BBC News | Angela Merkel defends ties with Russia and blocking Ukraine from NATO

8 comments

1. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel is releasing a memoir. She did an interview with the BBC to promote the book.

   In the interview, she said the gas deals she made with Russia were meant to support the German economy and reduce tensions with Moscow. She also said the reason she blocked Ukraine’s entry to NATO in 2008 is because she wanted to prevent an earlier, even potentially worse war.

   She also gave advice to European leaders worried about a 2nd Trump term. She said “It’s really important to know what your priorities are, to present them clearly and not to be scared, because Donald Trump can be very outspoken. He expresses himself very clearly. And if you do that, there is a certain mutual respect. That was my experience anyway.”

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3. Merlkel ended up a disaster. She had no vision

4. Merkel’s foreign policy was disastrous, and her domestic policy, given Germany’s recent deindustrialization, probably wasn’t that good either (I don’t know the details of that, though).

5. She is just another soulless do-nothing type of German chancellor. It seems like WWII + fall of Berlin wall completely turned Germany into a docile soft-power under the safety umbrella of the US.

6. She’ll go down with Ramsay Macdonald and Chamberlain as appeasers to a brutal tyrant.

7. Merkel won’t say the quiet part out loud

   Ukraine was not allowed to join NATO as there are still serious concerns about its corrupt governance.

   However, calling them a corrupt country derails all the funding we (western nations ) give to Ukraine to fight this war. The optics politically are horrendous if you claim Ukraine is corrupt while sending them billions of dollars.

   Look at Ukraines corruption index. It’s below countries like India which is saying something.

   Also why would western Europe even let Ukraine join NATO pre 2014? Ukraines leadership was pro-russian in nature….

   Imo, people here engage in pro-Ukraine virtuous retrospection. They pretend like Ukraine was some utopian massive asset to the western world and should be given every dollar possible by western partners. The truth is far less appealing.

8. Germany is dependant on cheap imports therefore > russias gas is cheaper then american gas > therefore buy russian gas

   Thats it

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