George Augustine Thundiparambil is a writer and translator dividing his time between India and Germany. He has written a historical novel in English titled Maya and has published many blogs and articles on faith and religion in several Internet forums. He is a partner of Geckolingua Translations International based in Freiburg, Germany.
Germany is the most important country in the EU. Will its reaction to the war set precedents that the entire EU is likely to follow?
Germany has made what appears to be a major U-turn. How much of this is because the new Chancellor Sholz wants to get out from under the shadow of Merkel?
Is this a strategic pivot or a knee-jerk response? Will all this result in slower growth?
Nordstream 2 has been put on hold
Defense spend to go up to the desired NATO level 2% of the budget
$100b funds for the armed forces
2 LNG terminals on the north sea coast to reduce dependence on Russian gas
Sending weapons to ukraine (not 5000 helmets)
Buying F-35 US planes
Will there be re-thinking on clean energy? What about nuclear and coal? 80% to be coming from clean energy by 2030?
But Germany is STILL buying gas and oil from Russia. As is much of the EU. That doesn’t worry the US, but India buying Russian oil is a problem? Why the double stds?
Re-arming germany? Is that wise? Does the country become a potential war monger? How will the rest of Europe view this, in particular France?
A fallout from the war has been the normalization of racism, eg. people said bluntly that blue eyed, blond Europeans mustn’t suffer. (Oh, it’s ok if blacks/browns do?)
India values its relationships with Germany and France. Will there be any negative fallout from all this war hysteria?
George has recently started a YouTube channel for his video podcasts titled Faith for Adults.
Ep. 66: an in-depth interview of George Augustine T on the German response to the Ukraine war