And further, Germany screwed themselves on energy policy with the rash shutdown of all their nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima. Part of this was driven by the influence of their Greens.
I’ve said for a long time that you can’t run a modern civilization on wind and solar, and Germany has proved it. Instances of energy poverty, with people struggling pay to heat their dwellings, are a thing.
NS2 is a natural follow on to attempt to improve the situation created by their previous bad policy.
But the Why NATO? discussion must be had. If Germany is safe enough with respect to Russia to become highly energy dependent on them, how does this jive with the need for a mutual defense structure like NATO built around defending against a Russian attack? For Germans to act as if the US move is just ugly Americans getting involved in something we have no business in is completely absurd.
In 2017 about half of Germans strongly supported NATO. In April this year only 22%. There are similar numbers for UK. In France only 9% support NATO.