Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: Where is Germany?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    10-22-01
    Location
    All Over
    Posts
    38,201

    Where is Germany?

    They seem to be among the missing:

    Russia has massed about 125,000 troops on its border with Ukraine, threatening an invasion that would be the most substantial ground war in Europe since the end of World War II. To prevent that, President Biden, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and several other leaders are trying to present a unified front and tell Russia that it would suffer severe economic consequences. But one crucial country is missing from that united front: Germany.
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .

    Denmark is sending fighter jets to Lithuania and a frigate to the Baltic Sea. France has offered to send troops to Romania. Spain is sending a frigate to the Black Sea. President Biden has put thousands of U.S. troops on “high alert.”

    And then there is Germany. In recent days Germany — Europe’s largest and richest democracy, strategically situated at the crossroads between East and West — has stood out more for what it will not do than for what it is doing.

    Germany’s government, under its new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has ruled out any arms exports to Ukraine. It is also delaying a shipment of howitzers from Estonia to Ukraine. It may have kept British planes from using German airspace when sending military supplies to Ukraine last week.

    Most significantly, the Scholz government has been vague about whether a Russian invasion would lead to the shutdown of an undersea gas pipeline between Germany and Russia. The pipeline, the Nord Stream 2, will become a major source of energy for Germany and a major source of revenue for Russia once it begins operating, likely in the next year. Scholz recently described Nord Stream 2 as a “private-sector project.”
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  2. #2
    Join Date
    10-14-01
    Location
    TEXAS!
    Posts
    14,571
    Germany wants to keep the fuel coming in. Expect no help from them.
    The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible - Arthur C. Clarke

  3. #3
    Join Date
    10-22-01
    Location
    All Over
    Posts
    38,201
    Clearly
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  4. #4
    Join Date
    04-29-17
    Posts
    7,516
    I forgot. Who gave the pass to start the flow from Russia to Germany?
    OPINION....a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    10-22-01
    Location
    All Over
    Posts
    38,201
    Germany has been buying gas from Russia for many years. It has been transported via a pipeline which runs through Ukraine---for which the Ukraine receives a "toll".

    The new line avoids that by going under the Baltic Sea. It is not yet complete. Much of the credit for supporting this project is accredited to trump---but the blame is not all his:

    The pipeline’s history highlights the long-term consequences of Trump’s hostility to Europe. For years, many U.S. officials opposed Nord Stream 2, understanding that it would solidify ties between Germany and Russia. It is also likely to damage Ukraine’s economy; much of Russia’s natural gas has flowed through Ukraine, which receives fees in exchange.

    But Trump showed little interest in building a good relationship with Germany as a way to persuade it to abandon the pipeline. He instead criticized America’s longtime allies in Europe — and treated Russian President Vladimir Putin warmly.

    Trump’s hostility to Western Europe, in turn, encouraged Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor at the time, to ponder a future in which the U.S. might be pulling back from NATO. In that scenario, friendly relations with Russia (and China, too) would have advantages, especially because of its importance to European energy supplies.

    “By the time Biden took office, the pipeline was nearly complete,” said my colleague Michael Crowley, who covered Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Germany last week. “Biden calculated that restoring relations with Berlin after the Trump era was far too important to risk with a last-ditch and potentially futile effort to stop the project.”

    Instead, Biden waived sanctions — which Congress established starting in 2017 — on companies that worked on the pipeline. It was too late to prevent completion, he decided.

    Trump’s European policy is hardly the only reason that the pipeline exists. Discussions about it began before he was president, reflecting decades of close ties between Germany and Russia, as Katrin notes. But Trump’s foreign policy diminished American influence in Europe — and, if anything, sent signals that the U.S. favored closer ties between Russia and Western Europe.
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  6. #6
    Join Date
    04-29-17
    Posts
    7,516
    Biased info.
    OPINION....a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    10-22-01
    Location
    All Over
    Posts
    38,201
    Then why did you ask the question?
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
    "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
    “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis

  8. #8
    Join Date
    04-29-17
    Posts
    7,516
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Grubb View Post
    Then why did you ask the question?
    It was obviously purely rhetorical.
    OPINION....a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •