now suggesting that Germany should have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Like, lol. The SPD should really rebrand to Security Policy Disaster, though it's not just a single party problem.
In hindsight he was right, but by accident.
Never commit two crimes at the same time.
Mexico alone provides more crude oil to the US than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, it is 2022, not 2001.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
Neither of those countries pose an existential threat to the North American equivalent of Northern & Eastern Europe (who may take issue with a lack of enthusiasm in weakening Russia) either.
Of course this is not taking your words in good faith, but it's also not straw manning you.