Theres

 

some hard facts if you want 'em.

Germany’s strategic timidity

"Indeed, in Germany, a soldier isn’t a soldier but a “citizen in uniform.” It’s an apposite euphemism for a populace that has lived comfortably under the U.S. security umbrella for more than seven decades and goes a long way toward explaining how Germany became NATO’s problem child since the war in Ukraine began, delaying and frustrating the Western effort to get Ukraine the weaponry it needs to defend itself against an unprovoked Russian onslaught.'

"Germany’s allies, including Washington, often ascribe German recalcitrance to a knee-jerk pacifism born of the lessons learned from its “dark past.”

"In other words, the German strategy — do nothing, blame the Nazis — is working."

(Worked for Japan for a good while too, blaming their past, but they've see the headwinds blowing and have changed their constitution to upgrade their defense etc...)

"Of course, Germany’s conscience doesn’t really drive its foreign policy, its corporations do."

(Who drives ours do you think? I'll give ya hint and its from like 100 years ago or so, 80 at least...

Smedley Butler

Anyway lol back to the article...)

"While it hangs back from supporting Ukraine in a fight to defend its democracy from invasion by a tyrant, it has no qualms about selling to authoritarian regimes, like those in the Middle East, where it does brisk business selling weapons to countries such as Egypt and Qatar."

(Thats our allies for ya, remember when you thought the house of Saud was out ally too?)

"Despite everything that’s happened over the past year, Berlin is still holding out hope that Ukraine can somehow patch things up with Russia so that Germany can resume business as usual and switch the gas back on. Even if Germany ends up sending tanks to Ukraine — as many now anticipate — it will deliver as few as it can get away with and only after exhausting every possible option to delay.  

(That is 100% on the money.

Thats exactly whats going to happen and indeed has been happening)

"Much attention in recent years has focused on Nord Stream 2, the ill-fated Russo-German natural gas project. Yet tensions between the U.S. and Germany over the latter’s entanglement with Russian energy interests date back to the late 1950s, when it first began supplying the Soviet Union with large-diameter piping.'

"Throughout the Cold War, Germany’s involvement with NATO was driven by a strategy to take advantage of the protection the alliance afforded, delivering no more than the absolute minimum, while also expanding commercial relations with the Soviets."

(And people like my dad, me and others were like what are they doing to themselves? Dont they know where that ends? And now here we are.)

"In 1955, the weekly Die Zeit described what it called the “fireside fantasy of West German industry” to normalize trade relations with the Soviet Union. Within years, that dream became a reality, driven in large measure by Chancellor Willy Brandt’s détente policies, known as Ostpolitik."

(Trade relations...commercial relations...

"...the love of money is a root of all evil..."

1 Timothy 6:10)

"By the time the Berlin Wall fell a couple of years later, West German exports to the Soviet Union had reached nearly 12 billion deutsche mark, a record.

That’s why Germany’s handling of Ukraine isn’t a departure from the norm; it is the norm."

(Amen)

"Germany’s dithering over aid to Ukraine is a logical extension of a strategy that has served its economy well from the Cold War to the decision to block Ukraine’s NATO accession in 2008 to Nord Stream."

"Just last week, as the Russians were raining terror on Dnipro, the minister president of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, called for the repair of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was blown up by unknown saboteurs last year, so that Germany “keeps the option” to purchase Russian gas after war ends."

"One can’t blame him for trying. If one accepts that German policy is driven by economic logic rather than moral imperative, the fickleness of its political leaders makes complete sense — all the more so considering how well it has worked."

'Biden’s decision to court the Germans instead of castigating them for failing to meet their commitments taught Berlin that it merely needs to wait out crises in the transatlantic relationship and the problems will fix themselves.'

By virtue of its size and geographical position at the center of Europe, Germany will always be important for the U.S., if not as a true ally, at least as an erstwhile partner and staging ground for the American military.

'Who cares that the Bundeswehr has become a punchline or that Germany remains years away from meeting its NATO spending targets?

In Washington’s view, Germany might be a bad ally, but at least it’s America’s bad ally.

And no one understands the benefits of that status better than the Germans themselves."

(Truth)