“NEVER UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: America’s Acceptance Of Nord Stream 2 Will Redefine Europe.
In practical terms, the U.S.-German summit decision on Nord Stream 2 means that Washington will not sanction the $11 billion pipeline project, allowing it to be completed, despite staunch opposition to it from a number of NATO allies, especially those that were former Soviet colonies now facing a revisionist Russian state. It affirms in no uncertain terms that the Biden administration sees Germany as the unequivocal leader of the European Union and Europe more broadly, and that it counts on Berlin’s help with shaping a larger European consensus on China. (That assumption is not likely to come true, considering that the PRC is now Germany’s largest trading partner and that Germany’s business community remains determined to stay fully engaged in the Asian market.) And most importantly, the decision will have a wide-ranging impact on internal alignments within Europe, for Nord Stream 2, notwithstanding Berlin’s insistence from its inception that it was strictly an “economic project,” has always carried with it transformative geostrategic implications.
The project’s completion will further strengthen Berlin’s position as the dominant player in Europe (especially because since Brexit, Europe’s second-largest economy is no longer part of the EU.) Germany will become the principal distribution center for Russian gas across Europe, at a time when the EU’s push for “green energy” will eventually force the closure of coal-fired power plants in Central Europe, increasing those countries’ dependence on German (Russian) gas and, hence, indirectly, Russia.
Biden sold out our friends in “New Europe” to a Russo-German economic hegemony.