German Chancellor Olaf Scholz continues to bewilder his western allies. While most European states alongside the U.S. are sending heavy weapons to embattled Ukraine, Berlin is carrying out a policy that some observers describe as “a pyramid scheme, too clever by half.”
Pillared by lies, manipulation, hesitance, the “very concerned face” expression, and self-interest, this “pyramid scheme” entails Scholz first promising to deliver weapons to Ukraine and then removing all the key heavy armour from the list and then making claims that an embargo on Russian gas would not help stop the war.
Meanwhile, the “too clever by half” part refers to Scholz’s belief that because his elaborate scheme involves an offer to former Soviet satellite states to send Soviet-era T-72 tanks, nobody would see through his endavors not to do anything and let Germany focus on what really matters: tallying the Eurocents saved on cheap gas supplies at the expense of others in peace.
Scholz’s attempt to refute the critique by playing the “World War III prevention” card would be impressive and appropriate were it not for the fact that it is difficult to prevent something that is already happening as Ukraine’s western allies are no bystanders in this war, meaning that you either send heavy equipment now to Ukraine for it to defeat or weaken Russia.
Or you just wait and send it later anyway.
While Scholz is likely capable of forging such a simple logical chain, there are grounds to suspect that he is not doing what is necessary for much more down-to-earth reasons than his concern about world peace.
In recent days, multiple sources have suggested that President Vladimir Putin may know a thing or two about Scholz, which he uses to blackmail him.
Yes, the good, old kompromat rumors are back, and, judging by Scholz’s career, it may contain peculiar episodes in it.
As a former member of the Freudenberger Kreis, the Marxist wing of the Juso university groups, in the 1970s-1980s he promoted “overcoming the capitalist economy” and “aggressive-imperialist NATO”.
Although in a 2007 interview with Der Spiegel, he, while commenting on his past, said that “the good thing is that I made almost all the mistakes once. I have them behind me”, he did not clarify what he regards those mistakes to be.
Yet, since he has been implicated in two major financial scandals as Mayor of Hamburg and Germany’s Minister of Finance, – M. M. Warburg & Co. and the Wirecard tax evasion and fraud case – it seems that one of those mistakes includes the realization that there is no need to overcome the capitalist economy if you learn how to exploit it.
While German media did not follow up on the scandals and Scholz’s role in them after the 2021 general election, some observers like Eurointelligence, headed by acclaimed journalist Wolfgang Münchau, have underscored that “we would not be surprised if Putin had more information on Scholz than the media through his many friends in the SPD and German industry.”
Other commentators like Thomas C. Theiner, a former member of the Italian Army and expert on NATO Cold War land forces and NATO Cold War defense strategy, hold a similar view, suggesting that because of the Chancellor’s continuous maneuvers, there is reason to believe that he is on Putin’s payroll – a speculative statement that, however, seems not too farfetched in a country where regional state leaders promote Gazprom’s interests, former Stasi members are represented in parties like Die Linke, and presidents befriend Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Even more so since Germany is refusing to break its energy ties with Russia even though it could afford to do so. Possibly, because it might still be hoping to launch Putin’s pet project, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and are therefore hesitating to install LNG terminals at its entry, claiming that the water is “too shallow” there. Given that the water features in Poland’s port city of Świnoujście, which has LNG terminals, are identical, it is quite clear that it’s not just water that is shallow in Germany.
However, Scholz’s cleverly mastered, at least in his opinion, approach of not doing anything meaningful in the Russia-Ukraine war but pretending might soon come to an end.
The SPD’s coalition partners, the FDP and the Greens, are expressing growing discontent with his maneuvers, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock recently calling on the West, including Scholz, to send heavy weapons to Ukraine as fast as possible, saying that ‘now is not the time for excuses.’
The SPD’s archrival, the Christian Democratic Union, headed by Friedrich Merz, who supports sending heavy weaponry to Ukraine, is already gearing up for a response. German media has already reported that the opposition might start the no-confidence procedure as early as next week, according to Der Spiegel, thereby forcing Scholz to step down.
If Merz succeeds in dissolving the current coalition, it would no longer matter if, and what kind, of kompromat Russia may have on Scholz: tax evasion or his browser history.
