“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

Why is that weird? Assuming this is true, there would be rather many people with such knowledge. One of them may feel the need to talk. Would you expect such a source to be named?

Also, I find it a lot easier to imagine why the US would want to do this, than why Russia or Germany would want to do this.

Or, since the pipelines are well known and not difficult to reach, basically everyone with access to explosives, a boat a divers with explosives skills. None of which is particularly hard to come by.

Without sources, everything is specilation at best, consiracy theory BS or propaganda at worst. Personally, I don't even believe half of what is reported with connection to the war in Ukraine.

The level of detail about the operation is basically, some divers from the US Navy attached bombs to the pipeline during a military drill that were detonated with magical sonobouy signals according to some professor who said that might work.

Another red flag: The vast majority of the article was about a political narrative, which really is focused around hurting Russia, and not who is benefited by the destruction of the pipeline. The US government does not own our energy industry and is often at odds with the gas and oil industry here, and this article assumes a level of integration that does not exist in the US political system.

The article itself said that Norway would benefit from the destruction of the pipe line.

I can see the US doing it as they've been vocal opponents to nordstream since its inception, I can see Ukraine wanting to do it although I doubt they'd have the resources, might also have been some other rogue European faction wanting out from under Putin's thumb.

Source with this degree of knowledge would have no issue providing lots of things that could be confirmed through other means. Documents, names, precise dates and times. Who was in charge of this on Norwegian side? On CIA side.. when and where did they meat etc etc etc

Permanently shutting it down significantly constrains options for anyone who might seize power in Russia next.

Destroying the pipelines removed the potential reward for an internal rival to replace him.

This does not make the article more credible, in fact, it detaches the beneficiary one more degree from the actor.

Then the explosions happened, which prevented gas from being transported through the pipelines - except for one Nordstream 2 pipeline, which actually would require Germany to budge for it to be operational. Russia even stated that they'd be happy to send gas through the remaining pipeline as soon as Germany backtracked.

Whether or not you think Russia did it, the explosion had the effect of turning something the Russians had been trying and failing to convince other countries of into a reality.

Putin's rivals make Putin look soft. If they do take power, they will end the conflict quickly and definitively.

Indeed, Nordstream hadn't been running gas for about a month at the time of the explosions. (Indeed, Nordstream 2 also never ran gas). That is critically useful information for assessing who had motive to blow up the pipeline, yet everyone speculating on the matter seems to assume that it was being used at the time of explosion.

I am not really qualified to judge on the verity of the article, but the statement that's there is no strong "integration" between the US government and the gas and oil industry (and other ones for that matter) is absurd. The US fought wars over access to cheap oil (Gulf war 1) has put extremely lucrative deals for their own oil companies into place after forcing regime change (gulf war 2), has highest officials transition to highest jobs in industry (Cheney), has shown multiple times that it will use intelligence apperatus for industry advantages (the spying scandal in Germany, airbus vs boring contracts...). Many (most) US military operations over the last 30 years can be directly attributed to economic motivations.

Meanwhile, the US controversially transferred SEALS to Germany earlier in October 2022[1].

USNS William McLean left a German port 5 September 2022[3] (there are also port call records) and headed to meet the USS Arlington on 10 Sept 2022[2] to transfer cargo.

USS Arlington loitered around docking in Lithuania and only reaching the straight near Denmark on 22 Sept.[2]

USS Arlington then meets the exact same USNS William McLean for another cargo transfer 20 days later and just 6 days after leaving port.

Where USNS William McLean went after I don't know. I know it docked somewhere close as there's an entry for 26 Sept 2022, but I don't feel like paying to know the exact location.

If you were conducting a SEAL operation on the high seas, a San Antonio-class ship would be a perfect launch vessel. A cargo exchange would be the perfect cover to swap ships. Delayed bomb detonation isn't dangerous and could explain why only 3 of 4 pipelines were impacted (aka, something went wrong with one).

I'm not saying it 100% happened (and is somewhat at odds with the anonymous source in this story), but to me, it seems like the US had the motive, means, and opportunity.

[0] https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/31497...

[1] https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-10-20/seals-gre...

[2] http://www.uscarriers.net/lpd24history.htm

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3pp-ehkS2o

Something that wasn't made clear in the article is that US energy companies have been massive beneficiaries of the Nordstream destruction. The US is now the world's leading exporter of liquid natural gas. That wouldn't have happened if the pipeline(s) were still operational.

Heck leveling Kiev will do that too. Could be done in a day.

Meanwhile, all the rhetoric of Russia “saving” a brotherly nation goes flying out the window.

No, one cannot easily imagine long-term neutral countries interfering in a foreign war like this.

Of course it will.

>ground troops from neighbors, EU, and possibly NATO

They are not suicidal, I don't think.

>Russia “saving” a brotherly nation goes flying out the window

Yes. That is the reason war will continue the way it is now: very slowly, and stupid.

Edit: reddit spacing

I'm afraid something as drastic as the annihilation of Kiev will lead to actions that are beyond the usual risk assessment levels. Countries will be compelled to act, (repeated...) threats of nukes be damned. Europe will not tolerate another Nazi Germany on its borders, period.

Put another way, a massive, discontinuous step in escalation will inevitably lead to a similar step from the other side. There is no world in which Germany and Poland go "OK then" and withdraw all aid.

It's like no one had ever heard of encrypted digital signals.

This part made me question a lot more.

Ukraine's military barely held on against 90k professional soldiers and 140k mobilised. It would not stand a single chance against 3 million soldiers and a fully militarized Russian economy. Russia hasn't even called up a tenth of its trained reserves.

Thank you so much for this, makes me start the day in such a better mood!!!

Thus you cannot easily imagine any of the Baltic states, Finland or Sweden doing the deed.

Norway is conceivable-- but they're not really all that active in the Baltic sea, Ukraine is conceivable-- but it isn't actually super easy to do what was done. Blowing up the pipeline would have been easy, but there were several bombs, and they were, as I understand it, quite big, and this would be removal of resources from things closer to the fighting.

Norway is difficult for political reasons though-- would they really screw over their neighbouring countries in the EU?

Thus all these countries are all unlikely choices.

Gazprom would have to abide by it once relations are normalised, or find other countries unwilling to trust it when signing future contracts.

Putin's concern would be the home front.

No, they just don't have the means to escalate this any further (without using nukes).

For someone who is not American, this statement is amusing. The US govt and US military are fully in bed with the US energy industry, when it comes to actions outside America.

US still occupies the Syrian oil fields btw. No one talks about US territory grabbing there - it never even makes the news.

It has a range of roughly 20 miles necessitating carrying it near the location. That "giant assault ship" is exactly what you use to carry one of these. It also explains how you haul a few hundred pounds of explosives down a hundred meters for planting.