Sabotaging German-Russian Relations

Wrecking German-Russian cooperation appears to be a key objective of America's Russian policy.

Lately I’ve been contemplating a thesis that I heard a while back and that now seems increasingly plausible. This morning I woke up thinking about the lyrics of the 1990 hit “Wind of Change” by the German rock band, the Scorpions.

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night
Soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change

The world is closing in
And did you ever think?
That we could be so close?
Like brothers
The future's in the air
I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change

Take me to the magic of the moment
On a glory night
Where the children of tomorrow dream away (dream away)
In the wind of change

Doing some additional research today, I found evidence that, within French and Anglo-American foreign policy circles, this wind of change has not been welcomed since the Cold War ended in 1991. The prospect of German ingenuity and industry combined with Russia’s plentiful natural resources—especially natural gas—has frightened foreign policy gurus in Washington, Paris, and London.

During the Cold War in Germany, Willy Brandt, who became Chancellor in 1969, pursued the doctrine of Ostpolitik, or Eastern Policy, of pursuing friendlier relations with the Soviet Union.

In 2005, then German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, signed the controversial North European Gas Pipeline deal (later renamed “Nord Stream”) with Russia. Shortly after leaving office, Schröder accepted the nomination as chairman of the Russian state-controlled company (a subsidiary of Gazprom) responsible for the project, leading to allegations of corruption and cronyism.

Schröder and Putin were known to be good pals. Schröder believed that the pipeline deal would bring Germany and Russia closer together by creating a mutually beneficial economic arrangement. German industry would benefit from plentiful and cheap natural gas, and Russia would benefit from having a strong market for its natural resource.

Critics claimed that dependency on Russian natural gas would make Germany vulnerable to Russian extortion, though concrete scenarios for what exactly Russia would gain from extorting Germany were lacking. Sure, a Germany dependent on Russian gas could, in theory, be pulled over the barrel with pricing, but this would prompt Germany shift to other sources of gas such as Liquified Natural Gas from the United States. Indeed, the U.S. LNG industry has already benefitted from war in Ukraine and is doubtless pleased by the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream Pipeline.

At the 2008 Nato Summit in Bucharest, Putin expressly stated that Russia would regard any attempt to expand Nato to its borders as a direct threat. In retrospect, it seems clear that by making this statement, he announced precisely how he could be baited into taking military action, which would seemingly justify putting an end to his friendly relationship with Germany.

I suspect that Washington and London would vastly prefer a weak Germany that will never be able to break entirely free of the arrangements put into place by the U.S. military establishment with the capitulation of Nazi Germany in 1945. Schröder’s friendship with Putin was therefore detested in Washington, as was the Nord Stream pipeline.

The sabotage of the pipeline signaled to the German people and political establishment that Germany could never enjoy the benefit of plentiful natural gas from Russia. Thus, it seems that the true master of Germany is the same puppet master who pulls the strings from which President Joe Biden dangles.