• hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Translated article via Firefox Translate

    The Russian aggression in Ukraine will change the balance of power in Europe for a long time. And not only when Putin had to win and dictate his conditions to the continent. The conflict is already dividing the states into winners and losers.

    The losers are clearly Germany. A few years ago, it was still the leading power in the EU, and his chancellor was named the most powerful woman in the world ten times in a row by the magazine “Forbes”. Who would think of classify Olaf Scholz among the most powerful men in the world today?

    Germany is now having to go to wrong decisions in the past – especially in security policy. A good example of this is the medium-range weapons. These projectiles with a range of 500 to 5000 kilometres and the ability to fight enemy targets far behind the front are a central element of modern warfare.

    So Russian jets snatched off glide bombs at a distance from the target. These are destroying Ukrainian positions and infrastructure such as power stations and hospitals. It is hardly possible to defend against it. It is therefore all the more important that Ukrainians can use wide ranged missiles to attack military airfields and radar positions deep in the Russian heartland.

    The fact that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had to ask the USA to deploy medium-range weapons in Germany is the admission of a failure of his predecessor.

    At least nuclear missiles have nuclear missiles in order to deter Russia. Germany is defenceless. A decade ago, Moscow had already deployed medium-range weapons in the Kaliningrad region, with which it targets the Baltic Sea region and also the Federal Republic of Germany.

    The Merkel government did not respond to the threat. She only criticized President Trump’s decision to terminate the INF Treaty, which banned medium-range missiles in Europe. The agreement had failed to be renewed by Moscow’s rearmament.

    The attack on Ukraine made it clear what a danger this means for Western Europe. Putin not only deploys such weapons, but he also uses them. In the east, the fifth column of Moscow is strong

    Germany is now even more dependent on American protection. It has a high price at a time when Donald Trump may return to the White House. The scenario suggests that a President Trump demands that Berlin has to spend more than two percent of its economic power on defense in exchange for deployment.

    It currently officially means that the American missiles and cruise missiles were to be stationed until Germany has developed comparable weapons. Trump, the blackmailer-in-chief, could make the schedule obsolete.

    Or Trump demands that Berlin takes over its policy of China with its sanctions and tariffs without compromise in return for expanded military protection. This would be a disaster for the German export industry.

    The lamentation over the Republican is hypocritical, because Germany has not used the gallows deadline since it took office in 2016 to reduce dependence on America. Instead, Berlin became more blackmailed. None of the major countries in Europe is as vulnerable as Germany. Is it become a pawn for Trump – and Putin’s? The power play of the big powers is increasing, and Germany is very poorly equipped for it.

    Security is not only defined by military life. Polarization is therefore considered a veritable security risk in the USA. The Federal Republic of Germany is no less polarized, although in any way other than America. No other European country is divided into two regions as sharply defined as Germany with its eastern and western parts.

    Culturally and politically, the parts of the country are taking different paths. The war deepens the grave, since East German and West Germans judge Russia and NATO completely differently. Moscow exploited the split with its propaganda – with the assistance of AfD and Sahra Wagenknecht. The two parties are the fifth column of Putin.

    During the Cold War, the GDR financed the Communist Splitter party, parts of the peace movement and several publishing houses. But that remained a marginal pheno. The accomplices of East Berlin and Moscow did not achieve a broad impact, although even Western quality media did not shy away from printing out information provided by the Stasi.

    In the east, AfD and Wagenknecht achieve up to 50 percent of the votes in the east. Today the fifth column is more powerful than ever. Nato and the EU would do well to include these balances of power in assessing German reliability.

    A country’s geopolitical resilience depends largely on its energy supply. The traffic light coalition mastered the acute emergency situation after the outbreak of war, when it quickly found alternatives to Russian gas.

    At the same time, the government has increased vulnerability by shutting down the last three nuclear power plants. The ideological character of energy policy is another security risk. When Schäuble could still threaten to throw Greece out of the euro zone

    The ideology also includes the rapid phase-out of combustion technology. The announcement by the automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen suggests that a maximum of one quarter of the jobs in Germany be mined, up to 14,000 jobs.

    If the EU bans diesel and petrol engines in new vehicles from 2035 onwards, the country’s most important industry loses its greatest competitive advantage. Advantage through technology. In the post-fossil age, this no longer applies to Germany.

    The green dream of a radical CO 2 -free future endangers prosperity. The effects are not only felt in the wallet, and this is especially true in times of war. In lack of functioning armed forces, economic power is the most effective weapon in Germany. Berlin achieves its outsight-policy goals with money where others rely on the military. Checkbook diplomacy was what was formerly known.

    During the Euro crisis, Germany was at its zenith of its power. Never since 1945 has Europe been more dependent on the decisions taken in Berlin as in the years in which the Federal Government and the ECB guaranteed the continued existence of the euro.

    The interest rate of the Bunds was then the measure of all things, and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble blatantly threatened Greece to pull the plug.

    Today, Germany is militarily weak, polarized between East and West and is economically vulnerable to how long not. Although it is still the largest net contributor in the EU in absolute terms; nor does the US spend so much money on supporting Ukraine. But at the same time, foreign countries see how Berlin’s position is eroding.

    In the new Europe since February 2022, Eastern Europeans and especially Poland have claimed more say. The British Brexiteers are once again becoming more important as a reliable support in NATO. And the Franco-German engine has lost its swing.

    The Maastricht criteria, once the pride of Bonn’s finance ministers, are weakened because of recognition. This is how Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni affords itself to be fresh. No chancellor could bully them out of office, as Silvio Berlusconi happened, when Merkel helped much to overthrow in the euro crisis.

    Berlin can still prevail in the EU. But the country is too preoccupied with itself for it to develop penetrate power in Brussels.

    Germany is not the sick man of Europe, because the rest of the continent is not better off. But German power is decreasing. Or as Wolfgang Schäuble would say: “Isch over.”

    “Isch Over”

    joever