Germany is a bad ally
Biden and Blinken may associate acquiescence to Berlin with sophisticated diplomacy and may assume that Germany stands for the same values as the United States, but this would be a mistake. Simply put, Germany is neither a good ally nor does its leadership share the same liberal, democratic worldview as the United States.
When Russia’s Gazprom and European partners announced plans to expand pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe, eight European Union members and the Obama administration raised objections. Not only would Nord Stream 2 make Europe more dependent on Russian gas but, by rendering the existing pipeline across Ukraine redundant, the deal would also enable Russia to stop paying its southern neighbor transit fees and further exacerbate Kiev’s financial crisis. The German government, however, stood defiant. “Some things the Europeans need to decide for themselves,” Peter Wittig, the German ambassador to the United States, declared, suggesting that Germany was synonymous with Europe.
The Trump administration took a hardline to Germany’s embrace of the pipeline. “We want Europe to have real, secure, stable, safe energy resources that cannot be turned off in the event Russia wants to,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained and later imposed sanctions on the operation to discourage both the financial benefit Russia would accrue and Germany’s willingness to trade European security for slightly cheaper gas. Germany, of course, protested furiously.
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Πηγή: aei.org
