It’s amazing what the Germans can do when they put their mind to it. Prior to February 2022, the country was heavily reliant on Russian gas to heat its homes and power the mighty industries that make it the fourth-largest economy in the world. Before the war, more than half of its natural gas consumed flowed from Russia, via Nord Stream 1, a pipeline that flowed under the Baltic sea.
Indeed, the government, led by Angela Merkel and supported by her then deputy and now Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, was a cheerleader for Nord Stream 2, a second pipeline which would carry gas directly from Russia to Germany. Recently declassified top-secret documents show that Berlin denied this would lead to a greater dependency on Moscow or raise the potential for energy blackmail by Vladimir Putin. As Yogi Berra once said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”.
