Bloomberg is reporting that the costs of an energy blockage of Russia would be $ 240 bn. So what? Germany is in this position because of German policy, and they owe Ukraine and Europe now to put this right. A few points here on why I think Germany has a responsibility to pay this price.
- They are significantly responsible for what is now going on in Ukraine by constantly appeasing Putin over the past 20 years – NS2, numerous German ex politicians appearing on boards of Russian state owned companies, a failure to supply Ukraine with arms, and becoming overly dependent on cheap Russian energy because of greed. Germany faces this energy dilemma now because of their own policy mistakes made in the past. They are responsible. And there was plenty of evidence that Russia was a bad actor – Georgia, Crimea, Donbas 15’, Skrypal, Litvinenko, Navalny, Syria, Libya, et al, et al. Did they really have such a myopic view. Did the $$ of cheap Russian gas blind them.
- European defence costs money, their failures in the past means that they have to step up and stop Putin. Russia is now a threat to the very security of Europe. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, the rest of Europe will be unsafe.
- They can afford it – Germany still has huge fiscal buffers and can live with this difficult economic adjustment.
- They have a moral responsibility to stop a second genocide in Europe, because they were responsible for the biggest genocide in Europe, in WW2, and they paid no reparations back then. Their tab now needs clearing.
- The importance of energy payments from Europe, and Germany in particular, to Russia, means that it has leverage. A German energy blockade would deal a really crippling blow to Russia. It is in Germany’s grasp here to stop this conflict by stopping energy payments to Russia.
Timothy Ash at substack.com https://substack.com/profile/58207900-timothy-ash
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
