Germany

We occasionally hear of examples where a person risks personal loss by standing up for principles but it is rare indeed when an entire country does this and that is what happened in Germany. Germany is the economic power house of Europe where manufacturing leads the way and their industries are dependent on an inexpensive supply of natural gas. It is critical for their chemical industry as well as home and factory heating. Before the Ukrainian War, Germany faced a decision which would determine the security of their country. They could side with Putin against Ukraine and keep the natural gas flowing or they could side with NATO and lose this valuable source of energy and they chose the latter. The country is now in a recession with high energy cost and forced to ship their manufacturing business to places like the US. This combined with the demographic problem of too few working age citizens is causing the world's forth largest economy to go into a tail spin. The US is building natural gas export facilities and Germany is building ports to receive the gas but this will take time during which Germany will suffer the consequences of their decision to side with NATO. They were willing to walk the talk and follow principal. Kind of refreshing.