Germany’s stinginess is betraying Ukraine

Bafflement is not quite the right word. Instead, Ukrainian officials and their allies now see Germany through a confused form of anger. Things started out well. Within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, and in response to international condemnation, Germany did the following, against type:

It halted the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, placing it more thoroughly in the palm of Russian fossil fuel suppliers; it committed — for the first time since reunification — to spend more than 2 per cent of its giant GDP on self-defence, per year, in perpetuity; and it announced a €100 billion investment to rearm, beginning that instant.

The most moving speech of that special session of the Bundestag was from the finance minister, of the economically libertarian Free Democrats. Christian Lindner, a fiscal hawk, declared that although many might deplore these increases in spending on the grounds of economy, remaining unarmed in this new era of wars of aggression could be only a false economy.