Genuinely curious, what alternatives were there in the 2000s? Did dependency on Russian gas doom German manufacturing or did it provide it 20 additional years of artificial life support?

In the context of the times it was the aim of Europe to integrate Russia into the EU zone.

Who gave Russia all that money to convert to capitalism after the fall of the wall? The US. Who wanted Russia to become a capitalistic nation? The west.

That it failed is in whose interest? And who is scared of Chinese influence? And who outsourced all their manufacturing to China?

Sometimes context does matter.

My guess is OP was being sarcastic.

At the time it was a perfectly rational decision that followed the liberal foreign policy dogma of the time, which advocated that we tie up unstable countries with economic trade, so they become less incentivized to create havoc. Let's please not rewrite history.

[dead]