Germany and Russia : How very understanding | The Economist
▻http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21601897-germanys-ambivalence-towards-russia-reflects-its-conflicted-iden
Germany’s ambivalence towards Russia reflects its conflicted identity
WHEN Germans add the word Versteher (one who understands) to a term, they generally mix flattery with irony. So a Frauenversteher (one who understands women) is usually a man who boasts excessively about his knowledge of the opposite sex. The label is now being attached to so-called Russlandversteher or Putinversteher: members of the elite or intelligentsia who gush with empathy for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, on talk shows, in journals and at dinner parties.
Avec une conclusion toute en finesse,…
“Germany has never figured out whether it wants to be part of the West,” says John Kornblum, a former American ambassador to Germany who is now a lawyer in Berlin. Within Europe, he argues that “the Germans are the strongest, but are totally without a strategic sense. At the moment, they are almost as dangerous as the Russians.” Ulrich Speck at Carnegie Europe, a think-tank in Brussels, sees the danger as a drift away from Germany’s Western identity and its strategic bond with America. “The more America confronts Russia to defend the principles of international order,” he says, “the more Germany will distance itself from America.” For Europe, as for Germany itself, any such shift would be disastrous.
Pas de signature donc, apparemment, éditorial.