Chancellor Olaf Scholz took just days to announce seismic shifts in Germany’s military, foreign and economic policies after Russia invaded Ukraine. Germany would plough 100 billion euros ($107 billion) into revamping the army, send weapons to Kyiv and wean itself off Russian energy. Wracked by guilt over the Holocaust, post-war Germany has always tread lightly on the world stage and pursued a pacifist approach when it came to conflicts. Until then, Germany was happy to take on the mantle of Europe’s leading economic force, but not a military power. After months of scrambling for new energy sources, Scholz recently proudly proclaimed that Germany is now “independent from Russian gas”.
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