[laGrenouille]

But arguably the EU is even more motivated by the security issues of an emboldened Russia. Combined with the much stronger environmental push from groups in Europe, it seems reasonable that they would push as much or more for energy-based sanctions against Russia.

[mytailorisrich]

There is no to very little security issues. Russia is never going to attack the EU/Nato, which are many times stronger that it is, and we've seen that Russia is already struggling in Ukraine.

At the moment Europe is going through a self-inflicted crisis that is not justified, be it by security or "the environment".

It may be reasonable to decrease dependency on Russia but the sensible way is to have alternatives in place first.

Edit: Baltic states are in Nato, so my comment fully applies to them.

Saying that "Russia did invade Ukraine so they could attack Nato" is equivalent to saying "the US invaded Iraq so they could attack China". It is plainly a rhetorical fallacy.

[jleyank]

Err, baltic states? Formerly part of USSR albeit only since 1940.

EDIT: Finland was also part of Russia.

[ben_w]

How much are you willing to bet on that? I saw plenty of people saying before the invasion that it would be irrational for Putin to invade and therefore he wouldn't. He did it anyway and we can easily see from how badly it's gone so far that it wasn't rational, so the obvious conclusion is that he's not acting rationally.

[jleyank]

He might be relying on people's grasp of history being terrible and that they have far more desire to be warm than concerned about naked aggression. Which is probably true, although frustrating after all of the examples Europe provided itself in the 1800's and 1900's.

[treis]

>I saw plenty of people saying before the invasion that it would be irrational for Putin to invade and therefore he wouldn't.

I didn't, but nevertheless there's a difference between "it's irrational because the cost is higher than the benefit" and "it's irrational because there's no benefit to getting your ass kicked".

[ben_w]

Isn’t one of those a subset of the other? Both look kinda like they’re applicable to Russia right now, but I’m aware my sense of scale may be wrong for stuff like this.