The End of German Support for Ukraine?

Report that Ukrainian team destroyed Nord Stream puts Germany in awkward position.

For my first book about the Viennese serial killer (of prostitutes), Jack Unterweger, I read a fair amount of literature on the ways in which pimps psychologically manipulate the women who work for them. Even though the pimp exploits and abuses the woman, he impresses upon her the belief that he is her protector, and that she must therefore continue to work for him. Nevertheless, in spite of the pimp’s constant psychological coercion, it may nevertheless be possible for the woman to break free of him, though it may require that she completely disappear for a while.

I thought of this psychology when I read a recent report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that the German government has proclaimed that there is no money left in its budget to continue sending military aid to Ukraine.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “No new money for Ukraine.”

German officials stated that the decision was purely a matter of Euros and cents—that is, there is only so much money to go around, especially considering that the German taxpayer will be on the hook for it, even though military aid for Ukraine has been obtained by state debt financing.

Given how little concern German politicians have shown for the country’s increasing national debt in recent years, another explanation for the German money spigot for Ukraine turning off may be the recent, rather awkward Wall Street Journal report that it was a Ukrainian team that blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. As some people in the West may know, Nord Stream is—legally and technically speaking—critical German infrastructure that was built with a considerable German investment.

Contrary to the mendacious assertions of Green propagandists, natural gas is an energy dense and clean-burning fuel that was (until the pipeline was sabotaged) transported with great efficiency from Russia to Germany. Everyone who has ever cooked on a gas stove knows this to be the case.

Indeed, as I have written about in earlier posts, I believe it’s a plausible hypothesis that one of the U.S. government’s objectives with its aggressive Ukrainian policy has been to drive a wedge between Russia and Germany, which had, until recently, enjoyed a fruitful partnership, with Russian mineral interests benefitting from Germany’s strong industrial demand for natural gas. Self-serving American interests sing the praises of shipping Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe without mentioning the huge amount of diesel burned with each transatlantic freighter shipment, never mind the energy required to liquify natural gas.

Given Germany’s manufacturing genius—especially compared to America’s preference for financialization over manufacturing —the prospect of a strong Russian-German alliance has been perceived by some quarters in Washington as threatening American-NATO hegemony in Europe.

In recent years, the German government has demonstrated remarkable compliance with American foreign policy objectives. The image of a Pomeranian lapdog sitting in Uncle Sam’s lap comes to mind. Likewise, the German mainstream media seems to have become a propaganda organ of the CIA.

All the same, the Wall Street Journal report that it was a Ukrainian team that blew up Nord Stream may prove to be a bridge too far for even the Germans to accept. To be sure, the precise details (of six Ukrainian civilian divers on a chartered sailboat) of the story related in the WSJ article are not credible. Nevertheless, the report significantly aggravates the longstanding suspicion (among reasonable people) that the sabotage of Nord Stream was a U.S.-backed operation. After all, President Biden himself publicly stated at a February 7, 2022 news conference at the White House with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz: “If Russia invades Ukraine, there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2; we will bring it to an end.”