“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

Biden stated last year: "If Russia invades [Ukraine] there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." [1] This was a clear threat, clear as day, that the US could destroy Nordstream. It should surprise nobody that the US was involved.

Since Nordstream was destroyed amidst public pressure from US energy companies who wanted to takeover the European energy market, the US has become the world's leading exporter of liquid natural gas, Europeans are paying record natural gas prices, and US energy companies are reporting record profits. Again, the relationship between these things should surprise nobody.

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/bidens-bi...

It’s not out of the realm of possibility but that statement is hardly an admission of future sabotage. I would imagine the US has more tools than deep sea bombing to convince their allies. Very high risk operation

Sure, a threat is not an admission of guilt. But I think most people were unaware of this statement, and how aggressive the US' posture towards the pipeline was, which is important context for this article.

Why destroy NS1 then and not NS2 (NS1 and NS2 both have two pipes and only one of the two NS2 pipes were destroyed)? And why destroy it at this exact time when Russia was already coming up with less and less plausible excuses to halt deliveries via NS1 (both NS1 pipes were destroyed)? Why not wait with the nuclear option until there were even signs that NS2 would come online (Germany had already halted the certification process for NS2 shortly before the invasion).. NS2 was already dead.

They must have not been paying attention. Trump was very vocal against it and was laughed at by the genius German technocrats. The Obama admin was also against it

> This was a clear threat, clear as day, that the US could destroy Nordstream [2]. It should surprise nobody that the US was involved.

Or you could take a breath and realize that Nordstream 2 was not yet complete. It was an ongoing, non-operational project. In that context, “bringing it to an end” could easily mean not completing it. In fact, that’s the far more reasonable interpretation—-the literal physical destruction interpretation is only made by someone who wants to believe that.

At the time the physical construction had been completed.

This reminds me of the old defense of OJ Simpson, that in fact only very few of men who domestically abuse their wives go on to murder them.

And yeah, that is true. But when the wife was in fact murdered, then the odds that the known abusive husband did it are very high.

Maybe it was a reasonable interpretation that he didn't mean blowing up the pipeline, before the pipeline was blown up.

I believe the US often takes stupid risks, despite having better options.

This is not an indictment of the US, it's just an assessment based on my own and other's extensive experiences with large, hierarchical organizations.

The article implicitly suggests that the goal was indeed to sabotage both pipelines fully.

It doesn't say it outright, but if the hastily re-programmed explosives were triggered by a sonar buoy after three months in sea water as the article says, then it would not be surprising at all if some of them failed to go off.

Precisely that the article implicitly gives very plausible answers to good questions like yours, is why I think it's credible.

Neither the mechanism nor the reasoning in the article sound plausible to me (nor the involvement of Norway..). NS1 was already shutdown by Russia within weeks of the supposed time of installation of the explosives, after which there was no more point to explode them and it would make more sense to silently remove them again. NS2 was already dead in the water since couple days before the invasion.

In addition the bad-trigger scenario would imply that the explosives and triggering mechanism remained in place on the remaining pipe, which would require the US to rush there to remove them or trigger the missing one to avoid terrible diplomatic consequences if the unexploded device were to be discovered.

First, the whole point of these pipes from Russia's side, and the concern about them from the US, was that they could be used as leverage to keep EU from supporting Ukraine. So there was absolutely a "point" in blowing them up even though they were turned off. The point being, when they're blown up, they can't be turned on, thus Russia has no leverage anymore.

Second, those terrible diplomatic consequences probably happened, behind the scenes (and weren't that terrible, because no one really wants to denounce the US in the middle of the Ukraine war). I'll remind you that both Sweden and Denmark claimed nothing other than sabotage could be concluded, and closed down their investigations and classified the heck out of the details. Feel free to make freedom of information requests to them, so that you can get those "national security interest" refusals.

Odds are that the US didn't directly admit anything to them, but strongly suggested they shouldn't look too closely or be too specific in their statements, and that those states were quick to comply. And probably cleaned up well enough that there was nothing left for the Russians to find, in the case that they should run their own investigation (although, Russia can't run a real investigation to save their ass, they're too used to have their conclusions dictated to them, so I wouldn't worry if I was the USG).

It was not in operation. The project had not been completed.

Russia already had no leverage anymore. Shutting them down was their "all in" move, but that clearly didn't cut it, so no, there was no point anymore. For Russia there were more upsides to this however: Getting out of contracts (since they can only halt deliveries for so long before fines kick in), solidifying internal positions, sending a message (since it happened 1-2 days after the opening of a Norway-Poland pipeline; also it was less than 500m from a sweden-poland undersea electrical cable), sewing chaos in the west. Not that there is any more evidence that they have done it than for the US..

And the rest is all putting the cart in front of the horse. Would it look any different if Russia (or anyone else) were the culprit? No, it wouldn't (since otherwise the fact it's classified itself leaks information). Maybe the investigation just yielded nothing conclusive? Which given the location and event (big explosion and lots of gas output making sure everything gets nicely distributed elsewhere) wouldn't be that surprising?

I'm trying to keep an open mind and engage with people who don't agree, but you're not making it easy for me here.

You're suggesting that when Russia cut off the gas, and Germany didn't immediately capitulate, that's evidence the leverage was worthless? It wasn't even winter yet.

Also, blowing up your pipeline just as a competitor comes on line? Whatever you think of Hersh's article, it's undeniable that Norway made a lot of money on the sabotage. Even if Russia had stayed firm and sent no gas through the pipeline, the fact that they could have alone would have kept prices lower.

Third, you're suggesting that Sweden/Denmark would have kept it secret if they found evidence of Russian meddling? They absolutely would not. In fact, if there was even evidence exculpating the US, without implicating anyone else, they would have blasted it to the heavens.

NATO-aligned think tanks have gotten better at this - something I view as a good thing, despite that I am not a fan of them, and I don't think they did it willingly. But with the rise of Bellingcat, they're now routinely publishing embarrassing material on Russia that they would have LOVED to keep secret as a bargaining chip, in earlier decades.

In fact, if there was a Russian team that blew up the pipeline, they would have left a trail a mile wide in public data and the countless leaked databases (another huge one just a few days ago, from Roskomnadzor). Bellingcat, or anyone interested, could have given you their damn cell phone numbers, if it was a Russian op. Yet they have instead remained utterly uninterested in the question of how the pipelines were sabotaged.

> men who domestically abuse their wives

> known abusive husband

Not sure what you’re referring to here. If you’re analogizing what Biden said with domestic abuse, that’s just ridiculous. It’s more akin to telling the wife they’re going to need to divorce if she doesn’t stop threatening the children. If you’re saying the US in general has a history of doing things that could be compared to domestic abuse, sure, but so could all parties involved, particularly Russia. So we’re back at square one.

I knew you would take offense at the comparison.

But it's not a comparison, it's just an example of the same statistical dishonesty.

When the pipeline was in fact blown up, of course we're going to look at vaguely worded threats in another light.

That argument makes no sense.

Russia doesn’t lose all leverage the moment they shut off the pipeline. They still have the leverage from being able to turn the pipeline back on, which impacts competitors and customers by giving the option.

Blowing up the pipeline takes that option off the table for the foreseeable future, and with the advantage that it doesn’t cause immediate dangerous supply shocks to Allies since it was already off.

Win/win for the Allies (though if public, Western Europe gov’ts would have no choice but to be pissed in public), not great for Russia who has their last leverage knocked off the table.

I personally don’t have an opinion on if the US did or did not do it, and I doubt we’d know for at least several decades.

But the US has done lots weirder stuff with far less concrete potential benefits before. hell, nearly anything the CIA had been caught doing in the 60’s or 70’s has far less plausible justification!

More likely they were listening, but continued to pursue the path that was in Germany’s national interest. German voters do not care about helping maintain US hegemony; they care about economic stability and energy security. It will be interesting to see what happens in German domestic politics as more evidence emerges that its supposed ally carried out industrial sabotage against it. The rest of Europe’s voters will also take note.

> I knew you would take offense at the comparison.

I was stating my opinion that the comparison was of low intellectual quality, not taking offense.

> When the pipeline was in fact blown up, of course we're going to look at vaguely worded threats in another light.

Except it’s only vaguely worded if you’re approaching it from the bias of wanting to think it was a threat of blowing it up. Approaching it a different way, they’re just the words a person would use if they were talking about ending the project, not literally blowing it up.

If Biden were going to be so aggressive as to threaten to blow up an infrastructure project of a close ally, why specifically limit it to Nordstream 2? “We’re going to lose our ever-loving minds here, but only for phase 2 of the project”.

It was completed in every sense of the word. It was merely awaiting approval/certification.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-ru...

> Very high risk operation

I'm not sure what would make it so high risk. The truth could easily be castigated and maligned as "conspiracy theory," a dismissal that most people in the Western countries will readily accept. The only people with the resources to investigate and find hard evidence would either be in on it (Western/NATO allies) or easily written off as pushing lies and propaganda (the Russians).

In that case they still have exactly same leverage as before, since one NS2 pipe is still available and several land-based pipelines are also still online.

My personal belief is that we will never know who actually performed the acts of sabotage. But taking some Biden soundbites, mixing it with some public information and some hand-waving doesn't produce any actual evidence about who actually did it.

> Also, blowing up your pipeline just as a competitor comes on line? Whatever you think of Hersh's article, it's undeniable that Norway made a lot of money on the sabotage.

Did they though? Looking at the gas futures chart it's not obvious to me at all. The prices suddenly spiked much higher when NS1 was suddenly shutdown. After the explosion they actually went down slightly. They did profit, but just from the actions from the Russian side (which were earlier in time).

As for whatever you mean with competitor coming online. Towards Germany the flows from Norway didn't change that much after the invasion, Europipe II from Norway to Germany was already maxed out since January 2021 pretty much.

It was not completed in the most important sense for this discussion—it was not operational. The project could still be ended short of completion without blowing it up.

Most people would find it very hard to believe that Germany would allow such a valuable investment to sit unused for any significant amount of time. Other European countries also had significant investment in Nordstream AG. The Germans were merely placating the Americans while a a diplomatic solution was being sought for Ukraine. The Americans undermined the proposed solutions at every turn while they baited Russia to invade per the RAND report game plan and then decided to remove the pipeline from the bargaining table entirely.

You’re missing the point. This is about what Biden meant when he said Nordstream 2 could be ended. Whether the Germans would have been onboard or not isn’t particularly relevant.

I had been assuming that the working theory amongst the “America definitely blowed up the pipeline” crowd was that this would have been a scheme cooked up amongst the NATO allies. Because, the alternative, that America did that against the will of Germany is just utter insanity. The idea that they would risk turning the entirety of Europe against them with such an act of brazen hostility is just…I can’t even.

actually gas prices in Europe are lower than just before the invasion and in any case the provider of Nord Stream is blackmailing with nukes. Finally, threatening does not lead to proof. Maybe yes, maybe not.

I think you’re underestimating the arrogance of American power. I did miss your point, because I couldn’t conceive that anyone would still be making the argument that Russia would blow up its own pipeline. Quibbling over how direct Biden’s threat was in terms of foreshadowing a kinetic attack— not even worth discussing at this point. Good day.

> I did miss your point, because I couldn’t conceive that anyone would still be making the argument that Russia would blow up its own pipeline.

It would certainly be an extreme, and strange escalation of their previous attempts to use gas supplies as a retaliatory device. But, IMO, it’s less far-fetched than what you’re suggesting.

How would Biden "end the project?" Say pretty please?

First point - most of it is now taken off the table because there is an implicit (explicit?) unknown party with the proven ability and willingness to cut off any remaining supply at the drop of a hat, and the ability to supply is severely curtailed. It stops 'cheating' or 'backsliding' on the part of either party.

Second point - agreed. If for no other reason than there is little to no incentive for any of the players to share any evidence or info they may have found that would support or disprove any of the scenarios.

For Russia, if they could prove the US did it, it would strengthens the image of the US as a powerful world player with their foot on Russia's neck. If someone else did it, it would make them look even weaker.

For Western European allies, it would make it really obvious how much influence the US has on them, especially since their own fate continues to depend on the US - and it's large natural gas supplies. Even if they wanted to cut off the US, Russia is even worse for them, and they can't stand on their own two feet against either Russia or the US right now (militarily or economically). If someone other than the US did it, it would make their key infrastructure look even more fragile and vulnerable.

For the US, if they did it, it would expose the extent they are playing dirty (hurting the 'clean hands' narrative) and lose them good will with most of the public. If they found someone else doing it, it would reduce their apparent 'dirty tricks' power folks need to worry about, which is a major deterrent to enemies and allies doing dirty tricks.