.Dialog International
Liberal blogger collegue David from Dialog International opens the discussion with a comparison of two contrary approaches: The spread of democracy through force and supremacy vs. a long, multilateral political process full of compromises and never exhausting patience and good-will. My comment for David is longer than his article, so instead of co-blogging I post it in my own blog - and as a newb, here at This Fucking War.
In the long run I think freedom and liberty under democracy is the only acceptable option for this planet but this vision is obscured by regional highly different perceptions of civilized virtues: The result is distrust, based on meta-pictures of what we believe how we are perceived, what our 'rivals' believe how we perceive them, what we believe our rivals believe of us when we propose something - and so forth. From such circumstances trust can not develop but only from own military supremacy. Welcome to the Bush Doctrine - good bye peace dividend. Either you are with us or you are against us.
Ooops! Meta pictures again! Even between...friends!
Russians, Americans and Germans are not so different from each other. I'm not talking about the politicians but the ordinary people. Our nations should be friends, but the USA will have to understand that in a peaceful world Germany by nature has stronger ties to Russia than to America. Any attempt to drive a wedge between our peoples must be rejected. Russia's actual political situation is a minor problem. If Putin was the monster he is defamed he would be the first person George W. Bush could shake hands with - and both of them will lose power soon.
Bluntly: Germany shall not be hostile to Russia only to stay friends with the USA.
2020 @ P.A.F.U
posted by 2020 at 11:49 PM
2 Comments:
I would like to disagree with you on that Germany has stronger ties with Russia than the USA. Although the Iraq war has cooled german-american relationships quite a bit, Merkel and Bush have been both putting some effort to revive this relationship. Germany does have ties to Russia because of the dependency on their Gas and Oil, but I think cultural identity and sympathy definitly swing towards the USA. Also in 2006 Germany exported 78011 Mill € to the USA, ranking them #2, while Russia was only #12 with 23371 mil €. The USA is also the 4th largest importer into Germany compared to Russia which only ranks at #8.
I don't know where you get the idea from that Germany has stronger ties to Russia than the USA, but I hope I've convinced you otherwise.
Anonymous, my approach rather comes from personal experience than from statistics - and as mentioned, from the assumption of a peaceful world.
Since Peter I. The Great Russia tries 'to open the window to the west' and by nature(!) Germany is in the focus of that view. In the last 200 years it have been Germans again and again, who made great contributions to the Russian civilisation. Thousands of skilled and educated Germans followed Russian invitations and moved east to help Russia develop. One of my ancestors, for example, followed Katharina The Great's call and moved to the Volga, where he at once was appointed mayor, judge and teacher. His son served 20 years in the Imperial Guard in St. Petersburg. I think I don't have to explain why my family was forced to move to the west again in the last century...
Today, Russians move to the west, many of them of German origin, but not all. They are the second half of my personal approach. Our nations have mutual relations both as bloody as fertile. If we both learn from history, the perspectives for Germany and Russia must be enormous.
By the way: I was born in West Germany and I've served in a G2*** department of the Bundeswehr.
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