ENRICHING, EMPOWERING, AND EMBOLDENING PUTIN: How The Greens Brought War to Ukraine.
It’s hard to keep from laughing at the leaders who created this mess to curry favor, votes and money from the Greens. Take, for example, German chancellor Olaf Scholz whose contribution to the fight was halting the certification of the Nord Stream 2 Baltic gas pipeline. I’d put my money on the halt being temporary. Germany already gets half its gas from Russia. Germans are facing record energy prices and the government is tapping its treasury to ease consumer pressure.
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president could not restrain himself. “Welcome to the new world where Europeans will soon have to pay 2,000 euros per thousand cubic meters.” Were I a friend of Chancellor Scholz I’d whisper in his ear a suggestion from Andrew A Michta, that the best way to show Putin you mean business is not to make an unlikely threat but rather to halt the plan to shut down its three remaining nuclear reactors in Emsland, Isar and Neckarwestheim that the post-Merkel Germans have foolishly scheduled to shut down this year. Much of the same advice should be given to the Biden administration—undo the restrictions you are forcing on conventional energy production if you want to show you are serious.
Of course, no one would consider this administration serious.
The West lacks serious leaders. And that carries costs.