Germany has woken up from its European hegemony, always hidden by the weight of a turbulent history, and has found itself to be a giant with feet of clay in front of a changed world in which it must navigate with new radars. The war in Ukraine has forced Chancellor Scholz to increase defense budgets and to urgently seek alternatives to the energy supply that still comes largely and for some time from Russia.
Putin was a partner with whom Angela Merkel spoke Russian and whose former chancellor Gerhard Schröder became an employee shortly after leaving office in Berlin, a revolving door of cosmic dimensions. Putin was a comfortable energy ally and today he is his worst enemy. Long-term mistakes are the most dangerous because they take a long time to correct.
The sad paradox is that what is still paid to Russia for the gas it administers at its convenience to Germany and other European countries, Spain among them, serves to finance Putin's war of conquest, which, unilaterally, wants to recover an empire Lost. Germany has changed course and stopped being pacifist after Scholz's speech in the Bundestag three days after the invasion of Ukraine. Europe, mainly that which was subjected to the directives of the Kremlin after Yalta, has no other choice but to follow in its footsteps. The parameters of the economy and security are changing. The energy can also come from the south and Scholz will have to convince Macron to speed up the procedures for the gas pipeline that is stuck in some five hundred kilometers on both sides of the Pyrenean border.
What an obsession the French have, historically, that the Pyrenees remain a difficult wall to cross instead of a natural and beneficial passageway, especially since we are part of the European Union and despite the millions of French who visit our country , of commerce and of the great influence of French culture in the more cultured environments of Catalonia and Spain.
The truth is that Scholz must give a blow to the rudder, stop depending on Putin and lead a bewildered, turbulent Europe, with far-reaching political changes on the horizon. Movements of sympathy or understanding towards Putin are relevant in extreme right and radical left parties in France, Italy, Spain and Hungary.
Both Scholz and Macron know that Russia exists, is very powerful and has the capacity to alter the international order. Russia has shaped world politics ever since Napoleon came up with the triumphant military excursion across the Russian steppes in the winter of 1812 that Tchaikovsky sarcastically immortalized in his famous overture and that Tolstoy described in the great novel War and peace The participation of Stalin's Russia in the defeat of Hitler was decisive.
Russia is governed by the parameters of a very weak State and a Machiavellian instinct of all the leaders who have governed that immense country since the time of Peter the Great. And Putin is no exception. The Soviet empire collapsed with Gorbachev's perestroika, but the expansionist obsession of the Russians lives on.
Germany's and Europe's relations with Russia do not rest only on energy and trade, but on the alliances and wars that have shaped mutual history over the past thousand years.
Germany will not face the challenge alone. It needs France and the rest of Europe, including Great Britain. Putin can conquer part or all of Ukraine with as many dead Russians and Ukrainians as he needs. But the patriotic feeling of Ukrainians and their independence from the Kremlin are sealed for future generations.
In this overall board there are two fundamental and decisive pieces. China is the second world power and its interests extend to all continents. Its military power is being openly displayed in the Taiwan Strait, after Nancy Pelosi's disconcerting visit to the island that the Chinese consider theirs.
The great unknown is whether the next president of the United States will maintain Atlantic ties and make common cause with Europe in the defense of democracy, freedoms and open trade. Joe Biden is trying to do this despite the fact that there are not a few who criticize Washington's European dependence. The alternative seems much worse and riskier to me. The history of the 20th century speaks for itself.
