Ostpolitik

One of the paradoxes of Ostpolitik, as practiced by Brandt and his successors, was that by transferring large sums of hard currency into East Germany and showering the GDR with recognition, attention, and support, West German officials unintentionally foreclosed any chance of internal change, including reform of Eastern Germany’s polluted, antiquated industrial economy.

Since Ostpolitik, the normalisation of relations between then West Germany and the east, policy has been predicated upon Russia being a status quo power, not an imperialist one.