alt Hacker NewsTheir energy prices are an outcome of incompetence, having tied their energy prices to Russia and a gas supply from them. In hindsight, economic diplomacy is not the path to keeping an authoritarian in check; a strong military and energy independence is.
German energy prices will decline with battery storage and more renewables pushing out the last of their coal and fossil gas generation. Should’ve kept the old nuclear generators running too, as long as possible. Alas, a lesson they’ve learned.
I think this take is too shallow, and based on hindsight.
Germany has had fossil gas ties to Russia since the Soviet time.
https://dw.com/en/russian-gas-in-germany-a-complicated-50-ye...
When the iron curtain fell pretty much all of Central Europe liberalized and democratized. The sole exceptions being Belarus and Russia.
Thinking they wouldn’t choose the same path is revisionist.
I remember growing up and gaming online thinking of Russians as nothing strange compared to anyone else. This changed with first Georgia and then very much Crimea.