Germany's Gamble: Why the Ostpolitik Putin Policy Backfired 

The failure of the "Ostpolitik" strategy shows that economic interdependence is not a foolproof way to deter aggressive foreign policies. There are a number of other factors that can also influence a country's decision-making, such as its leaders' ideology, its domestic political situation, and its perception of its security environment.

The lesson is, if you’re going to chicken race, make sure the other guy actually doesn’t want to crash.

William: *lines on unidimensional policy space* Trinity: "What's happening?" Morpheus: "He's beginning to believe."

The problem with interdependence between Germany and Russia is that Russia has no fear of Germany and felt it always had the intimidation advantage. This latest situation really shows how much Germany has been pacified since WW2.

I think a further miscalculation on Russia's part in gambling that the west wouldn't care enough about Ukraine to support them long term is that the West realized this invasion would be used by China as a blueprint for a potential invasion of Taiwan. By supporting Ukraine the West is also further deterring China's prospects and delaying them as their window of opportunity continues to close as their military age population dwindles. Every dollar we spend in supporting Ukraine is theoretically going twice as far by addressing 2 wars at once, one real and one theoretical.

As a german myself. We were a bit lucky with the fairly mild winter 2022 and we had no real option for importing gas somewhere else. It was a genuine dependency here. As always it's a lot of bureaucracy before anything get done here so explodimg Nordstream definitely put us under stress for immediate action. The Leopard question was also a great example of this slow progression. Frankly Germany did have a bad look in this conflict.

That economic interdependence analogy was the wurst!

There’s only so much you can do to deter a genocidal monster from starting a stupid war if they’re determined to wage it no matter the consequences. Neville chamberlain found that out the hard way.

A side note: borscht is a Ukrainian dish. Thanks for the video.

_"Though sadly, Germany and Russia do not share a border, and the last time that they did, things did not go so well anyway..."_ 🤣 Well spoken Mr. Spaniel.

I think the biggest problem is trying economic interdependence on goods such as gas. Russia feeling that they could just freeze out Europe was definitely a factor in them deciding on both the invasion in 2014 and now

I honestly think, long term, Merkel will be remembered in the same way as Chamberlain

I think there's also the cultural aspect to consider. This doesn't apply so well after 2014, but I think a lot of Germans wanted to give Russia the same opportunity that we were given after WWII (and to some extend also with the integration of East Germany, though that didn't go so cleanly): To become a part of the Western world and prosper economically and peacefully. Seems like Russia wasn't ready for that.

I think the idea of “trade dependency = peace” works fairly well for democracies, but not dictatorships. Dictatorships have little to no checks and balances, and the people in dictatorships aren’t “citizens to be served,” but pawns to be used by the dictator, with the countries main goal being to serve the dictator’s ego. A dictator won’t care that their decisions will cause hardships for their own citizens or others, and they are used to silencing and repressing any overt complaints by threat, censorship and propaganda.

In Poland we tend to see close German Russian ties as an existential threat.

The problem with this argument and with so many other theories in IR, is that it assumes both sides are logical actors.

Several American administrations and think tanks warned Germany and Europe about growing dependent on Russian energy and how it could be used politically. I'm honestly surprised they don't bring it up and rub it every chance they get. Like a 'Remember When...' from Family Guy.

Lesson should be: don't become dependent on nations that have proven again and again to be untrustworthy. Us Europeans countries are too small to not be completely independent, but we should try to at least limit our dependency to each other as much as possible.

i love the humour william puts into these. it turns watching them from doable to a pleasure.

As an example of how long ago Kant’s work was, it was from when Kaliningrad was still known as Konigsberg.

"Ostpolitik" vol. 2 didn't go as planned due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the Merkel government about that policy. Ostpolitik was not just "soft" trade policy and "Handel durch Wandel". It required a massive military deterrence that at the time of Willy Brandt was backed up by substantial (international) troop numbers standing on German soil. It was an offer to the GDR and SU in kindness, not weakness. It very well might have prevented the cold war from turning hot in central Europe. Brandt did not expect the SU to change just by trading with them, and for his government the influence he could have on GDR (let alone SU) policies was limited. The highly ideological approach by the Merkel government expected some kind of free market magic to happen in Russia which they still confused with the SU. They (to be frank: we all) did not listen to the complaints and fears of Eastern European countries. The most important blunder was the incompentence of the European governments to show their willingness to go all the way to fuck-you-town over the sovereignty of Ukraine. Putin thought the West was too weak for a monolithic response - of course, that's also one of the many mistakes on his side. But our determination was way too subtle for the Russian system to be heard.

Agree: We need to put blame where blame is due, and it’s with Germany, specifically on Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schröder … It’s difficult to forget the German Navy Chief who said in India (in front of a camera) that Ukraine will not get Crimea back …

She is East German, he lived as kgb in East Germany.

As some German once said, "We get old too soon & smart too late."

It's important to point out that EU was treating Russia well. All of their NATO expansion/West hates us rhetoric is garbage.

For Europe to be total dependent on Russian gas was just plain stupid, it gave Russia the leverage not Europe.

"Making ourselves dependent on Russia will give us leverage over them." - galaxy-brain Merkel

0:38 it is true that the average russian (even the ones who are anti-war and now cry about russophobia) celebrated the rat-like behaviour that got russia to gain control over crimea.

One aspect that is badly underappreciated is the presumption that rational actors behave rationally but with authoritarians, it adds an extra dimension to the rationality analysis: the personal interests and preferences of the authoritarian. And by standard economic analyses, authoritarians do not behave rationally and that is consistently reestablished

I'm normally a fan of your content, but this was a bit abstract, and not really accurate. Germany had plans to build LNG terminals starting in the 1970s that were not strictly shelved, but abandoned not long before the Russian invasion. The reason, as so often, was the famous German bureaucracy. It's unfortunately so common in Germany that it doesn't necessarily imply any malicious intent. Most likely in this case, the authorities take all the time in the world to approve a project, especially if it's unpopular as the NIMBY syndrome in Germany is extreme. Some are against the LNG terminals even now. Germany (BASF) had also sold its major storage facility at Rehden to Gazprom, which was allowed to run empty before the winter of 2021-2022. Nobody really knows why even now, it was just kind-of expected that it would be filled for the winter as late as in late 2021 and there was a report about it, some Green politician made a noise about it in September 2021, but it seems that it was nobody's job to make sure that it was being filled. Besides, who listens to the Greens, if Gazprom says there's nothing to worry about (rising gas prices?), then this Green politician should just chill. Again, a bureaucratic thing easily written down as yet another anomaly. Again not immediately indicative of malicious intent, happens all the time - the Berlin-Brandenburg Airport was still the big story. Reaching further back, there was the problem that someone somewhere somehow thought that relying on one trading partner to the exclusion of all others for a commodity as strategically important as natural gas wouldn't cause a problem. Or more likely, it just kind-of happened without anyone noticing, and anyone who noticed it thought someone else must be on it - until the Greens, Annalena Baerbock to be exact, raised the point and of course was summarily waved off, those hysterical Greens again, she should also just chill, why couldn't she understand that we're cool with the Russians and leave the politics to the boys like Merkel did. Looking at things now, it's reasonably uncontroversial that Russia, specifically Gazprom had even more fingers in more German pies that we didn't know about before with all the Putin buddies in politics (all parties ex. Greens), shady "environmental" organisations etc., but they really didn't have to try very hard. Strangely enough though, it's all somehow the Greens' fault nowadays. I wonder how that happened. I guess that's also just one of those things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh dang, I never realised you had such a storied academic background! I looked it up after you mentioned it at 12:02 and it's made me appreciate your analysis and perspective even more than I already do. Thanks for sharing your work with the world!

I found this video very challenging. I should play it several time to barely understand the logic path underneth. But I'm really fascinated by this approch to read geopolitic matters and I will continue to follow professor Spaniel till he will be so generous to share lecture on tube. Great experience to follow you thank you!

The complete, ignorance of Russia’s strategic intentions, greed and naïveté, of the Merkel administration’s policies is shocking. I am sure they are still waiting for that fortune they unexpectedly inherited from a distant relative in Nigeria….

The "Let's trust the Russians" plan never seems to quite work out. If you ever wondered why they are the baddies in every old movie, now you know.

So much wisdom in hindsight!

I think the fact that everyone told them it was a bad idea is baffling Everyone saw the red flags

Thank you! We're deeply divided about Merkel but strongly united for Ukraine in our (German) family.

Integrity is everything. You can never trust someone without integrity.

This was my favorite plug for your book

That was a golden segue for your book. Well done 👏

Germany's current economic model only works with the injection of below market energy, as both a base ingredient for their renowned petrochemical output and directly by providing cheap energy to run the place itself. And secondly by the protection the U.S. has provided for free, since the start of the Cold War, in the form of establishing open trade routes via Naval projection, which is the only way the global marketplace can predictably and safely function. And also by providing direct military protection in the form of NATO. The prior point is acutely important due to the German economy's heavy reliance on exports, This situation is further troubling because of their heavy reliance on China as their biggest export market. None of these positives can be taken for granted anymore.

One aspect we should not forget here is, that Merkels last term was coming to an end. She complained a lot (and many German politicans, even the ones who disagreed with her at the time, agree nowadays) that many politicans did not even consider her anymore when making their plans and voting, because they would not benefit on the long run and just freezing the gouvernment as good as possible would influence the elections in a major way to change the status quo we had at the time. That means when Merkel tried to correct her course, other politicans just blocked everything, so that very badly going course was not corrected, which resulted in the people of Germany becoming less satisfied and the CDU (Merkels Party) lost a wopping 8,8% in the elections. That resulted in the CDU not beeing in the gouvernment the frist time since 2005 and was a real shocking surprise for many in the country.

Always interesting. Keep it up sir.

Thanks for the video William! BTW, I am (or may not be) the troll-bot that posted the predictive text about you being on the Board of Realtors. Regardless of whether the predictive text was genuine (FWIW, it was) or contrived, I thought it was amusing. Again, thanks for this and all of your other exceptional videos !!!

Tnx William , as always excellent analysis , take care always ❤and prayers for Ukraine from USA

Germany's and other countries (understandable) mistake was to expect rational decisions on both sides of the table. The second mistake was to ignore so many warnings from former soviet states (now EU) and the last one and most likely the saddest: ignoring the needs for freedom and peace of Ukraine. Zelenskyy's reaction to the talks between putin, Merkel and Macron was hard to watch. Now a lot changed and almost all for the good, while the losses of Ukraine make it a very bitter improvement.

I bought your book! I’m looking forward to it

Thanks Boss great history presentation.

The Russian GDP growth only took a 2% hit in 2015. It had gone down the prior two years, but that had nothing to with Crimea or Ukraine, but energy and resource prices. In 2016 it grew again and every year until 2020 when it dropped, like tons of other countries did during COVID and bounced right back with a sold 5%+ growth in 2021. It wasn't until this war and people FINALLY GOT SERIOUS and cut off Russian oil and gas imports did sanctions really do much.

2:33- The moment Zelensky realizes what's in store for Ukraine.

Hello William. Just wanted to tell you that i enjoy your videos very much! greetings from Argentina :D

Nice analytics 😊

At 2:30 you can clearly see that Zelenskye is wondering what the hell am I doing here in this madhouse, signing a declaration of war to come.

Great video 👍 but borsh is a ukranian dish ;)

OK, so those Jeopardy! topics were really funny. Nicely done.

Love the way you explain with food top stuff ! %100 !

One other problem is the ideological differences. Democracies are very capitalistic and their top priority is often money, so trade would be better at preventing conflict between the countries. But Russia is bascially a kingdom where Putit has two too concerns. One is his how he will be remembered by future generations and his image. Two is keeping the oligarchs of all the big companies happy aka the nobility. As long as the nobility are happy Putin can be comfortable that he will be able to stay in power.

Watch your videos two or three times before truly understanding the meaning of it. Thank you for doing such a great job 🙏

You are the best writer and thinker on this topic. Matching Perun!

the problem with that line of reason is that Germany's reason for Nordstream was not peace, it was cheap gas. The Wandel durch Handel mantra ("change through trade") was neoliberal marketing done by the lackeys of big companies.

The money they may bring (Putin) does not compare to the money required to ensure ones security. - Mikhail Khodorkovsky

The basic problem was that Merkel thought that she had built a good relationship with Putin that carried weight with him. Plus her reputation depended on dealing with Putin to deliver what Germany needed. So she was in too deep to make rational decisions.

The idea wasn't fundamentally bad, but Germany failed to mitigate their own dependence on the new gas, pushing the line to the left on your chart. The US has the strategic reserve for this reason, but Germany didn't build enough capacity or keep it filled prior to the conflict. In addition, they should have made at least some investment into LNG ports, and definitely should not have rushed to denuclearize their energy mix with no alternative... Great video.

4:55 _"And_ there'd be no more sausage. How sad." But that'd be a wurst-case scenario.

As a russian, i have to say that our opposition warned western countries numerous times. Explaining that you can't reason with soneone who has no reason at all. And that you can't estimate their position since you're looking from a rational standpoint and there's nothing rational about what putin is doing. And you can't negotiate with a bully who's only language is force. And the more concessious you get the more brutal he will get in responce, because it just validates his idea of getting benefits by force. In 2008, in 2012, in 2014 we have warned the western countries on how it al will end up. The responce was - buying more russian gas and supplying putin's regime with riot suppressing equipment. And even after feb 24th Europe was buying russian gas, financially supporting putin's war more than supporting Ukraine. Of course it's easier to blame russian opposition for not taking down the regime, than admitting that this is the entity you have grown and been sponsoring for a long time. And for all these times our governmen speakers told how the Europe is now hooked on putin's fossil fuel and how he will nuke Britain and all other bizarre things that we've tried to point out, it's all been turned down because it's "just internal rhetoric". And look where we are now.

The format. The slides. The narrating. The beautiful set up to checking out the book...completely unabashedly, every episode. The memes. You are truly one of the best William 👌

Thank you!

Always a quality video

I'm also starting to think the entire underpinning of international relations theory depending on rational actors is a fundamental flaw when dealing with the real world.

You almost have to feel bad for Germany. Even when they have a good idea it seems to fail

God bless you, Captain Hindsight!

Czechoslovakia in 1937, Poland in 1938, and the Soviet Union in 1940 all had Germany as their biggest trading partner before they were invaded by Hitler. Russia's biggest export clients in 2021 were China, Nederlands, Germany, Belarus & UK, but as the exports were primarily hydrocarbons, none of those countries were amongst the top 10 of Russia's imports. My take, a major war isn't based upon economics so economic entanglement will not prevent a war and, as with the Japanese oil embargo before WW2, may even increase the liklihood of a war should those entangled strings need to be used as a means of political coercion - look at the current mess between N Ireland, Ireland & Great Britain, where political post-brexit strictures are on the verge of driving a re-emergence of sectarian conflict.

IMO, Putin could have achieved more by selling cheap gas to Germany and gradually enticing Germany away from US and NATO influence and into Moscow's sphere, while at the same time nibbling away at Donbas. Instead, Putin nakedly invaded Ukraine, which like Germany attacking Poland in 1939, was a step too far even for the decadent West. Must be some sort of goofy Eurasianist strategy. We need more Spaniel info. 😂

Thank you

An excellent explanation to an opaque process in full use in international politics. Greed for profit has been winning...for how long?

The reason Trump was against nord stream in europe was energy dependance, and he was right. Headlines > "Trump accused Germany of becoming ‘totally dependent’ on Russian energy at the U.N. The Germans just smirked."

It's great listening to you explaining how Governments of countries want to help Ukraine but have strings attach to it. If they gave what was necessary in offense weapons 12mths ago, it would be a totally different out come today we are watching and seeing in Ukraine and Russia.

Another problem with any such game theory calculations involving parties like Russia and China is a discrepancy of values. For a Liberal Democracy, the cost of economic recession is extremely high to the individual, personal interests of the ruling class. Voters tend to rank economic prosperity extremely highly come election time, after all. However, for an Autocratic nation, this relationship is not so simple. While they certainly like having a strong economy, economic prosperity also comes with risks and complications with respect to regime stability. This creates a problem when attempting to implement an Ostpolitik strategy, because even if the trade balance were perfectly equal, it would still favor the Autocratic side.

It is painfully obvious that Merkel & Macron (M&M) were using Kant's playbook (Peace through Interdependence), while Putin was using Machiavelli's playbook (maneuver your adversary into a vulnerable position and then exploit that vulnerability). M&M's miscalculation was thinking Putin's goals were those of a rational Western European leader (maximize current prosperity to his people). Whereas Putin's goal was to rebuild the Russian Empire by maximizing political control over Russia, maximizing political control over the former Soviet Warsaw Pact nations, while cuckolding Western European countries. Basically, the same goals of every Russian leader in the past few centuries. M&M's obvious mistake was wishful thinking, believing their ears when Putin expressed a desire for peace and tranquility, instead of believing their eyes seeing Putin's army massacring populations in Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, and invading Crimea. And if Putin's army would have succeeded in taking over Ukraine in weeks, M&M would have been cuckolded into meaningless sanctions and eventually resuming relations with Russia as their only perceived course of action to avoid a NATO war with Russia. Putin knew this, acted rationally (risk reward favored invasion, where Russian and Western Intelligence Agencies predicted a very short war). However, Ukrainians had other ideas, having known life under the Russian boot, they were willing to die to prevent that. In foresight and hindsight, NO ONE should be surprised Putin invaded given Western European dependency on Russian energy supplies and the likely success of the invasion. Putin's critical miscalculations were thinking he actually had a mighty and effective military force and that a significant segment of Ukrainian society WANTED to reunite with Russia. Wrong and WRONG!!!! Thanks to Ukraine for preventing Western European countries from becoming a set of vassal states to the Russian Empire.

Just a reminder that Germany at the beginning of the Russian invasion neither wanted to stop trading with Russia nor help Ukraine. It took a lot of international pressure to stop the trade and get them to send anything to Ukraine. That's why I don't believe they ever cared if Ukraine is free or not. Nothing personal. Just business.

Might I mention that the "Borshch" is a Ukrainian dish. Best thing russia has is "Pelmeni", and that's pretty much asian dish. Wait, they do have "Shchi" wich sounds as apetising as it sounds, being a soup of boiled cabbage and some onions.

Going to have to watch this 3 times but it sounds brilliant

The sausage analogy was hilarious 😂!!!

I like the part with the lines on maps. I kept seeing sausages on maps because William kept saying "Sausages". The weisswurst were Ukrainian, Russians were liverwurst and Germans of course, were Knockwurst.

The installation of gas terminals wouldn't have only the US enabled to deliver natural gas to Germany. This was the political BS argument against those terminals.

The best, and the only explanation about economic interdependence I have ever heard

Please make your book into an audiobook!

Borscht is Ukrainian. 😮

Its also worth noting, that if russia had have conquered ukraine in the 3 days it imagined, Germany may not have given a shit. its not just the amount russia pushed but for how long. Germany's ability to turn a blind eye for its own benefit had a time limit.

Caaaaaaant! Love from Australia!

I do wats best for … not necessarily what’s best for the U.S. end of quote? This quote tells a lot of motivation! Mr Tillison and Mr. Puritan shaking hands tells a lot about motivation!!

I wouldn't call it a gamble per say. If Europe (or Germany in particular) had not engaged in mutually-beneficial trade with Russia, tensions would have risen far sooner than they have. Because Russia would have less incentive to keep the peace. Russia's economic focus would've been more towards China for the past 4 decades, and as a result the economic damage Russia experienced as a result of their invasion of Ukraine would be smaller than it is today. That said, I do agree that the general direction this whole thing was going should've been clear in 2014 and Germany in particular (but also the West in general) reacted too meekly to it.

I do not see Germany's approach as a total backfire. Germany's willingness to forgive and pay money for oil undercuts the "moral basis" for Russia's attack --- partly premised on the claim that Russia needed to invade Ukraine to stop NATO expanion. This lack of moral justification has helped unite NATO, and is the one thing that has caused Germany to unite against Russia. Because, Germany can take the moral high ground by saying it tried.

Dr. Spaniel: I am relatively intelligent but I did not GET this from the very beginning. Generally, I really appreciate your presentations.

Hi William! The sequel to Lines on Maps: *Dots on Lines*

I love your visualizations so much. Merkel giving Putin her sausage had me giggling like an idiot.

from a german perspective, Merkel's policies were fairly controversial but it seemed that that hardly concerned her. Especially in the context of her coalition at the time, she played the "russia hardliner" much to the confusion of significant parts of the country. Oh and one more thing: "Kant" is pronounced exactly the way you don't want to pronounce it, yes, I am talking about Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent. I say, embrace it, the aspiration on your -t-s is another great step in the right direction, haha

I Kant believe the amount of dad jokes you are making William.

Que buen análisis Quiere decir que cualquiera puede poner precio a tus vienes

JFYI Borsch is Ukrainian national meal. Officially already by the way. It’s “sausage lovers” in Kremlin claimed it’s russian in their propaganda. As btw many other things and people that were considered by western audience as “russian”though it was not. Make please video about reactions of US politicians on the fall of USSR. Or specifically how US Government Secretary begged Ukrainian parliament not to vote for leaving USSR….