US citizen here. Please use whatever respect you have left for us to continue driving this point. A large portion of our population looks up to EU and the many ways its independent countries operate, but I can see said population taking offense to this as we tend to suffer from short term memory loss, as was the case with the surge of immigrants to the EU after years of destabilization from US intervention and occupation.
Hindsight bias. Lecturing Europe on its energy dependence with Russia on the basis that they should have predicted and planned against Russian transgressions while the US utterly failed to predict and protect its elections and institutions from these same transgressions is the height of hypocrisy. What of the our relationship with Saudi Arabia?
Expecting them to suffer sudden economic consequences when they for decades already done so by bending over backwards for a relationship that has largely given the US the better end of the deal. This would be seen as selfish and counter-productive to an alliance that shares a common enemy during this pivotal moment in time. Democracy's legitimacy is being tested and we both stand to win or lose everything. There are other ways to proceed together in unity and strength; to preserve the progress this system has made while correcting its imbalances so that even better models are procured.
Expressing interest in and taking the initial steps that are required in transitioning to a new form of energy consumption is a process that will take delicate consideration and planning over a long period of time which cannot be rushed without causing serious and immediate repercussions. To expect them to suddenly cease or alter the way they import and consume energy without planned transition or replacement is akin to the "Repeal first, then eventually replace" solution Republicans have pushed in regards to the ACA here in the US.
I would agree with this if the American President wasnt Russia's stooge.
There is no way to "work together" to combat Russian aggression because the piece of the American Government that usually coordinates diplomacy would rather be allied with Russia than the EU.
Thinking the Russian sanction bill is about the EU at all is not accurate. It's really about sending a message to Putin that fucking with our elections will only make things worse for him, and not better. It's why it passed both chambers of Congress with like 95+% of the vote. It is why I have been faxing my senators and representative every day for two months telling them to get this bill passed into law.
It's unfortunate that Merkel wants to be a modern day Neville Chamberlain, and appease Russia instead of standing up to them, but the world will survive and so will Europe. There are other places to buy oil and gas and if they want to put tariffs on US LNG or only buy from Canada, then I would still support these sanctions, because maintaining Western democracy is more important than marginally cheaper electricity.
Europe has a storied history of not dealing with totalitarians in its own backyard, and is doing a bang up job living up to the past, here and is seemingly only willing to condemn Putin up until to the point where it affects their bottom lines.
For those Europeans that say sanctions don't work, I urge them to look closely at their own history and compare modern American sanctions strategy in NK, Iran, and Russia to the European appeasement strategy in the 30's and report back which was a bigger failure.
