I feel like I’m missing something here. US doing that would have made them much stronger against China. I mean just imagine how much more robust the European economy would be if all the gas going to China was going right to Europe.

Though in typing that out I may have answered my own question. Is it really just because US wanted to European market to themselves? This seems incredibly short sighted.

  • doriangray11
    19·
    2 years ago

    To answer your second two questions:

    1. NATO is the imperialist alliance to maintain the neoliberal US empire. It provides markets for the US military industrial complex and brings “legitimacy” to US imperialism by joining in illegal invasions of sovereign global south countries led by the US.
    2. How? Well, bombing the Nord Stream 1 pipeline was one way to keep Germany down and maintain its dependence on the US for its energy needs.
      • knfrmity
        11·
        2 years ago

        While I can’t answer your primary question of can Germany leave NATO (in fact other than France under de Gaulle no nation has, and de Gaulle was a special kind of statesman), I can maybe speak a bit to Germany being aware of their situation. Dare I say it would be impossible for Germany to leave NATO seeing as they are militarily occupied by the US (including nuclear weapons). To take that to its logical conclusion, is any country under military occupation sovereign?

        Are Germans at least somewhat aware that the USA is the cause of their problems? Not really. The politicians almost certainly know, and don’t give a fuck. Germany’s current (and more than likely past) crop of top politicians are generally in America’s pocket. Those who aren’t are in the pocket of German industry, and those industries are in turn ultimately beholden to if not controlled by American capital. Foreign Minister Baerbock has said it herself on multiple occasions, she doesn’t particularly care what her German constituents want. In terms of the general population, I get the impression that they’re too uninformed and misinformed to realize that it’s the USA fucking them over and not Putin personally. Anti-war demonstrations of any kind are met with contempt, derision, and lies in the media. Even moderate criticisms of German foreign policy are shouted down with calls of Russian misinformation. The news is one sided to say the least, but we’re told it’s independent so how dare you question it.

        Maybe I spend too much time with particularly clueless people but that’s my reading of the general place Germans are at right now.

        • REEEEvolution
          7·
          2 years ago

          Maybe I spend too much time with particularly clueless people but that’s my reading of the general place Germans are at right now.

          It’s my impression too. The only good thing here is that the offical lines are pushed so heavy handed and oppressive that many people get weirded out by it. But those people are also kept atomized and thus have no influence. Which also is why some mass media is already calling Sarah Wagenknecht “the biggest threat to Germany”, because she resonates withmany of the people not being on board with this and that part of the offical line.