It's the right thing to say. Although I have my doubts about what it means out in the real world. The pipleline is mostly completed, so we are going to start demolishing some parts of it in coastal waters because "there will be no longer a Nordstream 2??????" Ahh okay. I think we all know that is not going to happen. If they invade Ukraine we/whomever will let the pipeline languish for a bit until it is decided that the Ruskies are not in the penalty box anymore and the Germans/Europeans need the cheap gas or more gas. It is like the Iran deal. We turn some penalties on and we turn them off and then we turn them on again. Meanwhile, they have moved forward VERY nicely. The Americans think in terms of weeks. The Russians much longer and the Asians in terms of decades/lifetimes. Vlad is very willing to take hits in exchange for turf, and then tidy it up down the road when the Americans/Germans are saying something different. It like telling China that if they take Taiwan they will pay some price economically. SOLD!!!!!! They would do that deal any day of the week. Part of the story there though is that Biden can only agree to what the Germans agree to. And they want the gas. On the other hand, Angela is gone now and Sholtz had to cobble together a government with the Green Party which is adamantly opposed to the pipeline for climate change reasons.
Oh, brother, man oh man. I saw Usual T's quote of Biden's comment about the pipeline and assumed that because the German Chancellor was meeting with him today that that was something he had tied up with the Chancellor. Then I went on at length to express some doubts about it. Complete waste of time on my part and others who commented. Does not appear that Biden has tied anything up with anyone or with the Krauts. MY BAD, EVERYONE'S BAD. Try to make an assumption that Joe done good, get burned everytime. Nord Stream 2 pipeline proves to be a sticking point in Biden and new German chancellor's show of unity But Scholz himself refused to even name the project during the news conference, and declined to commit to ending the pipeline if an invasion moves ahead -- a stance causing problems for his foreign minister during a visit to Ukraine. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/politics/biden-scholz-meeting-ukraine/index.html
Last chance for Klitschko to run from Kyiv, Hayden seems to be talking about another world... cause it's time to duck and run, unlike your last fight...
Germany will do what it is in its best interest. Why would they shutdown a pipeline that will deliver natural gas to them? They want to make it very costly for Germany? For them to freeze to death during the very cold winters? Russia supplies 35% of the natural gas to Europe. If the Russians were to double just the price of natural gas, Europe's economy would be in shambles in a short time. Add crude oil to the mix where Russia is one of the largest exporters including, Saudi Arabia, all they need is to keep the oil prices sky high to hurt Europe and the US. For all the arrogance of Joe Biden, Macron and NATO leaders, Vladimir Putin has them all by the balls----he just needs to squeeze it hard and make these soy boys beg for mercy. And if there is war in Ukraine, Russia will pound Ukraine with the full force of its air force, navy, army and cause tremendous damage and casualties to make it a very short war, with the Ukrainians begging for mercy.
Yeah, ze Germans continue with their doddling of “strategic ambiguity.” I saw watched Scholz’s interview with Tapper and he is straddling this line of we are totally in lock step with our allies and no comment on the specifics. I think the most likely explanation is the Germans don’t want to commit shutting down the pipeline and then Putin makes a “small” incursion and then their hands are tied. It is important to remember when Walmart opened a store in in Germany they had to remove the greeter at the door because the German people found someone smiling and welcoming them to the store to be weird. Morose doesn’t describe the Germans well enough.
Yeh, and I add in again the fact that he is beholden to the Green Party now which is adamantly against the pipe line. He was not able to form a coalition without them, then he promised/overpromised them quite a bit for their support. So he is in sort of snakey position where he is hoping pipeline will arrive at his door and be functional but does not want to outright support it, and if the pipeline gets killed by other countries due to ruskie bad behavior, well, that saves him the problems with the greens.
McConnell is mistaken here, preemptive sanctions would give Putin pretext for invasion. It would help Putin with public opinion back home too. However, I tend to agree that Putin is not going base his decision to go on US sanctions:
I am going to revert back to a question I asked quite a while back which no one wanted to bite into it: Suppose Putin does not invade, and -just to keep the question simple- suppose he just "goes home" then what price should he pay just for the threatening charade?"
If he goes home with his tail between his legs I think mostly everyone will call that a victory. What’s your angle here? That imposing preemptive sanctions would keep him at bay into the foreseeable future? I don’t know about that. Tricky tightrope to walk if that’s it.