Germany, President Trump charged yesterday at the NATO summit, is “a captive of Russia.” He was referencing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which, when completed, will enable Germany to get much of its natural gas from Russia.
By any other criteria, Germany might be said to be less of a Russian captive than Trump himself, though what Russian bounty has flowed to Trump over the years remains the subject of investigation—and is not the subject of these jottings.
Because the phenomenon of energy dependency upon a politically backward state compromising a nation's values is one Americans should know all too well. If Germany is a captive of Russia, then America is a captive of Texas.
The baleful influence of the oil industry on U.S. policy extends well beyond the climate-worsening policies of the Trump administration and the Republican Party (and some of the Democratic Party) generally. Dating back to the Hunt family and beyond, the oil fortunes of Texas, Oklahoma, and the rest of the fossil-fuel belt have funded generations of reactionary campaigns against liberal and moderate candidates in races where energy policy didn't figure at all.
For that matter, energy dependency has been the basis of U.S. support for the repressive monarchy of Saudi Arabia since 1945, even though the Islamic fundamentalism that the regime has supported and fostered has helped spawn the very terrorist organizations the U.S. has spent a fortune combating.
So Trump should be careful about alleging that energy dependency can compromise a nation's values and safety. By that metric, it's us—not the Germans—who are the club champions.
