You don't need to read academic papers to know that Russia = evil. Eastern Europe has been parroting this for decades but Germany stuck its fingers in its ears and went "la-la-la-la, I can't hear you over the sound of my cheap gas brokered by our lord and savior, Gerhard Schröder, who's on the Kremlin's payroll".
Even after Russia's invasion of Chechnya in 1994 and 1999, and Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008, and Russia's invasion of Crimea in 2014, nobody could have seen Russia invading another neighboring country again in 2022, it was a total shock for European politicians. /s
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1046295978238979863
There is a pipeline from the Nord Stream terminal in Germany to the UK. Nord Stream is owned by Russia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands. Gas was resold to plenty of EU countries, including Eastern European ones.
Poland and Ukraine collected transit fees for Russian oil/gas long after Nord stream was blown up.
Or perhaps Germany couldnʼt hear them, because their actions spoke louder than their words – a majority of Eastern European countries had made themselves more dependent on Russian gas than Germany:
- Hungary: 110.4 percent
- Latvia: 100.1 percent
- Finland: 92.4 percent
- Estonia: 86.5 percent
- Czechia: 86.0 percent
- Slovenia: 81.0 percent
- Slovakia: 75.2 percent
- Bulgaria: 72.8 percent
- Germany: 58.9 percent
Meanwhile, Germany's gas imports were huge and you cannot leave 58.9 percent of your population to freeze in the winter anyway.
EDIT: Also, Finland has this in the laws:
> There is an alternative fuel obligation, so that in the event of a gas supply disturbance, other fuels can be immediately substituted.
It's as if they prepared for an event like this ;-)
A lot of western countries, Germany first, believed that if we traded and opened up to those countries, they would naturally tend to adopt western values.
It turned out to be incorrect. China being an even better example. But it was not a crazy assumption at the time, and coming after the fact is hindsight 20/20.
Honestly, even knowing how things turned out, I am proud that the west tried.
You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that your argument is "Germany didn't know that Russia invading 3 countries was bad and it hoped Russia would come around if it just kept buying gas from them and pumping trillions in their economy which Russia spent on its military would make them more peaceful".
It's safe to assume that either Germany doesn't know when to take a hint that after 3 invasions, your trading partner is not gonna come around, or Germany was actively ignoring Russia's warmongering for it's own benefit.
Either way it looks bad on Germany and no made up excuses are gonna cut it.
Diplomacy is not black and white.
The US screamed so loudly that Nord Stream exploded.
Nations are not single minded. Political parties, individuals, companies, diplomats, each might have their own particular interest.
But I remember not long ago, "trade and free market will bring democratic institutions" being a pretty popular opinion.
There was a general feeling in the early and mid-2000s that Russia was finally changing for the better. The economy was growing and the quality of life was improving for many Russians. While no one mistook Putin for a democratic leader, he wasn't particularly bad as far as semi-authoritarian leaders go.
The invasion of Georgia in 2008 was a turning point, because people didn't believe Putin would go to war to prevent the expansion of NATO. But it wasn't a particularly big shock, because military interventions as an extension of foreign policy were quite common in the 1990s and 2000s. It was more unpleasant with "their side" doing it, but as long as "our side" was also doing it, military interventions were a legitimate policy tool. International politics is pretty childish in this respect.
After the invasion, politicians had much less favorable views of Putin. But they continued dealing with him, assuming that he would act based on rational self-interest. The real shock in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine was not the invasion itself but the irrationality of it. If Putin could miscalculate his actions so badly, it made no sense to treat him as a rational actor anymore.
the people in the US/EU that were crying snot because russians were streaming gas burners running 24/7 while some Europeans had to equip their winter jackets in their homes.
the extreme amount of wet firewood being burned smoking up entire neighborhoods so that people would not freeze to death. Are the people inhaling that smoke better off? is it rational for them to cheer "putin man bad" (asserting that they did, i do not know if they did)
Germans like to say how much they learned from their history, but when shit got real they funded the aggressor and benefited from Putins corruption.