Contrary to the narrative common now, many European states and particularly a majority of Eastern European states seem to have been more dependent on Russian gas than Germany:

  - Hungary: 110.4 percent 
  - Latvia: 100.1 percent 
  - Finland: 92.4 percent 
  - Estonia: 86.5 percent 
  - Czechia: 86.0 percent 
  - Slovenia: 81.0 percent 
  - Slovakia: 75.2 percent 
  - Bulgaria: 72.8 percent 
  - Germany: 58.9 percent

“Some of the countries have a figure above 100 because they import more than required for domestic consumption and export other energy products.” per https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/326055...

While that is true, Germany is the economical powerhouse of the EU (and the fourth largest economy in the world). I think, these countries' GDPs combined are probably still smaller than Germany's. This gives Germany a special position here which is mainly why they're the center of attention here.

Those all are small countries, with combined population less than Germany.

>It was not nearly as obvious 15 years ago, as it is today, but all the signs were there. We (I include myself here) were just not listening closely enough to the countries that knew Russia the best: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine.

A big part of Germany's geopolitical strategy was (and partly still is) to act as a communication channel between West and East. Similarly to the EU which brought long-lasting peace in Europe through economical ties, the idea was to establish economical relationships with Russia to advance the relationship for a beneficial win-win situation both sides could live with. This, of course, was shortsighted in many ways.

German dependency on Russian gas is a lot older than that. Ostpolitik dates back to the ‘60s.

Jein (Yes and no). Helmut Schmidt even advocated for diversification in 1988 (no importer should account for more than 30% - of course more with oil in mind but the principle stands).

https://www.zeit.de/1988/08/sieben-prinzipien-vernuenftiger-...

Contrary to this, Russian gas imports to Germany used to account for 40% of total consumption in 2012 vs 52% as of today.

> It was not nearly as obvious 15 years ago, as it is today, but all the signs were there. We (I include myself here) were just not listening closely enough to the countries that knew Russia the best: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine.

After living in Western Europe for almost a decade it's still shocking to me how much people here do not understand Russia.

In my experience, right here on HN the dominant narrative was that opposing Russian gas infrastructure was just American protectionism for frackers.

Similarly, opposing Chinese built telecom infrastructure is just seen as an attempt at American protectionism. Hopefully that continues to be a viable position, unlike depending on Russian gas.

Who would have been a better choice?

In the pre-Ukraine war world there were none. Gas was comparatively cheap, pipelines and ibfrastructure was there. So Russia was a natural choice. Now that changed and the world will adapt.

At the very least Germany could have said no to Nord Stream 1 & 2.