“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

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".

> 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.

> 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.

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.

A US amphibious warship USS Arlington[0] was sailing near the nordstream location. It left a Swedish island in the middle of the Baltic Sea 6 September 2022.

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