Thread by @andersostlund

What's holding Germany back from cutting its ties to Russia? My speculation is that there are currently four old men who are playing key parts in German Russia policy. Gerhard Schröder, Frank Walter Steinmeier, Sigmar Gabriel and Olaf Scholz.

What we do know is that all four has worked with each other and we also know that all four has been involved in Germany's strategic partnership with Russia.

My belief is that the older generation of German politicians fear war with Russia above almost everything else, and they have also been interested in the supposed riches of Russia, oil and gas being a prime example.

Their personal motivations for the enormous efforts to create a strong bond can have been personal enrichment, a true belief in the idea, increased personal power or to earn a place in history.

The practicalities of the policy was to export German industrial goods and know how in return for Russian energy and peace. There has been an obvious obsession to avoid any confrontation with Russia as part of the policy. No matter what they called for diplomacy and dialogue.

So far it all looks nice and logical. The peace loving men had set out on a peace creating mission with obvious benefits for both parties. Succeeding with it would be a great accomplishment. But there were some obstacles.

The chief obstacle to the great peace project has been that Russia has kept invading its neighbors while at the same time killing off and locking up high members of the opposition.

My view is that while the Germans, at least some, had genuine ideals about peace Russia saw the strategic partnership as an opportunity to regain influence, by force if needed, in what it saw as its sphere of influence.

Enter the big challenge for Germany's strategic partnership with Russia: Democracy and independence of former USSR republics, most notably Ukraine but also Georgia and Moldova.

How do you maintain a strategic partnership aimed at peace and prosperity with a state that is invading and occupying its neighbors? One cannot call oneself a peace lover when doing business with an aggressor, can one?

What they did to solve the conflict of interest, as I see it, was a combination of denial and fake. First deny there is aggression and then fake a solution if a denial is impossible.

It's at this time Schröder's, Steinmeier's, Gabriel's and now Scholz' peace project becomes an ugly and immoral one. They start stepping over corpses to be able to continue their great strategic partnership with Russia.

But before we go into the bigger immoralities, some would call it crimes, we need to repeat a fact that was known even before the cooperation with Putin's regime started. Putin started erasing Grozny in the same way he is now erasing Mariupol even before he became president.

Putin was already known to be a butcher and war criminal when he was given the honor of addressing the Bundestag in 2001. Nobody can deny they knew what man they were dealing with.
eurozine.com/german-ostpoli…

Another event that is important to mention is that when many claimed Gerhard Schröder's work in the Russian energy sector was only about business it was of course obvious it was political for the Russians. What knowledge did Schröder have about energy that was useful for Russia?

I do not bring Angela Merkel into the discussion here. Obviously she has a lot of culpability, if not the most, for the disastrous Russia policy but she is not a member of the network of the four I look at here.

So, back to the challenge of running a peace project with a state that attacks its neighbors and assassinate its opposition. How do you go about it? Where is the culpability for wars among those who do engage with Russia?

The obvious moral dilemma is to claim you work for peace while tolerating or even enabling wars - and that's exactly what Schröder, Steinmeier, Gabriel and, maybe, Scholz have been doing.

Persons who repeat the "never again" mantra and claim peace as the highest of values should obviously act in the interest of peace and safety. But these men didn't. They looked the other way when Russia attacked or they tried to do as little as possible when they did act.

Steinmeier opposed sanctions against Russia when it attacked Georgia, he wanted to go back to business as usual as soon as possible. A little war should not get in the way of a peace project.

But more troubling than Georgia was, and is, Ukraine. A Russia without Ukraine is no empire and for Putin it has been a personal goal to make Ukraine a subject of Moscow ever since he took power in Russia.

For the four Germans Ukraine thus became an obstacle to their peace project. Because as long as Ukraine opposed Russian dominance there would be a violent conflict and that would look bad for their great peace project. How do solve the problem?

There were, and are, two obvious ways to solve Russia's obsession with Ukraine. The first is to confront Russia until it backs off from an independent and democratic Ukraine to achieve peace and stop the killings. This would mean an end to the German - Russian partnership.

The second option is to appease Russia, try to find a compromise - obviously at Ukraine's expense, continue business as usual with Russia while at the same time trying to maintain an image of active engagement and diplomacy with Russia to end the hostilities.

This is where it's starting to get really ugly. Because if one party is obsessed with a strategic partnership and the other party is obsessed with conquering a neighbor the easiest solution to the problem would be if there was no longer a neighbor that got in the way.

In my view the German SPD-politicians and Russia had a common interest in getting rid of the "Ukraine problem". For the Germans it was all about the partnership with Russia, for Russia it was all about conquering Ukraine.

Seen from this light Ukraine became a problem both for the German leaders and Russia. The solution was obvious, let Ukraine belong to the Russians and continue with the partnership.

Germany's hard resistance to Ukraine's NATO aspirations in 2008 is part of this logic. Agreeing to Ukraine in NATO would be an obstacle to the partnership with Russia.

But there was one even more annoying and troubling factor for the German - Russian partnership. There were these troublemakers who didn't want to belong to the new Russian Empire - the Ukrainians.

Time and time again the obnoxious Ukrainians have objected to Russian dominance, and what's even worse is that they have been successful in doing so. How can one run a partnership with Russia if Russia is fighting a war against an independent European state?

The German solution to the war in Ukraine from 2014 has been diplomacy with the intention of keeping the strategic partnership with Russia intact. Fake an interest in Ukrainian independence while at the same time refusing to confront Russia in any meaningful way.

By keeping endless, and useless, diplomatic processes alive Germany has been able to pretend it's doing something while, obvious to anybody with open eyes, nothing would ever be achieved.

Diplomacy and dialogue are two beautiful words that appeals to our interest in peaceful resolutions but when abused for the sake of not confronting evil or stopping a war those two words become very ugly.

In my opinion that is exactly what has been going on for most of the twenty years Schröder, Steinmeier, Gabriel and Scholz have had influence. They have obstructed peace and they have enabled Russia's wars.

When looking at what politicians say one should not only pay attention to what might look like a nice intention, like diplomacy or dialogue, but also in whose interest the politicians act.

Was dialogue and diplomacy ever going to get Russia to back off from Ukraine? Did the Minsk agreements in any way limit Russia's powers over Ukraine? In whose interest is it not to deliver weapons to Ukraine now?

There are many sources for my reasoning above, anybody interested can easily find them through a search engine. For a deeper analysis of the challenge I recommend this book, that pretty much support my arguments above.
amazon.com/Germanys-Russi…

What I would like to see is a more detailed scrutiny of Schröder, Steinmeier, Gabriel and Scholz. I think investigations could be a treasure trove for journalists.

What is the true nature of their relationships with the Russians? What influence do they continue to have on each other? Is Scholz influenced by the older men? Do they have influence on other German politicians? What have they said about Ukraine in private?

There must be people around who can shed light on what has been really going on over the last 20 years. I hope somebody will start digging into it. There are many hidden secrets to be uncovered, that I am sure of.

Finally I should add that the German people doesn't share the line taken by the old SPD guard. The German people support harsher measures against Russia, both regarding weapons and an oil and gas boycott.

https://twitter.com/n_roettgen/status/1512302278736236546