Ukraine ping
Like Moscow Joe, Olaf Scholz has talked a good game about helping Ukraine while getting things done in slow motion. Has he been paid off by Putin, or is he looking for the same deal predecessor SPD chief, Nord Stream advocate and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder received from the Putin, once he left office?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relationship_with_Russian_companies
Dear Germany...Time to approve Nord Stream 2
Maybe he doesn’t want his economy to shut down.
I guess the simplest explanation is the most probable one. Scholz is unwilling to accept the economic and perhaps political damage from a gas cutoff. Germany believes that being too helpful to Ukraine might lead Putin to cut the gas and hopes that aid from others will be enough to blead the Russian army into impotence.
If Putin stops or is stopped to the east of NATOs border then Germany can eventually return to trading fairly freely with Russia and come out of this as just a slightly more rearmed and less pacifistic version of its pre Ukrainian war self.
Personally I think this is a foolish fantasy. Putin intended to take all of Ukraine, some of Moldova, all of the 3 Baltic states and perhaps half of Poland. After every successful slice (if any) he will reevaluate the West’s political leadership and decide if he can continue.
Putin’s disastrous miscalculations may have been enough to force him to stop with a piece of Ukraine, but the consequences of his continuing are so monumental that the damage to Germany’s economy from a natural gas cutoff pale by comparison.
Thanks Zhang Fei.