r/neoliberal • u/Flamsteris YIMBY • Dec 07 '24
Merkel-worship was liberalism at its worst Opinion article (non-US)
https://www.ft.com/content/ee6ec516-22c0-48b1-9346-5268a38234ab549
u/MuldartheGreat Karl Popper Dec 07 '24
I hate having to agree with Trump on anything, but Europe’s lack of spending on defense - led by Merkel - was a clear disaster in the making.
And the German energy policy felt like a country accepting defeat was inevitable.
Scholz is somehow maybe even worse.
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u/socialistrob Janet Yellen Dec 07 '24
I hate having to agree with Trump on anything, but Europe’s lack of spending on defense
This wasn't just a Trump thing. George W Bush wanted Europe to spend more on defense, Obama wanted Europe to spend more on defense and Biden wanted Europe to spend more on defense. "Europe should fund their defense more" has been the basic American view for decades.
Merkel was a disaster but I do think that Scholz has been a dramatic improvement. Since the invasion of Ukraine Germany has ramped up defense spending and is now contributing 2% of their GDP towards defense. They've committed roughly the same percentage of GDP to Ukraine aid as the US has (US 0.40% and Germany 0.39%) and they've cancelled Nord Stream 2. This is a massive policy reversal from Merkel and while there is still plenty of room to critique Germany (Taurus missiles, inefficiencies in their military spending, moving slower than other European countries) I do think they should get credit for the sea change and the aid they have provided.
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u/God_Given_Talent NATO Dec 08 '24
This wasn't just a Trump thing. George W Bush wanted Europe to spend more on defense, Obama wanted Europe to spend more on defense and Biden wanted Europe to spend more on defense. "Europe should fund their defense more" has been the basic American view for decades.
Literally since Eisenhower.
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u/ukrokit2 Dec 07 '24
Trump was right about Obama too. Drawing red lines in Syria and not following through had disastrous consequences. Also Crimea.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Dec 07 '24
And the German energy policy felt like a country accepting defeat was inevitable.
what do you mean by that? I thought it was instead seen as a way to help develop Putin's Russia and turn it good, much like the US did with China until Obama's Pivot to Asia
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u/Gadac Dec 07 '24
Making Russia a trading partner never was the problem. Making yourself overly reliant for something so fundamental as energy to a nation prone to authoritarianism was.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Dec 07 '24
You can say the same thing with Russi, trade goes both way and they made themselves reliant on western companies and manufacturing investments and financing in general, right now they're compensating with nationalizations and war spending, but they have lost development capabilities
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u/MuldartheGreat Karl Popper Dec 07 '24
Sure, but Russia’s economic crisis probably doesn’t depose Putin.
AfD is going to gain a lot of ground because Russia dominates the energy supply and people vote for conservatives when prices go up
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u/Creeps05 Dec 07 '24
People don’t vote conservative when prices go up. People vote against the incumbent when prices rise. It just tends to be leftists that cause an inflationary spike which then leads to people voting in Conservative. The Tories are an obvious example of this because when prices rose the Tories lost to Labour.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Dec 07 '24
Sure, but Russia’s economic crisis probably doesn’t depose Putin.
It deposed Assad so everything can happen
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
Russia tying up its own army in a war of choice in Ukraine is what would depose Putin.
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u/Fantisimo Audrey Hepburn Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 08 '24
...after over 10 years and its still not certain
edit: im glad im wrong
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u/ancientestKnollys Dec 07 '24
They're still one of the weaker far right parties in the western world (in terms of how well they poll). And one of the least likely to ever be allowed into government.
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u/LondonCallingYou John Locke Dec 07 '24
Oh let’s just give money to the imperialist dictatorship who is the successor state to the empire that controlled half of Europe. Let’s also shut down our nuclear power plants and spend zero on defense so we’re extra vulnerable.
Do you see how naive this entire thing was?
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u/SKabanov Dec 07 '24
There was no reason to continue with Nord Stream 2 the moment the Little Green Men appeared in Crimea in 2014. Instead, Germany dithered for eight years until Russia's outright invasion of Ukraine destroyed any ability to look the other way, and now the country is paying the consequences for its myopia.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Dec 07 '24
Nord Stream 2 was never in use, especially because of the political issues it created. The biggest issue was trusting Gazprom with handling Germany's strategic reserves
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u/SKabanov Dec 07 '24
Construction on Nord Stream 2 started in 2018, i.e. four years after Russia began its conflict in Ukraine - it's inexcusable that the Germans would even entertain the project continuing after 2014.
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u/Petrichordates Dec 07 '24
Every democratic nation prioritizes low energy costs because the people demand it, it's not like we wouldn't do the same in the same circumstances.
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u/MuldartheGreat Karl Popper Dec 07 '24
Making Russia a trading partner wasn’t the worst decision. But not balancing that with alternatives was poor planning.
Then as it was clear Russia wasn’t giving up territorial aggression they continued to dither over NS2 and gave away leverage continuously
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u/Key_Environment8179 Mario Draghi Dec 07 '24
Merkel, a one-person case for constitutional term limits, is entitled to look out for herself. “I was the most damaging European leader since 1945,” was never going to be the gist of her book.
Alright, that’s a bit harsh
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u/BigBrownDog12 Bill Gates Dec 07 '24
"Merkel lucky the bar for worst German leader so high" - Matt Yglesias
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u/Yeangster John Rawls Dec 07 '24
Is she even in the top three worst German Chancellors?
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u/alperosTR NATO Dec 07 '24
Of the post war ones yes
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u/VaultDweller_09 Dec 07 '24
Really?
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u/Impulseps Hannah Arendt Dec 07 '24
Easily, yes
But don't forget there have only been eight post war chancellors
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u/ThodasTheMage European Union Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 08 '24
Easily. Most German chancellors were pretty good and there were not many. Adenauer, Brandt, Schmidt and Kohl are great. Kiesinger had a Nazi past but was really competent even though he only ruled shortly. Schröder is an asshole but took more risky reforms than Merkel and the really bad stuff happened after his he was out of office.
Ludwig Erhard was a great minister but bad chancellor who beefed with America, the CDU and the FDP.
Scholz might be the worst of them all. He is pitty, a notorious liar, scared of big reforms (not as much as Merkel but still to scared to do something to save the German economy) and also not even that competent.
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u/angry-mustache NATO Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 07 '24
The list isn't long, Merkel just has to place lower than 5 of the following
Adenauer, obviously better than Merkel
Erhard, better
Kiesinger, worse
Brandt, better
Schmidt, better
Kohl, better
Schröder, worse than Merkel
and Scholz is still incumbent and looking better than Merkel, so bottom 3 of post war is accurate.
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u/ThodasTheMage European Union Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 08 '24
Kiesinger > Erhard. Erhard is a great politican but was a pretty incompetent chancellor who had constant fights with his own party, the FDP and even Lyndon Johnson.
Scholz is not much better than Merkel, maybe worse.
Kiesinger is seen as bad because he represents the old German elite with a Nazi past but he himself was quite competent.
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u/alperosTR NATO Dec 07 '24
I mean yeah you have Kiesinger, Schroeder and then her
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u/ThodasTheMage European Union Dec 07 '24
Erhard and Scholz are worse than Kiesinger and Schröder who are also better than Merkel.
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u/alperosTR NATO Dec 07 '24
How was any one of them worse then Kiesinger the literal fucking nazi
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u/ThodasTheMage European Union Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 08 '24
They governed worse? Kiesinger being a former NSDAP member and higher ranking bureaucrat makes him a bad person (not that Erhard is perfectly clean) but he did not govern as a nazi. Schröder's Putin and Erdogan simping is also very evil but that is also something that became a problem after he left office. I do not think it is usefull to think about the entire life of a person if you want to judge how they governed.
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u/Bedhead-Redemption Dec 07 '24
Who would you say it was instead?
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u/Le1bn1z Dec 07 '24
Milosevic if you're considering anyone from Europe. Any number of Greek PMs, David Cameron, Liz Truss, Orban, Fico, a few Maltese leaders, and the President of Ukraine who got ousted by Maidan all come to mind as worse leaders.
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u/SKabanov Dec 07 '24
Maybe the leader who has invaded two European countries since the beginning of his rule?
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u/Bedhead-Redemption Dec 07 '24
...Which one is that? Is Putin what we're considering a European leader in common comparisons now?
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u/KaChoo49 Friedrich Hayek Dec 07 '24
Stalin? Milosevic?
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u/Bedhead-Redemption Dec 07 '24
I honestly barely consider Russia "Europe" and don't think they can really be considered in the same realm commonly, but I guess you might technically be right. They're worse, for sure, we just typically compare "within europe" leaders to be, like... The UK. France. Greece.
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u/2017_Kia_Sportage Dec 07 '24
The geographic boundaries of Europe in the east are the caucasus and Ural mountains. Most of Russias population lives within these areas. They are definitely a European country. They are also an Asian country. Much the same as Egypt is both African and Middle Eastern.
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u/Bedhead-Redemption Dec 07 '24
They are literally on the edge, and are so culturally, politically and historically far-removed and pitted against the rest of Europe that yeah, while you are technically correct, I really wouldn't call Putin a "European leader" for the purpose of comparisons that are useful at all. It's like considering Hong Kong just "a province in China".
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u/2017_Kia_Sportage Dec 07 '24
Culturally Russia is a Slavic country. Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, much of the former Yugoslavia, Czechia, Slovakia and Belarus are all slavic countries and also all European.
Politically yes, Russia has been separated from the wider European community, however it has political allies in Europe- Lukashenko and Orban. It also exerts or attempts to exert considerable political influence upon Europe through a range of methods.
As for historically removed, Russia has participated in nearly every major European conflict, it has historically oriented itself towards Europe. It has also been historically allied with many European nations, including France, Britain, Prussia, Austria and others. It is as much a part of the history of Europe as Germany is.
And Putin is as a result a European leader. Just as much as Zelensky or Macron are. An EU leader, no. A NATO leader, no. But he is European. Leading a country that for the most part lives in Europe- and not on the edge of it. St Petersburg is almost as far from Brussels as Kyiv.
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u/Sabreline12 Dec 07 '24
That's just completely not true historically speaking. The orgins of the Russia state are only in the areas surrounding Moscow and was historically Orthodox Christian like the rest of Eastern Europe and Byzatium. Russia only started expanding east in later centuries into Siberia and the Steppe that were never originally slavic or Russian. That's the reason the country now stretches to the Pacific, although majority of the economy and population is still in Europe.
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Dec 07 '24
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u/2017_Kia_Sportage Dec 07 '24
Egypt is clearly in Africa.
Most of it is, and yet it operates as part of the middle East due to cultural and political reasons. It's a majority Muslim Arab country, was once united with syria, and has a history of involvement in the levant nearly as long as written history itself. Most include Egypt as part of the middle East- Asia, geographically. And yet, as you point out, so much of it, and an awful lot of its history and geopolitics are in Africa.
There is some kind of 45km bridge or tunnel plan to link Russia and Japan. .
Has that tunnel/bridge been built? Is it even possible to build it? Your point is as valid by mentioning the land border with China but I digress.
Sorry bro but no European country can build a bridge to Japan or share a border with China
Except France did share a border with China, as did Britain as recently as 1999. But I'm being pedantic. More to your point, no solely European country can- I did not say Russia is solely European.
That's half the point of Russia. Its really really big. But being really really big does not mean it is not European. No Asian country had a gas pipeline to Germany, after all.
Imagine how ridiculous it would sound if the US claimed to be 'Asian' because of Alaska.
You're right, it would be! However in this case its the other way around, the part of Russia where most people live, where the capital is, with political, cultural, economic and historic ties stretching back centuries is being used as the basis for claims to be part of a continent, not the sparsely populated and relatively recently acquired part.
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u/College_Prestige r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion Dec 07 '24
There is some kind of 45km bridge or tunnel plan to link Russia and Japan. Sorry bro but no European country can build a bridge to Japan or share a border with China.
That's like saying France is not a European country because it borders brazil
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u/die_hoagie MALAISE FOREVER Dec 07 '24
Rule XI: Toxic Nationalism/Regionalism
Refrain from condemning countries and regions or their inhabitants at-large in response to political developments, mocking people for their nationality or region, or advocating for colonialism or imperialism.
If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.
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u/BorelMeasure Robert Nozick Dec 07 '24
As a Russian, I'm very upset with such sentiments. Such sentiments are deeply rooted in European history, and frankly a little bit racist and problematic.
"Grattez le russe et vous verrez le tartare" they say (scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tatar), a phrase old enough to be written about by Dostoevsky.
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u/-Maestral- European Union Dec 07 '24
I don't think what they say is completely off base. Most Russians don't consider themselves European.
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u/Bedhead-Redemption Dec 07 '24
I understand that, and I apologize! I don't have more than a surface-level understanding of Russian culture and I mostly only know the basic stuff I've absorbed about history and hear in the news, where it feels like Russia has been opposed to 99% of European nations and cultures for decades. Why do you seem to feel Russia is more alike than different from the rest of Europe? I'm totally open to the idea I could be wrong.
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u/Sabreline12 Dec 07 '24
Russia is definitely European, it's just that so many of Russia's authoritarian governments have done much to try to distance the country from the rest of Europe. And historically Russia has given it's neighbours much reason to be hostile to it.
But of course the dream is a liberal Russia could allow a productive and friendly relationship with the rest of Europe, although the Germans mistakenly thought enough trade would lead to that, like the US thought would happen with China.
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u/optimalg European Union Dec 07 '24
Berlusconi was a harbinger for what was to come wrt right wing populism, in hindsight.
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
Sort of? He was a harbinger in terms of what right-wing populist leaders would look like but he was much more G.W. Bush than Trump in policy terms.
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u/alex2003super Mario Draghi Dec 07 '24
He was also a symptom (and early manifestation of the potential) of some problems IMHO, not the cause of all further right-wing populist movements of the following decades in Europe and across the Atlantic.
It's not like Trump studied from the Berlusconist playbook to become what he now is, and modern Italian right-wing populism today is in the hands of a joint coalition of post-fascist (FI evolved from MSI) reactionaries of Meloni and Padanian independentist-turned Euroskeptic sovereignist Lega of Salvini (although they've had to moderate Euroskeptic rhetoric in the past few years).
Meloni's FI also has a significant allegiance to the Western liberal world order and NATO in foreign policy, unlike Berlusconi's long-held personal sympathies towards Putin and despite the troubling remarks and alleged ties of Lega to Russia.
Besides, Berlusconi was at least on paper a "liberal" right-wing populist, think Milei-like attitude/aesthetic but Italian pro-business conservative policy, sometimes open to some compromises with the actual social liberals, called "Radicals" in Italy, such as on gay rights (although significantly watered-down, the right to legal same-sex civil unions became a thing during his term).
Like Trump had a deranged sexual conduct, and always tried to go along with anyone who could aid his personal success, whether it was fascists, foreign adversary leaders, the criminal freemason sect of P2 and likely the Sicilian Mob. He very successfully manipulated mass media and used his thriving television business to aid his entry into the Italian political landscape. A terrifyingly, disgustingly fascinating character to analyze.
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
At a very basic level, when the far right is the only one sharing voters' concerns about mass migration (among other things) then that's who people are going to vote for.
It's unclear why exactly it took anybody to the left of them so long to understand this, and many still don't.
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u/Petrichordates Dec 07 '24
Obviously not her, this is why we don't listen to opinion articles from people who were praising Musk 1 month ago.
This chap literally called 2024 a winnable election.
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u/spevoz Dec 07 '24
Cameron who basically single handedly caused the UK to leave the EU?
Any of his tory successors that just continued not doing anything in a troubled environment?
Thatcher, because fuck her?
Okey, maybe I just hate the torries, lets switch:
Orban took a decent democracy and has been slowly dismantling its institutions since he took office, while the country is just generally doing worse than similar post-soviet neighbors.
When Erdogan took office Turkey looked like they might genuinely become part of Europe, in terms of wealth, democracy, social norms. Now they spent 15 years regressing socially with a stagnating economy and are half a step away from him becoming a dictator.
Yanukovych was so incompetent that his actions pretty directly caused the current war, and moved Ukraine completley towards the EU (which I consider a good thing - he probably doesn't). If he didn't try as agressively to move Ukraine towards Russia and away from democracy Euromaidan wouldn't have happened, and with that Ukraines allignment to the west wouldn't have been as strong/fast.
I could go on, Merkel had flaws and made mistakes - but some of those mistakes only became mistakes in hindsight, and she didn't actively harm the country.
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u/longtermadvice5 Peter Sutherland Dec 07 '24
Thatcher, because fuck the UK?
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u/spevoz Dec 08 '24
Because Thatcher fucked the UK.
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u/longtermadvice5 Peter Sutherland Dec 08 '24
She saved a fucked UK.
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u/spevoz Dec 08 '24
She kept fucking a fucked UK.
I think we both know why a lot of people hate her, and why a lot of people like her. We don't need to rehash that argument.
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u/longtermadvice5 Peter Sutherland Dec 08 '24
She unfucked the UK.
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u/Spicey123 NATO Dec 07 '24
Cameron is obviously nowhere near as bad.
Thatcher was good.
Orban is bad but Hungary is an irrelevant little country--Germany dragged Europe down with them.
Erdogan is bad but Turkey has been a fairly reliable defense partner and his policies didn't affect the rest of Europe like Germany's did.
I think the blame for Russia invading Ukraine lies with Putin more than anyone else.
I think the leaders that you could call worse than Merkel in the post-war period would be the ones in the USSR and Yugoslavia. But out of the "regular" pool of people who didn't genocide populations and/or launch unjust wars I think it's fair to say Merkel is up there as the one whose policies had the worst long-term effects.
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u/spevoz Dec 08 '24
I just want to make it really clear that talking about a chain of events and the role of people is in no way assigning blame / guilt, obviously that lies solely with Russia/Putin. And saying that I'm victim blaming from this is kind of a really dishonest and unhelpful way to communicate.
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u/glizard-wizard Dec 07 '24
Boris, Thatcher, Orban, Lukashenko, Truss, a bunch of Italians
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u/TheGhostofJoeGibbs Milton Friedman Dec 07 '24
lol, Thatcher on this list is hilarious. The UK can only wish they had a Thatcher again.
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u/Bedhead-Redemption Dec 07 '24
See, that's a real answer. I absolutely hate Bunch of Italians, they were the worst.
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u/Spicey123 NATO Dec 07 '24
None of the people on that list had as bad of an impact as Merkel. I don't even know why Boris or Thatcher or Truss are even on there. But if you want to say the Tory party as a whole was the worst political party in Europe of the past 2 decades then I'd be on board.
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u/heylale Dec 07 '24
Which Italians specifically?
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u/glizard-wizard Dec 07 '24
Meloni and Berlusconi, that list is shorter than I expected they have insane term lengths
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u/heylale Dec 07 '24
Right, and what has any of the two done to be the most damaging european leader? Or more damaging than Merkel?
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u/angry-mustache NATO Dec 07 '24
The Italians are worse people but they had less power than Merkel by a lot, which limited the amount of damage they could do.
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u/SKabanov Dec 07 '24
History is not going to be kind to the center-right European politicians whose priority on the status quo and keeping themselves in power brought long-term consequences for their countries. It's not just Merkel, either - Mark Rutte left Dutch politics a mess, and David Cameron's "accomplishments" don't need any further explanations.
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u/socialistrob Janet Yellen Dec 07 '24
One of the big failures of many of those politicians (and especially within Germany) was they thought that buying oil/gas from Russia would be sufficient to liberalize Russia. I do think trade has the power to liberalize but it needs to be trade in the form of value added products or services. If something can just be mined or pumped out of the ground then whatever dictator takes control of that asset can use it to enrich themselves and consolidate power. Buying diamonds from apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia was never going to lead to racial harmony nor does buying oil from Saudi Arabia lead to the embrace of feminism. It would be nice if that was the case but that's just not the world we live in.
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u/Deplete99 Dec 07 '24
Kind of a miss with Saudi Arabia. The current crownprince has been modernizing by taking away power from the religious fundamentalists. I'd give some of the credit to the US for that.
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u/socialistrob Janet Yellen Dec 07 '24
The current crownprince has been modernizing by taking away power from the religious fundamentalists
And that limited liberalization is largely happening because Saudi Arabia wants to still have an economy as the era of oil ends. The fact that they are still the second most conservative Islamic country (only behind Afghanistan) is largely because they've been able to use oil to avoid making changes to be internationally competitive.
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u/MECHA_DRONE_PRIME Thomas Paine Dec 08 '24
The current crown prince also had a reporter he didn't like hacked apart in an embassy, I wouldn't give him too much credit.
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u/Bread_Fish150 Dec 08 '24
To be fair to the Europeans the idea that economic liberation would lead to societal liberation was the prevailing theory among democracies in the 90s and 2000s. It's just the Europeans kept it up for two more decades than the US, all while laughing at US warnings.
It's also not the first time that Europe tried (and failed) with the theory that economic ties would prevent armed conflict on the continent. This is probably the third time this theory has been proven wrong in just the last century.
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u/socialistrob Janet Yellen Dec 08 '24
economic liberation would lead to societal liberation
This CAN work but I don't believe it works for purely extractive industries. Economic liberalization in the form of crack downs on corruption, increased educational investment and the cultivation of competitive industries absolutely can result in societal liberalization. The problem I have is when people assume "if a warlord takes control of the mine and we pay the warlord for the wealth that comes out of the mine then eventually there will be democracy."
For trade to result in liberalization it needs to be based on things that require innovation and lack of corruption. If you just give money to a thug who controls a monopoly on a geographic based asset like oil, gas, coal or minerals then you're actually strengthening the thug.
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
What seems lost on a lot of people is that the rise of the far right has mostly come at the expense of the center right and the center right largely earned that.
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u/College_Prestige r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion Dec 07 '24
mostly come at the expense of the center right
And center left. People talk about reverse pasokification, but it's worth noting that there is a decent chunk of former center left voters that will likely never return
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
At least at the elite level does the true center-left really exist any more? Even the Biden administration looked little different from what I’d imagine a Warren administration would have… I mean maybe Warren would have caved faster to the activists and staffers on Palestine.
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u/Deplete99 Dec 07 '24
This isn't universally true at all lol. In finland the center right party is the largest and at the same time the far right is the second largest.
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
Lemme guess, the center right effectively just became the far right? Is there any way to actually beat the far right these days?
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 Dec 07 '24
Bush's presidency basically created a hole within the republican party for the tea party and later trump to fill
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u/Pharao_Aegypti NATO Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 07 '24
Lesson one. Scientists aren’t “better”. The line on Merkel was that while Britain was run by glib humanities graduates, here was a physicist-chemist who brought empirical rigour to government.
STEMcels in shambles
I rember this sub going on the bandwagon too :(
And tbh so did I...
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u/namey-name-name NASA Dec 07 '24
Ok but it’s not like Britain’s glib humanities PMs were much better. College major is probably the least important thing in determining who’d be a good PM/President
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u/God_Given_Talent NATO Dec 08 '24
It's not saying that humanities PMs are better though.
Whether a nation is run badly (Britain in recent years) or well (Britain in former times), generalists will tend to be in charge. The academic bent of the elite at the age of 18 can’t be a variable that explains much. Stop worrying about the PPE degree.
Basically saying the major doesn't matter, don't get fooled into thinking just because someone mastered a "harder" discipline they're inherently smarter/better.
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u/Individual_Bird2658 28d ago
That’s not a counter, it’s the entire point.
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u/namey-name-name NASA 28d ago
I’m aware it’s the point the article is making. It’s a counter to the commenter’s point.
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u/DexterBotwin Dec 08 '24
I don’t pay enough attention to Central European politics. What things that made Merkel well regarded for literal decades are now kaput?
It seems like 20 years of goodwill is being thrown by an opinion article.
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u/FemRevan64 Dec 07 '24
One of the very few areas I agree with Trump on, European countries neglected their militaries to an inexcusable degree, and making Germany so dependent on Russian gas, even after they annexed Crimea was suicidally lax.
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Dec 07 '24
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u/lowes18 Dec 07 '24
Considering Germany has been in recession for a year, I'd say they were pretty dependent.
Maybe not civilizationaly, but they were in order to be a growing fuctional economy.
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Dec 07 '24
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u/God_Given_Talent NATO Dec 08 '24
Considering Germany is deficit obsessed and cut Ukrainian aid for 2025 (and used frozen Russia assets to offset it instead of using them to increase total aid) it's not hard to see that the fiscal impact. Gas prices are higher than pre-war levels, around 2-3x of what they were in the 2010-2020 range (2021 is weird as the US and Europe saw spikes) and building the new infrastructure like LNG terminals wasn't free.
More importantly though, purchases of Russia gas helped fuel their war machine. It provided critical revenues for the state to expand the military budget and invest in their industry. Their military had serious problems in 2022 but were a world worse back in the late 00s and early 10s.
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u/Anonym_fisk Hans Rosling Dec 07 '24
Americans saying that were clearly suggesting that Germany, if it came to a crisis, would choose appeasement and prioritize keeping prices low over opposing fascists.
Which seems a little bit like projection in hindsight.
(Fwiw I think the other allegation, that European defense spending was irresponsibly low post-1991, is accurate)
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u/Creative_Hope_4690 Dec 07 '24
The funniest part was when they called her the leader of the free world after Trump’s election.
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u/NewDealAppreciator Dec 07 '24
I mean she literally was the most powerful Western leader and essentially in charge of the EU. It was also around the time she was vouching for millions of Syrian refugees in Germany.
Her energy policy, monetary policy, and defense policy seem like utter garbage, though.
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u/thorleywinston Adam Smith Dec 07 '24
Her refugee policy was utter garbage and there's a through line between that, Brexit and the rise of populism throughout Europe.
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u/RaaaaaaaNoYokShinRyu YIMBY Dec 07 '24
I oppose her policy, but the alternatives seem terrible too.
If the refugees got to Greece and Italy and stayed there, Greece and Italy would likely fall into chaos or real fascism.
If Europe successfully repels the refugees, I assume they will either drown, die in war, or stay in Turkey. And Turkey might go full Ottoman Empire as a result.
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u/Bullet_Jesus Commonwealth Dec 07 '24
It's pretty telling that the whole anti-refugee argument basically boils down to "they should stay in the first country they enter and we should enforce that by any means necessary".
If you ask if they're willing to fund refugee camps, they say no, if you ask for exceptions in case the first country refugees enter is unsafe, they still don't care. It's basically arguing for ending refugee law without arguing for it.
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u/No_Aerie_2688 Mario Draghi Dec 07 '24
Nothing hurt popular support for migration more than “Wir schaffen das”.
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u/MBA1988123 Dec 07 '24
“I mean she literally was the most powerful Western leader”
No she wasn’t lol
Trump was the most powerful western leader
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u/NewDealAppreciator Dec 07 '24
Yea, but she was actually trying to lead multiple liberal democracies and wasn't retreating into isolationism or idolizing dictators.
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u/HeartFeltTilt NASA Dec 08 '24
isolationism or idolizing dictators.
Haha, you're right. She just damaged Germany's long term prospects, underfunded her army which directly enabled russia, and also made her nation dependent on Russian energy.
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u/NewDealAppreciator Dec 07 '24
Yea, but she was actually trying to lead multiple liberal democracies and wasn't retreating into isolationism or idolizing dictators.
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u/angry-mustache NATO Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 07 '24
None of the foreign leaders looked to Trump for leadership, he was a crisis to be managed. Whereas Merkel was looked to for leadership and she was unfortunately unfit for it.
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u/NazReidBeWithYou Dec 07 '24
And her immigration policies seem to have backfired spectacularly since she wouldn’t account for the fact that there is only so much a particular country can absorb at a time, not just economically, but also socially and politically.
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u/Khiva Dec 08 '24
I frequently wonder how much of the right wing explosion can be tracked back to that.
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u/Tullius19 Raj Chetty Dec 07 '24
"monetary policy"
The ECB sets German monetary policy
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Dec 07 '24
And who was it then?
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u/Le1bn1z Dec 07 '24
Nobody.
And that was the whole problem and the whole point, and why neoliberalism started to reemerge in public as a conscious, positive political movement - people realized that the international order had withered around America, and without the USA it had no real champions or even the ability to seriously think about the issues neoliberalism puts front and center.
Attempts to operate and build structures without American leadership were clumsy, unpracticed and ineffectual.
To lesser extents Germany, France and even hilariously some more off brand liberal order countries like Canada tried to pick up slack in various ways (financially supporting Europe, deploying to support ECOWAS, and pushing for expanded trade cooperation outside American led systems.)
But none of these countries' people had any recent experience or interest in discussing or even thinking about security and trade strategy. Often even mentioning security issues was taken as betrayal of liberalism or progressivism and simping for neocons or ultra nationalists.
Now the developed democracies of the world are facing massive demographic crises and attendant economic disasters that are giving rise to far left and far right parties that even their own members don't really understand - let alone anyone else - dedicated to staying the course directly into the iceberg of fiscal and strategic collapse.
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u/Creative_Hope_4690 Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 07 '24
Still Trump. The US was still the largest and most influential country. No matter how much Trump did not rise up to the responsibility.
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u/Jet451 Sun Yat-sen Dec 07 '24
It was either an Interregnum or Macron
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Dec 07 '24
What has Macron done for the Free World in his first term?
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
Well, Macron has given a template for beating the shit out of both left-wing and right-wing populism but one that only seems to work in the context of France's two-round Presidential election.
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u/n00bi3pjs Raghuram Rajan Dec 08 '24
Macron's plan to beat far right populism:
Pass immigration bill that Le Pen called her "ideological victory "
Macron's plan to beat left wing populism:
Hope the left infights so he can show the far right to the leftist as a boogeyman and scare them into voting for him.
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u/PirrotheCimmerian Dec 07 '24
He's such a mastermind he's directly responsible for the fall of the government and the coming of the Fascists. Just because he couldn't keep his word to the left or work with anybody to the left of Les Republicans
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u/manitobot World Bank Dec 07 '24
r/nl shitting on Merkel-worship when we all have Hillary altars at home...
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u/Objective-Muffin6842 Dec 08 '24
The people who worshiped Merkel are the same people who worshiped Hillary
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u/Atari-Liberal Dec 08 '24
If Hillary was president it would've made Merkel look 10x less bad lmao
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u/_Un_Known__ r/place '22: Neoliberal Battalion Dec 07 '24
The guy who got the mutti tattoo is in shambles rn
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u/ancientestKnollys Dec 07 '24
Merkel wasn't amazing, but not particularly bad either. Most of the things she's getting criticised for would have happened under any German leader (potentially worse).
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u/aymnothyng Dec 07 '24
as a german, i hate that her only good policy decision in which she finally showed some empathy and backbone — not gunning down or letting migrants drown in front of our borders — is going to be remembered the worst and is now the scapegoat for 16 years of austerity. her own party is copying AfD rethoric.
really really bleak and makes me sad every time i think about it. i’m normally not a doomer but i don’t really see a good way out of this polarisation spiral atp.
to quote heine:
Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht
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u/SKabanov Dec 07 '24
Uh, explanation for the quote? Germany's so boring that thinking about it is a cure for insomnia?
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u/aymnothyng Dec 07 '24
in the poem heine basically writes about homesickness, missing his mother and his complex relationship with germany.
Heine was exiled in 1843 which was largely a result of his criticism of Germany’s conservative, repressive regime.
it is deeply personal, but the poem also carries a subtle critique of germany’s political and social conditions.
the mention of Germany evokes a mixture of love and frustration - it is a land he cherishes yet criticizes for its inability to embrace freedom and progress.
this duality makes the poem both a love letter to Germany and a lamentation over its political stagnation.
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u/xapv Dec 07 '24
That’s how I feel about Mexico, I hate the human condition that leads to corruption
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
I mean, the rise of AfD should disbuse anybody of any notions about what the actual alternative to Merkel looked like.
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u/NazReidBeWithYou Dec 07 '24
The AfD was not around in any significant way until the end/after Merkel’s tenure. They weren’t the alternative to it, they were the reaction to it.
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Dec 07 '24
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u/God_Given_Talent NATO Dec 08 '24
I wouldn't call her fixation on deficits, phase out of nuclear, or lack of defense spending as "competence." Also the AfD is almost certainly tied to the immigration issue and amount of refugees she let it. While morally good, there were real consequences.
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u/NazReidBeWithYou Dec 07 '24
That kind of attitude is exactly what fuels populist movements.
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Dec 07 '24
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u/kiwibutterket 🗽 E Pluribus Unum Dec 08 '24
Rule III: Unconstructive engagement
Do not post with the intent to provoke, mischaracterize, or troll other users rather than meaningfully contributing to the conversation. Don't disrupt serious discussions. Bad opinions are not automatically unconstructive.
If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.
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u/NazReidBeWithYou Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 07 '24
It's not an excuse for anything, it's simply an observation of the order of events.
You can insist on this kind of attitude, but it comes across as being out of touch and not understanding (because I can assure that people aren't running to the polls thinking "oh boy lets go elect a bunch of racist incompetents"). Painting everyone who disagrees with them as a bunch of racist or ignorant voters while ignoring or dismissing their actual concerns is exactly how liberals drove working class voters in the arms of the Republican party and cemented our reputation as out of touch elitists.
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Dec 08 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/kiwibutterket 🗽 E Pluribus Unum Dec 08 '24
Rule III: Unconstructive engagement
Do not post with the intent to provoke, mischaracterize, or troll other users rather than meaningfully contributing to the conversation. Don't disrupt serious discussions. Bad opinions are not automatically unconstructive.
If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.
1
u/kiwibutterket 🗽 E Pluribus Unum Dec 08 '24
Rule III: Unconstructive engagement
Do not post with the intent to provoke, mischaracterize, or troll other users rather than meaningfully contributing to the conversation. Don't disrupt serious discussions. Bad opinions are not automatically unconstructive.
If you have any questions about this removal, please contact the mods.
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u/basketballphilosophy Max Weber Dec 07 '24
We all fell guilty to this. I was working at a political risk firm in 2015-2016 and everyone fawned over Merkel. It seems like all the great liberal leaders of the early 21st century will in hindsight look less impressive as they could not implement long term visions.
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u/bfwolf1 Dec 07 '24
This article is a load of nonsense and I can’t believe you lot are in agreement with it.
Obviously no leader is perfect, and Merkel and co were absolutely wrong not to properly fund their military, though I doubt this would’ve had any impact on Russia’s Ukraine policy.
But taken as a whole, she provided grounded leadership that worked.
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u/TrynnaFindaBalance Paul Krugman Dec 07 '24
Yup people here are really acting like the Russian invasion would've never happened if only Germany had contributed an extra 1% to their defense budget.
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u/God_Given_Talent NATO Dec 08 '24
I...don't think you realize how much money that actually is and what you can buy with that. Adding 30-40billion extra per year for a decade or two is a huge amount. Even if only 20% went to equipment as per NATO guidelines, that's still 6-8B extra per year to equipment and munition stockpiles, something German lacks. An extra 100B+ on equipment is a lot.
It also serves as a signal, that Germany actually cares about defense and deterrence and may have put pressure on other European states to spend in the ~2.5% range.
Even if it wouldn't have been enough to deter Russia, it would have been a hell of a lot of materiel to send Ukraine and meant a DIB that could better support the war. I love how people think Germany spending a total of 500-650B on defense wouldn't be world changing. Granted Germany's issue were more than just funding, but many of those institutional issues stem from lack of funding.
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u/Khiva Dec 08 '24
It's reputably reported that one of the reasons Putin invaded is that he thought he had Germany by the balls on energy, so there'd be no meaningful, unified European response.
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u/Least_Relief_5085 Dec 07 '24
So in your view German energy policy, including decommissioning nuclear plants and going all in on Russian gas, was the best approach?
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u/bfwolf1 Dec 07 '24
No, it was a bad decision. Does that make Merkel a failure? No.
All leaders make mistakes. The evidence of such mistakes doesn’t make all leaders bad leaders.
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u/DrunkenBriefcases Jerome Powell Dec 07 '24
Preach. The sub's 180 on Merkel is childish. We rightly criticize others for a lack of nuance and perspective.
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u/madoka_borealis Dec 08 '24
This sub has become unrecognizable in recent months, I have noticed it trending ➡️➡️➡️
People used to love preaching evidence based policy, nuance, and intellectualism here (which is why I loved it) and nowadays emotional reactionary opinions with no backing get the most visibility… like the rest of Reddit. Sad times.
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u/Khiva Dec 08 '24
The same sub that actually remembered Biden's accomplishments and thought Kamala was running a quality campaign now thinks they're basically Hitler and Stalin, he was feckless and she was delusional.
Evidence based my ass.
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u/Mickenfox European Union Dec 08 '24
Democratic candidate wins by one vote -> we never had anything to worry about and everything will be fine forever
Democratic candidate loses by one vote -> the entire campaign was bad, every Democratic leader has been bad, we need to change all our positions and I was saying that all along
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u/MarderFucher European Union Dec 07 '24
Ach I think lot of people have a very misunderstood view on German-Russian energy relations.
Merkel didn't go all in on Russian gas. Germany pivoted to Soviet fossil imports after the oil crisis (they historically imported most oil from Iran). That huge overland pipe infrastructure in Eastern Europe? Built with German money. And it worked - the cash-strapped Warsaw Pact avoided lot of human abuse excesses and crushing their burgeoning democratic opposition due to becoming increasingly dependent on Western credit, both WB/IMF loans and German hard currency.
The impetus for Nordstream was the 2006 gas dispute where the taps were stopped for days because Russia didn't want to accept Ukraine raising transit fees. I don't think anyone here remembers or appreciates how big a shock that was at the time. Nordstream would have not made Germany any more dependent on Russia, it would have "just" kicked out the middlemen.
The nuclear phase-out is also a longer story, stretching back to the 60s when the emerging green movement latched on the threat of nuclear war, and it's German proponents had a rather valid worry their home could become a nuclear battleground, further fed by various minor nuclear accidents and the constant fuckups and corruption involving the Asse waste repository. Germany stopped investing into nuclear with Chernobyl, and phase-out was a constant source of discussion that was solidified in 2003 or so. When the CDU came to power, they reverted the decision to letting the NPPs work till normal decom time, but then Fukushima scared the already very nuclear-sceptic German public. What has to be seen here is whetever it was stupid or not (it was), the German abandonment of nuclear energy had a very solid and wide social support and the governments listened to the people.
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Dec 08 '24
And German nuclear plants would just be dependent on the Russian nuclear industry. The EU still hasn’t sanctioned Rosatom.
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u/justsomen0ob European Union Dec 08 '24
It's not like her Russia policy was her only failure. Her energy policy was disastrous, with the shutdown of the nuclear reactors whilst killing of the german solar industry, the german economy completely missed the digital revolution and became dependent on demand from China, which is now hurting them, Germany suffered from severe underinvestment during her time and she was a big driver of the austerity policies that hurt the EU after the financial crisis. Her refugee policy was a disaster by effectively destroying the Dublin regulation without pushing through any replacement and not having a working integration strategy, which created a completely broken refugee system that is a big reason for the rise of the far right in Europe. She shielded Orban because the german car industry was invested in Hungary and allowed him to undermine democracy in Hungary and hurt the EU. And on and on ... Merkel has been a disaster for Germany and Europe.
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u/AlpacadachInvictus John Brown Dec 07 '24
I lived through that atrocious era & to this day still cringe when I remember libs calling her "Leader of the Free World" and her being seen by a number of people on Times as the most admirable woman. Absolutely dreadful shit but at least I was vindicated.
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u/tc100292 Dec 07 '24
Also that sure is a substance-fucking-free article. What, exactly, am I supposed to dislike about Merkel?
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u/Godzilla52 Milton Friedman Dec 08 '24 edited Dec 08 '24
Didn't we used to have a Merkel flair here as well? I think the issue was the Merkel had reigned for so long and gave off an aura of competence that to a lot of people at least, her mistakes/mismanagement weren't evident until she left office (doubling down on policies like Energiewende, phasing out nuclear, over-reliance on Russian natural gas, etc, general Russian appeasement diplomatically, chronically low defense spending, failing to diversify the German economy outside of it's manufacturing sector etc.) Over time her legacy has generally looked less and less impressive considering how high her reputation during her reign was both domestically and internationally etc.
Energiewende in particular was a policy that had great intentions, but horrible results. The German Greens in particular have been responsible for terrible energy policy blunders in the coalition parties they've been involved with since Schroder. If we compare Germany's attempt to decarbonization to most of it's peers in the Eurozone/EAA (UK, France, The Netherlands, basically all of Scandinavia, etc.) Germany's performance has been worse than all of them while their policies led to higher energy costs than their peers as an additional consequence.
That Germany pretty much went from a perception of a powerhouse while Merkel was in power to basket case the moment she left shows how much her policies actually failed to put the country in the right direction in multiple policy areas.
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u/oywiththepoodles96 Dec 07 '24
Hollande was actually way better than Merkel and recognised better that German leaders the need for change in Europe .
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u/cxbats Zhao Ziyang Dec 07 '24
Remember when someone here tattooed Mutti on his butt?