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US opposition to a pipeline to Russia is confined to a small group of people who are strangely very friendly to Russia on all other matters. There is no widespread or popular opposition to Germany building a pipeline to Russia in the United States.

This doesn't really treat with the dollar-denominated world economy but I wanted to point this out to differentiate the current irrational foreign policy of the US government from the subject at hand.

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It isn’t in the US or NATO interest for Germany to be dependent on Russian oil.

Current US policy, to the extent that we have policy today, is a whole other matter.

It’s about Russian natural gas, not oil.

About 25% of Germany’s primary energy are produced from gas, of which about 40% come from Russia (down from about 50% in 1995).[1]

The US sanctions against the Nord Stream project are seen by a number of Germans as a rather clumsy attempt to push the sale of their expensive liquified natural gas, which to a high degree is produced by hydraulic fracking.[2]

1) https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?tl=en&u=...

2) https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?tl=en&u=...

Talk about clumsy, I seem to remember Russia turning off the gas back in the 90s and everyone was surprised at just how easily nato’s entire infrastructure could be held ransom by the flick of a switch. The issue basically boils down to the survivability of US/NATO operations. And the Germans ambivalence - what with Gerard Schroeder essentially doing a crony deal for nordstream directly underscores that Germans know what we really care about is military survivability. Pretty much every foreign policy decision the US has made since the gas debacle has been to find alternatives to Russian oil. Admitting Georgia to NATO, supporting Ukraine, heck even Iraq and afghanistan have undertones of finding gas alternatives for Germany. The realist in me agrees, it kind of stinks that America seems a bit selfish. But I might remind you that Germany didn’t really like it when the gas did get shut off. I seem to recall their response was, hey America, do something! In the end, Most of what we have done hasn’t worked and then you have Germans themselves supporting nordstream which essentially undermines the entire strategy altogether. I wouldn’t be surprised if the US cedes Germany and leaves in the next decade. Now... what’s going to hurt the dollar more? A few sanctions now or departure from the European continent altogether? Ps also consider the source - the economist - they’ve never met a sanction or a trade barrier they could like so keep that in mind....

> Ps also consider the source - the economist - they’ve never met a sanction or a trade barrier they could like so keep that in mind....

They were in favor of sanctions against lots of countries, usually because of human rights abuses. I currently can't access their archives, but I am quite sure they were calling for sanctions on Germany as early as 1933.

Wasn't Iraq invaded shortly after switching oil pricing to EUR? That was for Germany's benefit?

Why is becoming dependent on US-supplied liquefied natural gas any better? If Germany has two or more reliable suppliers of natural gas (Russia and US), neither one can extort them by threatening to flip the switch.

If you have the LNG infrastructure in place, you could change your suppliers at the flick of a switch.

Doubly so if you own the ships too.

Wat? Pretty much all eastern/former communist block countries that are in the EU oppose it. That's almost 40% of the block.

They can't directly confront Germany, but the US can, and it is doing so rightly. The project comprises the long term security of the Nato block, and the said countries have a major distrust towards Russia as it has they have suffered a lot under thier imposed communist regimes.

For a bunch of smart people, HN veers too much into hands off 'libertarian' side of things. US lets its hands off in the region, it will slowly be transformed again into a basket case of 'kleptocratic' countries in the way Russia is today.

---- The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Croatia––all highly dependent on Russian gas––signed a petition against Nord Stream 2 in March 2016, highlighting the risks for energy security in Central and Eastern Europe.

Italy is in a similar bind. In 2015, Italy accused the EU Commission of applying double-standards when the Commission did not reject the Nord Stream 2 project, as it did with the South Stream––a project which would have benefited Italy’s role as energy hub in the Mediterranean. For this reason, Italy complained about Germany’s influence in the EU Commission and called for equal treatment.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/04/22/n...

All those countries you mentioned are totally free to buy only from the US. Building a pipeline will not prevent anyone from buying gas from the US as long as it is competitive. The sanctions are mostly trying to strangle competitor/adversary and prop own industry using political means rather then market forces.

All those countries actually know what it’s like to live behind the iron curtain and don’t really want to do so again. What should happen is the US should move it’s German bases to a country that actually wants them there like Poland but doing so would probably risk a war. Germany might not like America on their soil but they also have to realize the status quo is certainly better than the alternative. This nordstream project just has German cronyism written all over it and I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of Europe is worse of because A few kleptocrats had to make a buck. They should be sanctioned quite honestly.

If gas supply based on that pipeline is controlled by a single state actor, that's the definition of not being competitive. The question is, why are people willing to prop up a monopolistic supplier in that manner instead of seeking real energy independence. Because Russian gas is cheaper right now? That's penny-wise, pound-foolish. The first puff is always free!

> That's penny-wise, pound-foolish.

but if you can pick up the penny(-wise) now, and let somebody else pick up the pound(-foolish), you make bank and leave before the going gets tough.

> All those countries you mentioned are totally free to buy only from the US.

That has nothing to do with their objections to the pipeline, to the contrary.

The Eastern European countries that were formerly occupied by the USSR would prefer to keep Russia economically weak. They don't want to be invaded again.

Why would there be a widespread anything about an issue in countries on a far away continent? It's administration job to care about geopolitics and long term consequences of decisions like building a pipeline. People not involved in politics won't because it doesn't influence their everyday lives directly. It's not possible for them to make a rational judgement about it anyway as they have very little information about the issue.

> a small group of people who are strangely very friendly to Russia on all other matters.

Can you give actual examples of this friendliness? I see it cited very often but I don't know any concrete example. I know Trump has imposed new sanctions on Russia last September, that is sanctioning European companies for the Russia pipeline, and that he's doing anything that he can to destabilise Iran, which is supported by Russia. So it doesn't seem that friendly to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/sanctions-ole...

Maybe you should have asked for 100, or 1000. I can probably come close to 100 though.

Ok, you could have come up with 100 examples. But the only one you give me is one from 2018, where Trump lifted sanctions on a Russian oligarch's companies. But Trump had imposed the sanctions himself some months before, he actually left the sanctions in place on the oligarch's assets and lifted those to his companies after he reduced his stakes in them.

PolitiFact explains well the context in this article:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/jan...

"most experts we spoke to said this is a case of the Trump administration’s clumsiness, not coziness.

Back in April, when the sanctions hit the aluminum giant Rusal, it sent shockwaves through the global aluminum markets. The price of aluminum soared over the following weeks. Europe, which relies heavily on Russia’s metals market, faced the prospect of plant closures and lost jobs. Even now, the European Union strongly supports the lifting of sanctions."

"according to experts, the Treasury discovered it had bitten off more than it could chew.

"They were done clumsily," Alina Polyakova, of the Brookings Institution, said of the sanctions. "It seems clear that the administration did not plan for the dramatic effects on aluminum markets and the knock-on effects on European businesses.""

So the only example you came up with in fact says nothing of the presumed friendliness of Trump towards Russia. Next one.

It's not possible because it is a bit of mass propaganda, from people who haven't yet realized the Cold War was decided thirty years ago and still see a KGB agent under their bed and in every dark closet.

That's why you post under a throwaway account.

The poster you replied to has a point, though. Trump certainly does seem to have many shady connections to powerful Russian figures, but the Trump administration's Russia policy is almost identical to the Obama administration's.

> strangely very friendly to Russia on all other matters

This "friendly" policy is basically not considering what Russia does within its borders justification for military action. This was always the unofficial policy, with the new bit being the Trump administration doesn't pass moral judgement on what Russia does within its borders.

A pipeline between germany and Russia strengthens Russia (increased GDP, increased control over the EU) and weakens the EU (which is full of countries that have proven they cannot defend themselves). Increasing the chance of war with Russia, and creating another mess for the US to clean up.

Seems pretty consistent foreign policy to me.

Trump is also a big fan of Russia's activities outside its borders as we all know. I won't get into the "Russia if you're listening" or excluding American translators from his meetings with Putin, as we can consider one element of Russia outside its borders: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/26/trumps-be...

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