- and all the while define the upcoming economic and security policy for Europe over the next 20 years?
He even says it three times in a row, just for good measure, its hard to miss - like, you know, when you come up with a thought, and then repeat it three times in a row, because… Oh sorry - no one is going to do that, unless they’d want it to stick - as they didnt at all come up with it on the spot. Oh yes, and like, when you then add a “this is not zero sum, because Japan will still be needing Germany and Germany needs Japan” at the end, just for good measure. Because, you know, you do.
But dont worry - Japan would even be willing to take Ukraine refugees. Hes sure of it, although he doesnt represent the japanese government of course. But with prospects like these…
G.M.F. delivers
(The best thing to do is to do nothing at all (despite keeping the public enemy image up for more than a year, and possibly years), and stick together, even though we fully anticipate this to become a long war of attrition - otherwise China might get ideas in terms of whats feasible, and also Japan is exposed to/dependent on less than a 10th of german energy needs from russian exports, so the best thing really is to be patient and stick this through - then Japan gets the investment Germanys not going to get, while the US will not be exposed at all, while China will not get the idea, that calculating strategies derived from Russias attack costs is a worthwhile thing, and everything can stay like it is, just with Germany getting completely ramrodded in the process, oh and Ukraine of course…)
Want to see a middling US college history professor go into a third round of “keep germany down” rhetorics, and classify it as the first country that would try to break out of a joint Nato position, distinctly even more so than Turkey?
The money quote to look for is “we’ve got to keep our eyes on germany and keep them in line”.
Wonderful.
Also, of course, everyone on the G.M.F. panel can agree, that this is a “patience game” - sorry, war of attrition, that will play out in the Ukraine.
This one is for the (western) values, I think. So much values, Doge amount of much values. Is the pope in Kyiv yet? edit: He has. Finally!
