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reGermany lives well off the export of its products. Only it is not particularly successful in exporting its own political values. Most of the countries with which German companies do business are much less democratic than in Germany. However, it is also not the task of the plant or roller manufacturers to sell their customers the construction plans of the German constitutional state. “Change through trade” is an idea that arises from politics. Sounds like a concept. Indeed, it is little more than a hope and a disguise for the fact that in this world you have to do business, including politicians, with figures who are anything but flawless Democrats.
The question of whether food always comes first (prosperity, jobs, warm living room) or sometimes morality after all (there are no agreements with regimes that dismember or poison their critics) also arises in the Navalnyj case. . The demand to respond to the attack with an explosion of sanctions against Nord Stream 2 is countered by many objections in Germany: how the Kremlin deals with an opposition party is none of our business. Nor should you be scrupulous with other difficult clients. And anyway: isn’t the attitude that the world must rebound from German values an unbearable mix of arrogance, historical oblivion, and morally drenched naivety?
But in the case of Navalnyj it is not just about “morals”. Especially the “pragmatists” who scoff at the “values scandal” would have to acknowledge that the West cannot accept Putin’s aggressive course both internally and externally without consequences, even with a cold real political vision. If you turn a blind eye when the Kremlin shows for the umpteenth time that it does not care about Russian laws or international treaties to consolidate its dominance and expand its power, then it is doing nothing. On the contrary: it encourages Putin to keep breaking the rules, not just in his own empire.
The Russian president constantly explores the weaknesses of the West – the dependencies, the disagreements, the inconsistencies – and how he can expand and use them. But, as Gregor Gysi put it, wouldn’t Putin be “absolutely stupid” if he jeopardized the pipeline project by liquidating Navalnyj? Nord Stream 2 is almost finished, and there are still unsuccessful arguments on the line: in the EU, with the United States, in Germany, even within the CDU. Moscow couldn’t be more beautiful. The arguments in favor of completion (“We need gas as an energy bridge!”) Are also music to Putin’s ears. And was not, as politicians and business leaders say, the Soviet Union the most reliable supplier of gas of all time? The only thing missing is that his fall in the West is being regretted again. As early as 1991, not only the old Moscow Communists were in mourning.
The West could turn the tables
But yes, the gas also flowed under the red star. At the time, however, Ukraine was still an obedient Soviet republic. And the other countries of the Eastern Bloc were also under the yoke of Moscow. In the West, however, the Kremlin had to grapple with statesmen (and Margaret Thatcher!) Who made it clear that there was something inviolable: freedom, democracy and the rule of law, at least on their side of the Iron Curtain. The Soviet empire failed because of its contradictions and the strength of the West (for example, with the double decision of NATO), but hardly because of trade with the “capitalists”. The latter tended to prolong the life of the communist regime and did not prevent the rise of Putinism after the radical change.
But economic relations also give Western politics an opportunity to influence. Moscow depends on income from energy exports to finance its chess and war moves. The West could also turn off the gas the Kremlin used to torture insubordinate Ukraine, if the threat to stop gas and turn off money if Putin crossed the red lines were credible. These border violations also include the use of an internationally prohibited chemical weapon in one’s own country.
He can do business with the Kremlin if the Kremlin knows it doesn’t have to do with him. Anyone who constantly talks about values, but does not orient his own policy towards them and their interests, ends up paying a price that has dimensions completely different from the possible compensation for a pipeline in the Baltic Sea that should never have existed. Navalnyj has woken up from a coma. But Berlin, which had condemned the attack “more strongly”, is threatened with fainting again.
