@anneapplebaum

In many ways, sadly, this is merely continuity with #Merkel’s long years of similar behavior in past crises: https://post.news/article/2KcnIE7UfTv3y30V8IqJ8qxMx1G

@anneapplebaum The Bundeswehr policy by Merkel (and Guttenberg, the German George Santos) explains almost all of it tho.

Merkel's official (and subsequently, private) military-security advisor was Brigadier Vad, who nowadays is something like the leader of German vatniks.

It is rather disingenious (but symptomatic for our instant-gratification era) to forget about the last 15 years.

Merkel's domestic policies - the velvet-glove policies towards the extremist Right, her stuffing the police and intel agency leadership positions with people we now know to favour a Putin-style autocracy in Germany - laid the groundwork for the present mess.

If Scholz hadn't become Chancellor, the German state apparatus would now be as pro-Putin as Hungary's (another neofascist government that would not now exist without the generous support by the CDU/CSU, and Merkel in particular).

Merkel is very intelligent - certainly more than Scholz -, but she always thought #democracy was a weakness, and preferred a mock democracy where right-wing extremists called the shots - just like in Putin's Russia. The main problem was that she wanted to control the EU just like Putin controlled the RF - and be equal partners. But Putin wanted her to rule the EU in his stead. Obviously, their ambitions collided head-on. But if you look at people like Maaßen, De Maiziere, Vad and so on - basically every major-league Putin supporter in Germany, except Schröder, was part of Merkel's inner circle 10 years ago.

You want a lead for some investigative reporting?
Try the "Clausewitz-Gesellschaft".
Or ask Roderich Kiesewetter how he gets along with his drinking buddy Johannes Varwick these days, and how come he never noted that the elite club of "geopolitical analysts" he belongs to has been a Putinist 5th column for years.

German politics is a show these days. A shitshow if there ever was one.
At least we'll be producing Gepard ammunition in half a year, instead of not being permitted by the fucken Swiss to provide it to Ukraine...

@proscience I think the allegations against absolutist pacifists for being Putin stooges is often a little too simplistic. There are genuine libs who value pacifism above all else to the point of essentially demanding self-sacrifice and surrender to bullies.

There are of course also plenty of (sadly, often "leftist") "anti-imperialists" who completely ignore that Russia is engaging in plenty imperialism itself, including the invasion of Ukraine, rather than being the victim of US imperialism.

@anneapplebaum