If Europe were a big customer for Russia energy, it seems like Russia would have an incentive to not antagonize it.

Oh, see how well it went.

microtonal 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It also works the other way around and I am pretty sure that was what Russia was betting on - with Europe's dependence on Russian energy, Europe would not react strongly to Russia's invasion.

That did not go as expected for Russia either.

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arrrg 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It worked until it didn’t. That’s how it goes. Peace is always hard work and irrational actors (in terms of: well being of people, not necessarily aspirations of empire) can muck everything up.

Economical co-dependency is a good tool for increasing the price of going to war and making it irrational. It’s also not a zero sum game and tends to profit both sides. However, it can suck if you do it with non-democratic regimes and autocratic rulers who trample human rights.

So between France, Germany, Poland and all the other EU members it‘s keeping the continent at peace and generally does not suck because it‘s between broadly democratic nations. It also benefits each one massively and makes things possible like a common electric grid that increases reliability in general. So nearly all upside.

I do think economic cooperation with the Soviet Union and later Russia - much, much more limited than between EU members - was helpful in cooling tensions and making the world a bit safer, sure, but Russia has clearly behaved in a way that makes that no longer a good idea.

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rsynnott 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

China is usually seen (I think broadly correctly) as more of a rational actor than Russia. Russia is much more run for the benefit of a weird dictator than run as a country.

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jhrmnn 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Europe was a bit customer for Russia energy, and Russia invaded an EU neighbor nonetheless. After which it stopped being the customer. So it seems like that incentive didn't really work.

	▲	mekdoonggi 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think that was raincole's point. I guess we can't account for Russia or the US making decisions that are completely counter to the benefit of their people.
	▲	mrweasel 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Had Russia indeed invaded Ukraine in three days, I don't think the EU today would have been any less dependent on Russians energy than in 2022.

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ZeroGravitas 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Russia did have a big incentive to not antagonize Europe.

But sadly they have a political system that doesn't reflect what is best for the ordinary person. So those incentives can be ignored by those making the decisions.