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“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

(seymourhersh.substack.com)
688 points hunglee2 | 27 comments | 08 Feb 23 12:50 UTC | HN request time: 1.662s | source | bottom
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mmastrac ◴[08 Feb 23 19:03 UTC] No.34713024[source]▶
It's a great story, but it's all unsourced and could be a decent Tom Clancy story at best. You could probably write a similar one with Russia or German agents as the key players and be just as convincing.

The only anchor in reality appears to be Biden suggesting that they knew how to take it out which seems like a pretty weak place to build a large story.

What I find particularly odd is that this entire thing appears to be based on a single, unnamed source "with direct knowledge of the operational planning".

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vanviegen ◴[08 Feb 23 19:11 UTC] No.34713169[source]▶
> What I find particularly odd is that this entire thing appears to be based on a single, unnamed source "with direct knowledge of the operational planning".

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.

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1. hef19898 ◴[08 Feb 23 19:15 UTC] No.34713249[source]▶
You can easily imagine any of the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine (with some local help) or even Finland, Swede or Norway doing the deed.

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.

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2. thwayunion ◴[08 Feb 23 19:23 UTC] No.34713395[source]▶
At that moment in the war, even Putin had a lot of strong motivations -- lock out the option of bringing Nord Stream back online and close to door on de-escalation. As a side-benefit, the possibility of driving a wedge into NATO. I also found https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34713402 interesting. Who knows.
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3. hef19898 ◴[08 Feb 23 19:26 UTC] No.34713439[source]▶
Well, someone did it. If somebody knows who, they are not telling.

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.

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4. thwayunion ◴[08 Feb 23 19:28 UTC] No.34713485{3}[source]▶
Agreed. One of those situations where everyone wants to blame everyone else for a "terrible" thing that happened, but at the same time don't really GAF because all sides were okay with finalizing a clean break between Europe and Russia for a variety of domestic and IR reasons anyways.
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5. hef19898 ◴[08 Feb 23 19:34 UTC] No.34713598{4}[source]▶
Now I picture a virtual waiting line of covert divers and motivated activists in front of the pipelines waiting for their turn to try it. And being pissed someone else was first! Maybe they have a class reunion of sorts ten years from now!
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6. Laaas ◴[08 Feb 23 20:31 UTC] No.34714537[source]▶
Why do you think Putin is against de-escalation? The post you links to proposes a not very sensible argument: We are talking about _nation states_. The law isn't as black and white, Gazprom would not pay any fines put on it by a court of the enemy. Even if they were to pay fines put on them, why would this in any way reduce fines? Even if it were to reduce the fines, why would that be worth more than two pipelines there were full of methane? It sounds very implausible.
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7. marginalia_nu ◴[08 Feb 23 21:03 UTC] No.34715105[source]▶
Putin was already effectively doing that, by demanding payment in rubles and making weird terms. If Putin wanted to shut down Nordstream, he'd just stop sending gas. What was Europe going to do, sanction him more?

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.

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8. mlyle ◴[08 Feb 23 21:44 UTC] No.34715722{3}[source]▶
> If Putin wanted to shut down Nordstream, he'd just stop sending gas.

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

9. VintageCool ◴[08 Feb 23 21:57 UTC] No.34715942{3}[source]▶
The "Putin did it" hypothesis was that he did it to prevent internal replacement. Suppose that some Russian rival wanted to replace him. They could kill or imprison Putin, end the war in Ukraine, restart the gas pipelines, and have a lot of gas money from Europe to distribute to supporters.

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

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10. bnralt ◴[08 Feb 23 22:14 UTC] No.34716200{3}[source]▶
The Russians had been claiming in the months before the explosion that sanctions were keeping them from delivering gas, and that Europe needed to back off sanctions if they wanted gas to flow. Europe called them out and said this was obviously a falsehood.

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.

11. landemva ◴[08 Feb 23 22:47 UTC] No.34716674{4}[source]▶
> Suppose that some Russian rival

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

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12. Animatronio ◴[08 Feb 23 23:13 UTC] No.34717021{4}[source]▶
Nah, that's too simple an explanation. Someone in China obviously wanted cheap gas, so they had to force the Russians to stop selling to Europe and turn eastward. But it can't be Xi because he was enforcing the lockdown, so must've been someone else. My money's on Jack Ma - rich, powerful, directly interested in getting the economy running at full speed again.
13. jcranmer ◴[08 Feb 23 23:15 UTC] No.34717051{3}[source]▶
> If Putin wanted to shut down Nordstream, he'd just stop sending gas.

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.

14. archagon ◴[09 Feb 23 00:12 UTC] No.34717736{5}[source]▶
There is no mechanism by which the war can be ended quickly and definitively without global murder-suicide. (Aside from Russia leaving, of course.)
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15. bee_rider ◴[09 Feb 23 01:08 UTC] No.34718304{5}[source]▶
A dozen divers of the joint US-Russia-Ukraine-Germany “diplomacy simplification strike force” show up only to find the wreckage of the pipeline. Floating nearby, the telltale calling-card, a globe emblazoned on a white flag… Greenpeace!
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16. ClumsyPilot ◴[09 Feb 23 01:13 UTC] No.34718351[source]▶
this is silly - no-one blows up their own assets. This pipeline was hard-won for Russia, they would not destroy it
17. throwA29B ◴[09 Feb 23 01:24 UTC] No.34718449{6}[source]▶
Huh? Indiscriminate bombing US-style will do that in a flash.

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

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18. archagon ◴[09 Feb 23 01:29 UTC] No.34718496{7}[source]▶
If Russia levels Kiev and starts moving in to the rest of the country, a) Ukraine will almost certainly not surrender, leading to prolonged insurgency, and b) I expect ground troops from neighbors, EU, and possibly NATO will come into play.

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

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19. yencabulator ◴[09 Feb 23 01:38 UTC] No.34718585[source]▶
> even Finland, Swede[n]

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

20. throwA29B ◴[09 Feb 23 02:08 UTC] No.34718852{8}[source]▶
>Ukraine will almost certainly not surrender

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

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21. archagon ◴[09 Feb 23 02:14 UTC] No.34718892{9}[source]▶
> They are not suicidal, I don't think.

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.

22. sudosysgen ◴[09 Feb 23 05:04 UTC] No.34719988{6}[source]▶
Of course there is. Mass mobilization and a war economy would do the trick. Many of Putin's rivals are calling for exactly that.

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.

23. hef19898 ◴[09 Feb 23 06:03 UTC] No.34720287{6}[source]▶
>> joint US-Russia-Ukraine-Germany “diplomacy simplification strike force”

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

24. impossiblefork ◴[09 Feb 23 11:30 UTC] No.34722418[source]▶
The Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden and so on, all understand that they have duties to Germany due to their EU membership and further understand that they are dependent on the German economy and that any action of this kind, which jeopardises the German economy, jeopardises also them.

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.

25. _djo_ ◴[09 Feb 23 11:56 UTC] No.34722647{3}[source]▶
International contract arbitration wouldn't be handled by 'a court of the enemy', but by a neutral venue mutually agreed to in the contract signing, perhaps hosted by the World Bank, International Chamber of Commerce, or similar.

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

26. thwayunion ◴[09 Feb 23 15:38 UTC] No.34725526{3}[source]▶
> If Putin wanted to shut down Nordstream, he'd just stop sending gas.

Putin's concern would be the home front.

27. BlueTemplar ◴[10 Feb 23 00:49 UTC] No.34734046{7}[source]▶
What extra "indiscriminate bombing" ? Russia has been doing that since last February already, just look at the state of Mariupol...

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