The argument is on everyone's lips.

Our purchases of Russian natural gas and Russian coal fund Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.

Within a few weeks of the war, that is a quick turnaround in the German discussion.

Trade with Russia was once considered a harbinger of peace, now it is said to be an accomplice of war.

Patrick Welter

Correspondent for business and politics in Japan based in Tokyo.

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The gas deals with the Soviet Union and then with Russia were initiated in 1970 under the social-liberal coalition.

Until now, they have been seen as a means of promoting rapprochement and peaceful coexistence through trade.

The delivery of Mannesmann tubes to the Soviet Union in 1970, which was ultimately paid for in gas, ended a year-long NATO embargo on the supply of tubes to the Eastern Bloc.

But have the energy supplies from Russia contributed to greater understanding and peace in Europe?

This is controversial, just as Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik was controversial.

The Europeans owe the decades of peace after the Second World War above all to the balance of terror, the mutual threat of nuclear annihilation.

It would also seem daring to attribute the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union to German trade with the East.

On the contrary, one can argue that the natural gas deals provided the Soviet Union with foreign exchange that delayed the collapse of the communist regime.

But that is different from the question of whether trade with the Soviet Union and Russia served peace in Europe.

Those who trade with each other do not shoot at each other.

As an argument, this is just as plausible as the political and moral slogan that the West should not finance Russia's wars.

Russia and Ukraine don't trade much with each other

The thesis of peace through international trade is not a liberal myth.

It is supported by a large number of empirical studies.

"Armed conflicts between two states become less likely if the states involved trade a lot with each other," says the Bonn sociologist Erich Weede, summarizing an overview of the research.

Some of the studies also indicate that not only international trade but also foreign investments or the openness of the financial markets reduce the risk of war.

Weede and others commonly call this the theory of "capitalist peace".

The war between Russia and Ukraine does not refute this theory.

Despite the geographical proximity, Ukraine was only 16th in the ranking of Russia's most important trading partners last year, while Germany was second after China. Russia's trade with Ukraine was worth only a fifth of German-Russian trade.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine offer economic freedom, which according to the thesis of capitalist peace reduces the likelihood of conflict.

The Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index places Russia and Ukraine at 113th and 130th, respectively.

More prosperity is more likely to lead to democratic forms of government

The First World War is often cited as the most important counter-example to the thesis of peace through free trade, because with the first push towards globalization the countries were generally closely intertwined economically.

But even then, the expected correlations were evident.

Franco-German trade was of little importance to the two warring states.

Austria-Hungary traded extensively with ally Germany, but considerably less with France, Russia, or the United Kingdom.

Before the Second World War, trade relations had generally thinned out.