“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

If you look at all the players, their interests, and their capabilities, I think the most logical conclusion is that the US likely did it. Of course this is not evidence but this the sort of operation where success means no evidence (at least no evidence available to the public at large as it is possible and, one might hope, likely that neighbouring countries know).

I think it’s plausible that Putin wanted it done. It got Russia out of a contractual obligation and greater isolation of Russian companies makes the oligarchs’ position tied to Putin. The oligarchs can’t go to the West since they’ve been sanctioned and their companies are increasingly barred from doing business in the West. That isolation makes their fortunes tied to Putin’s survival. Think Cortex burning the ships.

In a personalist authoritarian regime the rationality of actions sometimes depends on wether or not the dictator is being rational on a given day.

> If you look at all the players, their interests, and their capabilities, I think the most logical conclusion is that the US likely did it.

I disagree.

The most logical explanation is tha Russia did it as a capacity demonstration and threat against Baltic Pipe to pressure contries in the region regarding Ukraine, but that, like all their threats against the West over Ukraine policy so far, the threat was hollow.

The US have been overtly against those pipelines and the close relations between Germany and Russia, including and especially energy dependency. In fact, a major win of the US so far in the Ukraine war has been the Europeans' and especially Germany's shift in gas supplies from Russia to themselves.

Russia destroying their own pipelines (both NS 1 and the new NS 2 were sabotaged) looks like them shooting themselves in both feet at once. Like doing 'capacity demonstration' by nuking the Kremlin... They could, but would that be a likely scenario?

Many, if not most, expert observers strongly suspect the US for a reason.

Germany gets its gas natural gas from Norway now. It would be unlikely that the U.S. would attack the gas supplies of a major NATO ally. Especially when that ally has been less than enthusiastic in helping Ukraine.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/where-does-germany-s...

They get a lot from Norway because it is near and there are pipelines, but US' LNG exports to the EU are through the roof and will keep growing as things get organised.

Joe talks a lot:

"If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2, we will bring an end to it." -- Joe Biden, Feb 2022, with the German's Chancellor standing next to him! [1]

So at the very least the US thought that they indeed had control over that "major NATO ally" and could make thinly veiled threats to their face. Why you think that the US would be above sabotage on a matter of strategic national interests is unclear.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-vladimir...

On February 22, 2022 German Chancellor Scholz suspended certification of Nordstream2 following Russia formally recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk as republics. I believe that, but can’t find a confirming source, that Russia was obligated to make deliveries via Nordstream1 even though it did not have access to SWIFT. By it no longer being operational it was no longer required to make deliveries.

It is inconceivable that Biden made that comment without consulting Germany. Also it was primarily Nordstream1 that was attacked.

Gas prices spiked and it seems likelier that Russia was behind it. At least to me. I don’t know the truth of the matter.

Washington, under Obama, was caught spying directly on Angela Merkel and her government. What leads you to believe that Washington has ever respected Germany, which it occupies with tens of thousands of troops, as a sovereign equal?

> If you look at all the players, their interests, and their capabilities, I think the most logical conclusion is that the US likely did it.

How so? The pipeline(s) was/were already off, so the US and Norway already had a new customer because of this. If the US risked blowing up the pipeline(s) (which was already not delivering,) it would put NATO in jeopardy which is explicitly against US interests and WAY more valuable than natural gas. The entire theory doesn't even make sense from the standpoint of US needs/wants.

It absolutely does. Blowing up the pipeline took away Russias ability to hold the EU hostage with the energy card.

Why leave one of the brand new, larger pipelines undamaged, so that Russia could then offer after the event to work with Germany to activate it? Which naturally they did.

This pipeline had been completed but activation was stopped due to the start of the war. If Germany had capitulated and activated it with Russia that would be a major political win for Russia and blow for the suggested goals of the US and other allies. To me this seems to be the biggest hole in the theory that the US was responsible.

The pipeline was already not operational. What are you missing? If you think the US had a profit motive (which it seems you are saying this), NATO is much much more profitable than gas which will be diversified over time. So why would they risk the entire NATO alliance for this? Again, the theory makes no sense.

You think Russia tried to send a message by……destroying its own infrastructure?!

It was their biggest leverage over the EU. Now it’s gone and there’s no possibility of restoring Russian gas flows to the EU.

If they were gonna destroy critical international infrastructure wouldn’t it make more sense to blow up something else?

You don't need to demonstrate ability to blow up your own pipeline close to your own territorial waters. If it's Russia (which I don't think is very likely) I find it more believable that it's the result of internal politics as an option of killing the tzar, withdrawing from Ukraine and making a deal with the West to go back to old normal is now off the table.

Russia has blown up their own pipelines at least twice before. Surely it's equally possible that Russia did it?

If what you say is true, why has Russia blown up their own pipelines twice before?

There's this from George Friedman in 2015 The Chicago Council on Global Affairs (@1:38 mins) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eyfTX5n_fdI where he mentions economic relations between Russia and Germany are the biggest threat to the United States.

Also see here https://www.reddit.com/r/jimmydore/comments/10x3yfq/jimmy_do...

I didn’t say a thing about US profit motive. I was very clear: Russia can’t blackmail the EU with energy if they don’t have a way to deliver it. Why would they want to lose that leverage (and their billions in investment)?

And EU industry very much depends on low cost gas (chemical manufacturing, vehicle and other industrial manufacturing, greenhouse heating, etc). There’s report after report of vital industrial facilities shuttering due to high gas prices.

It requires one to be fairly detached from political reality to describe U.S. military forces in German as an occupation. You lose credibility by saying such a thing. You should reconsider the sources of your information.

it prevents the pipeline from being turned back on.

what's the benefit to russia if russia did it?

Both NS 1 and NS 2 were sabotaged.

The US have been hostile for a long time to Germany getting closer to Russia. The war in Ukraine has just been a convenient event to push their strategic agenda forward and so far, irrespective of those pipelines, it has been very good for the US.

All governments spy on all others to the best of their ability. If Germany isn't spying on the US that only means their intelligence service is not competent. Of course more effort is and should be spent on potential enemies, but there is too much in play to not spy on your friends if you can get by with it.

Note that success of spies is not guaranteed. It is possible Germany doesn't have spies in the US because despite trying they haven't found any.

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are not just two pipelines. It's four total. The two pipelines of Nord Stream 1 were demolished. But only one of the pipelines of Nord Stream 2 was demolished, the second was untouched.

https://www.dw.com/en/putin-offers-europe-gas-through-nord-s...

> Russia can’t blackmail the EU with energy if they don’t have a way to deliver it. Why would they want to lose that leverage (and their billions in investment)?

Because the pipeline was already off. The second pipeline was not operational. They already had no leverage.

> And EU industry very much depends on low cost gas (chemical manufacturing, vehicle and other industrial manufacturing, greenhouse heating, etc). There’s report after report of vital industrial facilities shuttering due to high gas.

So, your theory is that the US not only endangered the entire NATO alliance, but also sought to weaken NATO members? Again, how does that make any sense? You also fail to mention that gas prices currently are actually pretty low relative to before this event occurred and Europe never ran out of gas.

On the contrary, it is an objective portrayal of the facts which is not clouded by political smoke and mirrors.

Washington defeated Germany and Japan in the 1940s and proceeded to demilitarize them and occupy them with its own forces. This is historically standard military practice. It is not a "nice gesture" from Washington. It was all part of a coherent strategy to contain and confront the rival USSR, around which Germany and Japan represent critical nodes.

I'm not making a claim that Russia did it, but they would have -more- to gain than the US would have to lose if the US were found to have actually done it...given it would upend and basically destroy NATO and completely isolate the US from its own allies. Hence the theory doesn't hold water.

Without going meta, how about ... the bomb just didn't work?

Can you share details?

Another thing that gets overlooked is that in the months prior to the explosion, Russia had cut off the gas and lied about the reasons why it was cut off twice. Europe kept asking them to send the gas Russia had agreed to send, and Russia kept making up false excuses for not sending it. And then the pipelines exploded, giving them an actual excuse.

The pipe that survived? It would need Germany to backtrack on sanctions to open it. Russia said the gas was ready to flow as soon as they did so.

I'm not sure how 3 out of 4 instead 4 out of 4 (which we don't know why, might have failed, might not have been possible) says anything about who might have done it.

This is the second time in the comments here that I've seen this claim. I don't remember any such events, so could you point me to what you're referring to?

> Germany, which it occupies with tens of thousands of troops

As a German, not just me, when Trump threatened - yes threatened! - to withdraw lots of troops from Germany there was lots of Angst about the economic fallout. US troops are in areas that have benefited, and still benefit, very heavily from their presence.

The opinion that US troops are "occupiers" can only be found in some tiny minority fringe groups, left and right, if even that.

I'm East German even, who even maintained interest in the ex USSR territories, visiting a few times (Ukraine and Russia, both, even taking a two month long Russian language course to refresh my knowledge, so I should be biased towards the Russian PoV, but there is no way I would find your assertion anything but nonsense. Having US troops in Germany is mostly looked upon favorably, even when Germans have not agreed with some of the wars the US fought using them.

There also is a significant difference in public opinion before the Russian invasion and after. Also, opinions and the relationship were worst, by far, during the Trump years. So, during that time, and before the invasion, and definitely after Trump, the opinion was indeed more in favor of the US leaving. For some strange reason Russia decided to help out European-US alliance and to give it a huge boost...

Just as an example, it's not like that hasn't been reported many times since last February:

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/international-...

They include their methodology at the top, including the questions asked.

> Data collection began a week prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Japan.

.

Oh and I'm of the - weakly held - opinion that it was the Russians who blew up the pipeline. I don't understand the questions here about benefits and motives - this has all been discussed to death elsewhere, anyone seriously interested in the topic, and not just wanting to annoy somebody here, would/could just have gone there and read it all. I'd suspect Poland more than the US, they've been visibly mad and very outspoken about Germany's Russia reliance and close ties for a long time, they've felt threatened by the Russians and are right next to them.

https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/68455... -- "Nord Stream 2 as a Threat to National Interests of Poland and Ukraine"

There is no shortage of candidates, and if the governments don't want to talk, not even the Russians making much noise, I see no good purpose behind all this speculation. Especially when people start making strong assertions left and right, based on carefully selected pieces of facts. What a waste of time, but I didn't want to let the "US troops occupy Germany" stand, it's just too silly. Oh, and one pipe of NS2 remaining does seem kind of significant to me. Hardly an accident.

For an elaborate operation like this as described in Hersh's story, would you rig just one? Or would you have multiple redundancies? Is it likely that all of the redundancies failed on the same pipeline, that is also the new pipeline?

NATO is america's show. america would never be shown to have done it-- even if they were, they wouldn't.

The US pays Germany to be there. Germany leases the land US military bases are on to the US. For Germany this provides security guarantees as Germany doesn’t want to increase funding to its own military and provides economic booms to the local areas. This is far from an occupation.

Also as a German, I respectfully disagree with your opinion on this matter.

For the most part, I agree that the US occupation has been benign. Really, they are not protecting Germany from anything, but also not causing many problems. They are perhaps creating some jobs even.

However, when Washington starts blowing up critical national infrastructure to advance its narrow geopolitical interests, that changes.

To be clear, the economic fallout of Germany having to export LNG across the Atlantic instead of through already-existing pipelines is vastly more severe than US closing its military bases (which could be partially reappropriated by a growing Bundeswehr).

British Monarchists made the same arguments about royal troops in the soon-to-be United States of America.

> Because the pipeline was already off.

There is a substantial difference between the pipeline being off and the pipeline being off the table.

What was true 75 years has long since stopped being true. Today no one can reasonably describe U.S. presence in Germany as an occupation. Please reconsider your sources of information. They are duping you and preventing you from understanding present day political reality.

You remind me of the leftists I met when I lived in Kreuzburg in Berlin.

Well, apparently Russia was also shelling the nuclear power plant they had already seized and where occupying, so who knows /s

This comeback applies to whoever did the job. Americans or Russians, or Knights Templar, this was an elaborate operation, and somehow one pipeline out of four did not blow up. Why? Why does this implicate more the Americans rather than anyone else?

Neither of the two sources you linked claim that Russia destroyed those pipelines.

Play out the game theory here. Russia has nothing to gain and lots of leverage to lose by destroying the pipelines. They can just keep the gas flows off FFS!

That doesn’t mean the US was involved but it makes zero sense for the Russians to do it to themselves.

My sources are the well-established historical fact that US has a permanent standing army of tens of thousands of soldiers inside Germany's national borders. There is no need to resort to name-calling.

Start from the beginning.[1] The point is there is no good reason for the US to leave one operational, defeating the whole purpose suggested by those claiming the US did it, and worse, leaving open the possibility of a major political victory for Russia. This is a big hole in the theory that the US did it. There may be good reasons for other parties to leave one operational though. You can speculate.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34712780

It's important to point out here that Russia has done MANY brainless things during this war, things that actively harmed their position in the world. Miscalculating an attempt to change the calculus is definitely a possibility.

Or Russia did it for the internal audience: "Look at what they did the big evil US just wants europe to suffer we are the best"

I'm not sure it makes sense for either the US or Russia to have done it. I bet it was some smaller NATO country or ukraine just whistling in the corner and giggling a little as everyone points fingers.

> Why leave one of the brand new, larger pipelines undamaged ...

Two possibilities:

(1) explosive charge malfunctioned

(2) make plausible arguments that it was Russia who did it

British taxation of the colonies (e.g. the Stamp Act and others) was in the opposite direction. The British government was not paying the colonies for its presence in what would become the US.

Gas prices are low due to American LNG imports. The US have fought entire wars for profit motives and are certainly willing to weaken any country for it, NATO or not.

And yet Trump threatened to pull out US troops from Germany because the Germans weren't contributing enough. What did he mean by that?

> However, when Washington starts blowing up critical national infrastructure to advance its narrow geopolitical interests

Well, that is an unsubstantiated opinion not held by the majority. I did not claim nobody with such opinions exist, one just has to look at the AfD.

Oh and it was Russia that stopped sending gas, long before the pipelines were blown up. You also conveniently don't address my last point, which does not fit the "the US was it" so that's understandable on some level.

> they are not protecting Germany from anything

And the reason for that is that we can hide behind Poland, which is protected by NATO.

There's a huge difference between "off" and "destroyed".

(1): See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713247

(2): Then why blow the other three?

So for the US angle to work here what is the motivation?

At the outset of the war Germany stopped NS2 activation plans and started diversifying its energy away from Russia.

Leading up to the explosion Russia had been trying to blackmail Germany by reducing the supplies of gas. And gas was fully turned off at the time of the explosion. Russia was also playing games with Germany to try to get propaganda wins over the subject of gas by cutting gas supplies on NS1 and saying it was because Germany needed to ship it a turbine. Then Russia was claiming it couldn't receive the turbine from Germany because of the sanctions imposed by other countries. Russia was also saying, well pity that we can't supply enough gas because we don't have the turbine, but we could activate NS2 with you instead. [1]

So the clear motivation for the US could be that they did not want Germany to capitulate to Russian blackmail and give Russia some kind of political or sanction relief. That's actually somewhat reasonable as a theory if you believe Germany was susceptible to it (was it?), and assume all the other levers that the US and other EU allies had wouldn't be enough to keep Germany on the team.

The risk is that doing this and being caught would be a huge breach of trust. The claim of Hersh is that these explosives sat on the pipeline for three months.

The US even warned Germany about potential attacks on the pipeline. [2]

So now if that is the motivation, in this context leaving one of the newer, larger NordStream 2 pipelines untouched would make absolutely no sense. As you leave open the possibility for Germany to still capitulate and worse give Russia a massive propaganda win by forcing Germany to reverse its position and activate NS2.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/business/germany-russia-g... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/cia-warned-berlin-about-possib...

> If they were gonna destroy critical international infrastructure wouldn’t it make more sense to blow up something else?

No, if they were going to make a threat and capacity demonstration against other, active natural gas pipelines in the region, destroying an idle natural gas pipeline makes a lot more sense than “something else”.

(There’s a certain extent to which it doesn’t make sense to make idle threats without the will to carry them out, but that clearly hasn’t factored into Russian action related to pressuring European countries over Ukraine policy.)

Are you listening to yourself? Trump threatened to pull out US troops, which the Germans didn't want. How is it an occupation when Germans are saying "please don't leave." Germans weren't contributing enough is 100% uncontroversially about German contribution to their own military / defense. US wants European countries to spend their own money on their own defense, at least 2% of GDP. Of course EU countries don't want to spend that money if they don't have to, because they're more than comfortable outsourcing it to the US having to spend $ on those countries' defense in the interest of Pax Americana.

That would be outright war, they don't need to threaten that at all, if it got to that point they might as well just nuke Berlin.

You are missing the very, very obvious fact that NS could have become operational at any point. Taking it out physically means that it's impossible without lengthy and costly repairs. The profit motive is there - diversification (if possible) takes time. Companies can and do take advantage of that.

There is one thing that might point towards Russia blowing up their own pipeline: Before the pipes were destroyed completely, the Russians were coming up with all sorts of strange excuses for why they were reducing the amount of gas delivered through the pipes. Even though it was obvious to everyone that the reductions were for political reasons, the Russians kept insisting that there was force majeure. So its not completely unthinkable that they would blow up their own pipeline just to not have to announce they are stopping sales of gas to europe.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/nord-stream-turbine-...

Wouldn’t they have found an unexploded bomb by now?

Or could be Putin cementing his position. Even if you do a coup there is no thawing of energy policy with Europe so now the elites as less likely to try

If your standard of proof is that Russia admits it this conversation won’t go far. Russia is the only one that benefits.

Russia weaponizes energy. Many people assume Russia is rational but it’s just not true. Like John McCain said, it’s a gas station run by gangsters.

> They can just keep the gas flows off FFS!

Russia would have to pay penalties in the contract. They don’t want to do that.

> That doesn’t mean the US was involved but it makes zero sense for the Russians to do it to themselves.

See above points. It is clearly not “zero.”

> That would be outright war

Uh, yeah, Russia already describes the current war in Ukraine as against “the collective West”.

> they don't need to threaten that at all,

Whether or not you think Russia needs to issue war threats to Western states, rhey’ve been doing it a lot inn last year.

> if it got to that point they might as well just nuke Berli

The point of a threat is to dissaude an opponent before it becomes necessary to execute on. Yhe threat. So other attacks that they might do if the threat fails don’t really effect whether the threT might be seen as useful. Also, Russia has made implicit nuclear thrrats to Germany, most, recently over the decisions to send MBTs to Ukraine.

> Play out the game theory here. Russia has nothing to gain and lots of leverage to lose by destroying the pipelines. They can just keep the gas flows off FFS!

Keeping the gas flows off has manifestly not given the leverage they are seeking over Ukraine policy, Considering that there is every reason to believe (whether or not this was initially the case, but note that is one of the explicit Russian justificafions foe the war) that Putin sees Western assistance to Ukraine as both an imminenr ans existential threat to Russia, or at least the present regime, scarificing leverage that had already been exhausted without effect on that issue foe something that has a chance, even remote, Of budging that can be worthwhile.

> Washington defeated Germany and Japan in the 1940s and proceeded to demilitarize them and occupy them with its own forces.

Yes, part of Germany was occuppied by the Western Allies until 1955. And there were sone technical restrictions on the sovereignty of Germany-as-a-whole until the 2+4 Treaty went into full effect in 1991.

But even the later of those dates was almost 17 years before Obama became President.

> It was all part of a coherent strategy to contain and confront the rival USSR

The occupation of the Axis Powers by the Allies, including the USSR, was not part of a strategy to contain the USSR. It may have formed part of the context of such a strategy, but that’s a different thing.

This may be a detail that only investigators know and hasn’t been made public.

The leverage had not been exhausted. Gas flows had been reduced, and the possibility of restoring full gas flows is the bargaining chip Russia had to offer to the EU.

This was why Germany was hesitant to impose full sanctions requested by the US and other NATO countries. They were hesitant to supply tanks and other military equipment.

Since the destruction of the pipelines Germany has capitulated on the tanks issue. Now there’s nothing to gain by working with the Russians because their industrial gas-dependent economy cannot benefit from renewed gas flows.

> If your standard of proof is that Russia admits it this conversation won’t go far.

The sources themselves do not make the assertion that Russia destroyed the pipelines. I’m not looking for an admission from Russia!

> Russia weaponizes energy.

100% agree. Destroying the pipelines eliminates Russia’s ability to continue weaponizing gas flows. The German economy now has nothing to gain by easing sanctions or military aid to Ukraine.

> Russia would have to pay penalties in the contract. They don’t want to do that.

Destroying a pipeline in foreign economic zones does not absolve you of your contractual obligations. That would be a massive escalation and an overt act of war. It’d be much easier and less risky to manufacture justifications for reduced gas flows.

I don’t know who destroyed the pipelines but Russia seems to be the least likely perpetrator of all the players.

The most logical explanation of why you have so much karma is that you write anything that will get you upvoted, no matter how stupid it is.

> The sources themselves do not make the assertion that Russia destroyed the pipelines. I’m not looking for an admission from Russia!

There are no other suspects and Russia does benefit.

> 100% agree. Destroying the pipelines eliminates Russia’s ability to continue weaponizing gas flows. The German economy now has nothing to gain by easing sanctions or military aid to Ukraine.

What makes you think Germany doesn't want gas from Russia? That's the whole reason they sent a few thousand helmets to Ukraine at the beginning of the war. I think the German dream is that the war ends and they get their cheap gas again from Russia.

> Destroying a pipeline in foreign economic zones does not absolve you of your contractual obligations. That would be a massive escalation and an overt act of war. It’d be much easier and less risky to manufacture justifications for reduced gas flows.

No one can prove that you did it. That's the whole point. I really don't understand your comment here.