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Comment by Mlller | Hacker News Reader

“Eastern Europe has been parroting […] Germany stuck its fingers in its ears”

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

“Some of the countries have a figure above 100 because they import more than required for domestic consumption and export other energy products.” per https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/326055...

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Your list does not illustrate what you claim. E.g. Finland was not at all dependent on Russian gas, because Finland does not use much gas, so 92.4 percent of nothing.

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 ;-)

Sorry for my unclarity, but I understand the point at issue (of GP and this thread) to be how a prolongation of mutual economic relations with Russia was not justifiable morally, not how well a country could cope with an abrupt end of these relations economically or in terms of the well-being of their own population. You seem to argue with regard to the latter, and I would concur, although the linked article shows that after Germanyʼs 58.9 percent went down to zero, they either, in fact, could let their population freeze (household consumption went down) or got over it in other ways (a considerable part of the 58.9 percent was industrial consumption).

The point is whether Russia could extort countries (eg: prevent from sending military aid to Ukraine) or not. While a little over half of all gas in Germany came from Russia, Germany was among countries with the highest proportion of gas in total fuel consumption.

In comparison, countries like Finland indeed got virtually all their gas from Russia, but that was only a few percent of total fuel consumption and couldn't be used to extort them.

If that is the point (which is not clear to me from the start of this subthread), it is rather settled: The linked article shows that Germany could get over not buying Russian gas anymore well; and it sends vastly more military aid to Ukraine than Finland – Zelenskyy “noted that Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States” (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/world/europe/ukraine-zele...). (That this took sometimes painfully long has a sufficient reason in senses of guilt regarding war – in fact, both sides still draw arguments from the same history for violently contradicting claims on Germany.)

> [Germany] sends vastly more military aid to Ukraine than Finland

The statistics disagree if you remember to compare per capita or per GDP. (Finland looks bad only if you include the refugee costs in a per GDP calculation - not many Ukrainians wanted to travel to Finland so far.) https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Also, one should take into account that the amount of unnecessary military hardware lying around is not the same in a country that is surrounded by Nato members vs a country that shares over thousand kilometers of border with the unhinged neighbour. Further, you might not be strategically able to reveal in public how much of your stock that acts as a deterrent you have given away while the war is going on.

Marginal note: This statistic covers only the time span until Feb. 24th, so it doesnʼt comprise Germanyʼs “Biggest Military Aid Package Yet” (ca. 3 Billion) – https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/13/world/europe/ukraine-germ... – which probably led to Zelenskyyʼs statement. Dividing by capita or GDP and making geographical, economical, strategical allowances is fine – one could do that in the case of Germany, its imports, exports, closings, openings and other decisions, too.

But this doesnʼt address the point stated by GP as follows: “The point is whether Russia could extort countries (eg: prevent from sending military aid to Ukraine) or not”, proceeding with a comparison in which Germany is heavily dependent, Finland is not, which implies: Germany could be extorted e.g. to prevent it from sending military aid to Ukraine. And this is hardly tenable when “Germany was now Ukraine’s second-largest backer after the United States”.

As I conjectured, the events indicate at some effective extortion, but a psychological one, that is leveraged by both sides drawing contradicting conclusions from the same premises (which does not mean that both arguments are equally sound).

I certainly did not mean to imply that Finland looked bad, of course it looks excellent.

> But this doesnʼt address the point stated by GP as follows: “The point is whether Russia could extort countries (eg: prevent from sending military aid to Ukraine) or not”

But it does, when you take into account the time dimension: Why did Germany provide this big military aid package only now? I think one credible hypothesis is that they didn't provide big support while there was fear of energy extortion and did provide it after the energy dependency crisis was averted.

A big issue for Ukraine has been that the equipment has arrived too late: first we let Russia bomb the country and then afterwards we provide air defence systems. First we let Russia fortify its positions and then afterwards we provide main battle tanks. These delays have caused both destruction and prolongation of the invasion.

Also, it's not only about Germany sending or not sending aid: the Central and Eastern European and Nordic countries have been quicker but they have had to wait for re-export permissions for equipment bought from Germany.

That doesnʼt add up, because one of the most – arguably the most – irritating hesitations affected the main battle tanks (you have mentioned them, too), and that was long after gas imports from Russia and any hopes for a renewal of such imports were abandoned. Thus it cannot be the effect of extortion. Or, if you assume that a secret plan to get Russian gas again has lived on, why then the big military aid package indeed, when gas is needed in the next winter as well as in the last one (when Russian gas imports have stopped not as long ago).

“they have had to wait”: Germany also had to wait for (Swiss) permissions, which blocked the transmission of anti-aircraft vehicles (Gepard). And while that was merely lost time, the prolonged negotiations in the case of Leopard 2 in the end meant more tanks (which were said to be less suited first, but are very welcomed by the Ukrainian forces). This episode, however, gave another glimpse into the actual mechanism that demands caution, precaution. Donʼt let this German tank go to war, or if you absolutely must, only in company with a tank from one of the allied powers. If something goes wrong, hindsight is 20/20, and who will be blamed? In fact: “Nearly a month after Berlin gave European allies permission to send German-made tanks to Ukraine, the flow of tanks so many leaders vowed would follow [if only Germany gives permission] seems more like a trickle.” E.g.: “Finland, where many outspoken members of Parliament led the calls for Germany to allow Leopard deliveries, announced on Thursday that it would supply three Leopard mine-clearing vehicles — but none of its estimated 200 Leopard main battle tanks.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/world/europe/ukraine-tank...

Coming back to what chrysler stated is the point at issue, one had to conclude that there are many more extorted countries.

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