Usually minorities are able to impose "wins" on a majority when the price of compliance is lower than the price of defiance.
This is not the case with AI. The stakes are enormous. AI is full steam ahead and no one is getting in the way short of nuclear war.
In Germany we have still traumas from automatic machine guns setup on the wall between East and West Germany. The Ukraine is fighting a drone war in the trenches with a psychological effect on soldiers comparable to WWI.
Stake are enormous. Not only toward the good. There is enough science fiction written about it. Regulation and laws are necessary!
Plus, ironically, Germany's Rheinmetall is a leader in automated anti-air guns so the people's phobia of automated guns is pointless and, at least in this case, common sense won, but in many others like nuclear energy, it lost.
It seems like Germans area easy to manipulate to get them to go against their best interests, if you manage to trigger some phobias in them via propaganda. "Ohoohoh look out, it's the nuclear boogieman, now switch your economy to Russian gas instead, it's safer"
Only if you're a corrupt German politician getting bribed by Russia to sell out long term national security for short term corporate profits.
It was also considered a stupid idea back then by NATO powers asking Germany WTF are you doing, tying your economy to the nation we're preparing to go to war with.
> The idea was to give russia leverage on europe besides war, so that they don't need war.
The present day proves it was a stupid idea.
"You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war." - Churchill
Yes it was naive, given the philosophy of the leaders of the UdSSR/Russia, but I don't think it was that much problematic. We do need some years to adapt, but it doesn't meaningfully impact the ability to send weapons to the ukraine and impose sanctions (in the long term). Meanwhile we got cheap gas for some decades and Russia got some other trade partners beside China. Would we better of if we didn't use the oil in the first place? Then Russia would have bounded earlier only to China and Nordkorea, etc. . It also did have less environmental impact then shipping the oil from the US.
France and Germany were democracies under the umbrella of the US rule acting as arbiter. It's disingenuous and even stupid, to argue an economic relationship with USSR and Putin's Russia as being the same thing.
Did the US force France into it? I thought that it was an idea of the french government (Charles de Gaulle), while the population had much resentment, which only vanished after having successful business together. Germany hadn't much choice though. I don't think it would had lasting impact if it were decreed and not coming from the local population.
You could hope making Russia richer, could in them rather be rich then large, which is basically the deal we have with China, which is still an alien dictatorship.
It was a major success, contributing to the thawing of relationships with the Soviet Union and probably contributed to the peaceful end of the Soviet Union. It supported several EU countries through their economic development and kept the EU afloat through the financial crisis.
It was a very important source of energy and there is no replacement. This can be seen by the flight of capital, deindustrialisation and poor economic prospects in Germany and the EU.
But as far as I know, many countries still import energy from Russia, either directly or laundered through third parties.