Why we should be skeptical of Germany and their role going forward

[Dill]

(07-10-2017, 11:30 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: http://www.theconservative.online/article/Berlin_ueber_alles

Likewise on foreign relations: Germany’s ostpolitik served as a chilling dance on the knife-edge for the transatlantic alliance, and the early Merkel governments were some of the most open embracers of President Putin and his Russia. The ostensible opposition to Putin over Ukraine is overshadowed by Germany’s crushing dependence on Russian gas to keep its citizens from freezing in winter – again, because Merkel’s hypocritical embrace of denuclearizing their energy supply. Russia is not the USSR; the US under Trump is more impatient and isolationist, looking to its own greatness, and yet Germany is acting much more shrewdly in embracing the west’s old nemesis – not that you’d know that by listening to Merkel’s criticisms of the White House.

Lucie, do you know who Ted Malloch is?  Who could be the intended audience of this article?

This article offers one sweeping, impressionistic claim after another. In one paragraph, claims tumble one after another without developing a main idea.

 Look at the paragraph above. Why in the world is Germany's Ostpolitik a "chilling knife-edge dance"--other than because Malloch says so. Malloch's argument just rests on labeling via adjectives. Why is opposition to Putin's aggression in the Ukraine "ostensible"? Just because Germany is dependent upon Russian gas doesn't make Germany's opposition insincere.  Why is Merkel "hypocritical" because opposition to nuclear power in her country dictates her policies? Germany is a democracy, after all.  And who still thinks Russia is?

So why claim "Russia is not the USSR" as if the currently authoritarian and aggressive Russia were just another Western democracy? If you just landed on earth from another planet and read this essay you might think Germany, not Russia, had occupied the Crimea and supported an insurgency in the Ukraine, while helping a bloody dictator in Syria suppress his own people and attacking the US elections.

The isolationist US is "looking to its own greatness"... what does this vague phrase mean??? Germany is "embracing the west's old nemesis"? In what sense" How? Where?  Nevermind, on to complaints about Germany's NATO contributions? These soldiers certainly made their 2% contribution.





And the Russians may also be making a contribution to the Afghan conflict--to the other side.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/28/politics/russia-afghanistan-libya-syria/index.html