[rat87]

It wasn't thwarted at every turn. Maybe we should have but we didn't, at least not at every turn.

We did warn then it was a bad idea. Other countries especially countries in Eastern EU warned them it was a bad idea. And lo and behold trying to bring peace through trade didn't work with Russia.

Unless Germany wants to exit the EU like the UK it does have to take the interests of other EU countries into account, many of them are much more anti Russia then America for obvious reasons. And even if Germany were to leave, not sanctioning Russia now would still be bad even if only considering German interests

[PKop]

US sanctioned Swiss and Russian suppliers constructing the pipeline, and debated in Congress and Whitehouse various policies to ban it's activation.

>it was a bad idea

It isn't a bad idea. It's a very good idea for Europe. Cheap plentiful energy supply from your neighbor and expanded economic relations would be a very good thing for making Europe economy strong.

Sanctioning Russia is hurting Europe severely. They have massive gas and oil needs supplied by Europe. The sanctions hurt German industry and this energy cannot be replaced by other sources anywhere near similar prices or volumes

[lrem]

It was a very bad idea. "We don't need nuclear power, we have Russian gas" is pretty hard to defend as an idea, really. Especially after Russia went pretty overt in its ambitions to re-establish the empire. And the invasion of Georgia was years before construction of Nord Stream 1 started and Nord Stream 2 went into planning. The annexation of Crimea years before the construction of Nord Stream 2 started.

[alaricus]

Fun fact: the rabidly anti-Nuclear part of German politics is the Green party. Who are also the most pro-American and pro-War faction these days. It makes 0 sense.

[Paradigma11]

I do think that the only pro war faction is not found in german politics but in russia. How are the greens in favour of russians war of aggression in ukraine?