Political Observer notes that the scolding of Olaf Schultz, is about his failure to genuflect to the American National Securest State’s imperatives. Editor @zannymb agrees.
Just three days after Russia unleashed its “special military operation” to grab Ukraine, Olaf Scholz, Germany’s freshly elected chancellor, proclaimed a moment of epochal change. The term he used in a speech to parliament on February 27th last year was Zeitenwende, a “turning in time”. The last such shift, known to Germans simply as Die Wende, was the movement of 1989-90 that reunited communist East Germany with the capitalist West.
Listeners in Germany and abroad, notably those who have long pleaded for the eu’s biggest and richest state to take its security more seriously, cheered. Not only did the dour Social Democrat, whose party has since the 1970s preached pacifying Russia, condemn its aggression and lend full support to Ukraine. Mr Scholz pledged an extra €100bn ($107bn)—double the annual defence budget—to boost Germany’s defence, as well as to push future military spending above the goal of 2% of gdp that nato members have promised since 2006, but mostly failed to sustain. He also vowed to end dependence on Russian energy.
…
Briefly compare the above essay, with this portion of an April 23, 2022 Economist report:
Headline: Why Olaf Scholz hesitates to send Ukraine heavy weapons
Sub-headline: Germany has changed its defence and foreign policies, but not its mentality
On February 27th, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Olaf Scholz delivered a speech to Germany’s parliament that astonished even his close political allies. Calling the moment a Zeitenwende (“turning point”), the German chancellor outlined the biggest strategic shift in German security, foreign and energy policy in the federal republic’s history. Earlier he had refused operating permission for Nord Stream 2, an $11bn pipeline to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany which has taken many years to build, but which allies had long warned would reinforce Germany’s dependence on the Kremlin. Now the understated chancellor, who during his first two months in office seemed to have gone into hiding, announced a startling plan. It included an increase in Germany’s defence spending from 1.5% of gdp to the nato target of 2%, the establishment of a €100bn ($110bn) special fund for the Bundeswehr (the German armed forces), and the construction of two liquefied natural gas (lng) terminals to reduce Germany’s dependence on Russian.
Mr Scholz’s new strategy raised high hopes in the western world. Yet eight weeks into the war in Ukraine these hopes are being dashed, bit by bit. Mr Scholz refuses to support calls for a German or European embargo or tariff on Russian oil and gas. Every day Germany pays Russia tens of millions of euros for fossil fuels, even as the war grinds on.
Still more damaging has been his refusal to give Ukraine heavy weapons such as tanks. Ukraine needs them more than ever thanks to the new Russian offensive in the east. Other Europeans are exasperated by German dithering. “This is costing Germany lots of political capital in the European Union and nato,” says Rafael Loss of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
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The reader need only compare these paragraphs of each ‘essay’.
February 23, 2023:
Just three days after Russia unleashed its “special military operation” to grab Ukraine, Olaf Scholz, Germany’s freshly elected chancellor, proclaimed a moment of epochal change. The term he used in a speech to parliament on February 27th last year was Zeitenwende, a “turning in time”. The last such shift, known to Germans simply as Die Wende, was the movement of 1989-90 that reunited communist East Germany with the capitalist West.
Listeners in Germany and abroad, notably those who have long pleaded for the eu’s biggest and richest state to take its security more seriously, cheered. Not only did the dour Social Democrat, whose party has since the 1970s preached pacifying Russia, condemn its aggression and lend full support to Ukraine. Mr Scholz pledged an extra €100bn ($107bn)—double the annual defence budget—to boost Germany’s defence, as well as to push future military spending above the goal of 2% of gdp that nato members have promised since 2006, but mostly failed to sustain. He also vowed to end dependence on Russian energy.
…
April 23, 2022:
On february 27th, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Olaf Scholz delivered a speech to Germany’s parliament that astonished even his close political allies. Calling the moment a Zeitenwende (“turning point”), the German chancellor outlined the biggest strategic shift in German security, foreign and energy policy in the federal republic’s history. Earlier he had refused operating permission for Nord Stream 2, an $11bn pipeline to carry natural gas from Russia to Germany which has taken many years to build, but which allies had long warned would reinforce Germany’s dependence on the Kremlin. Now the understated chancellor, who during his first two months in office seemed to have gone into hiding, announced a startling plan. It included an increase in Germany’s defence spending from 1.5% of gdp to the nato target of 2%, the establishment of a €100bn ($110bn) special fund for the Bundeswehr (the German armed forces), and the construction of two liquefied natural gas (lng terminals to reduce Germany’s dependence on Russian energy.
Hutton had upbraided Bagehot for his arrogance, while they were students together at University College but there was nothing supercilious in Bagehot’s profession of faith and Christian devotion: ‘the highest life is an imitation of Christ’s’ he had written to Hutton in their undergraduate days.
Nowhere does The Reader of encounter the American Act of War, in the destruction of Nord Stream Pipeline? In the February 23, 2023 ‘essay’ the Economist’s focus is the scolding of Olaf Scholz for his ‘unkept promises’. It is an exercise in History Made To Measure, in sum propaganda.
Seymour Hersh: The US Destroyed the Nord Stream Pipeline
Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer.
'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary
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