As one living in Germany I have been warning for more than a year that there is a real danger of a pact between Germany and Russia which, when combined with China and applied to the growing axis, or caliphate, supported by Russia in the Middle East, would utterly transform the balance of power in the world and render America's position extremely vulnerable. In other words, there is a real movement, although as yet a fringe movement, in Germany away from America and toward Russia.
Anyone who is inclined to cavalierly dismiss the dangers of such an event ought to reread their history and contemplate the immediate consequences of the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact of 1939.
The idea that Donald Trump or anyone else can simply tell Vladimir Putin that America does not want war and that will "stop the nonsense" is naïve and dangerous in the extreme. International power politics between superpowers armed with nuclear weapons simply does not work that way especially when our interlocutor across the table is a thug who has not the best interests of the Russian people but a revanchist, Hitler like, motivation driving his aggressions.
The best approach to Russia is to undermine its economy and therefore Putin's power position by opening drilling, fracking, distilling and transport of energy to drive down the world price of oil because the Russian economy is utterly dependent on $80 a barrel oil and cannot long survive in a world of $40 a barrel oil. If Putin does not have the cash flow to pay off his apparatchiks who support his power position, his regime must ultimately fall. Russians with whom we are in regular contact with here in Germany are reporting that the economic system in Russia is in trouble.
Meanwhile, Trump is quite right to restore American military power as a complementary policy with energy. A strong America will go a long way to reinforce loyalty of sensible Germans.
