How does the US benefit?
Russia had already shut down the pipeline and proven to be unreliable partner, and facing heavy sanctions.
It's not like the US needed the pipeline destroyed in order to be in the position to supply LNG to Europe.
Russia had already shut down the pipeline and proven to be unreliable partner, and facing heavy sanctions.
It's not like the US needed the pipeline destroyed in order to be in the position to supply LNG to Europe.
By physically removing capability to transport gas from Russia to Germany, US not only secures fat margins for several years (at the very least until new LNG sources become available), but also significantly reduces probability of Germany acting independently in the near term, even if energy situation becomes critical. Don't forget that the gas storage numbers do not show the whole picture. A lot of energy-intensive industry got shut down and will not reopen in the near future.
Russia lost 99% of leverage the moment they attacked Ukraine. And they lost remaining 1% the moment the weaponized energy.
Germany was dumb, but it’s not that dumb to enter any agreement with Russia for any foreseeable future. It’s literarily like going back to loan shark for extra money, after they broke your legs last week.
>weaponized energy
I always find it amusing how Russia gets blamed for "weaponization", while US/Europe continuously use their control over technology and financial system as a weapon.
What? Who weaponized energy?
Do you think that Russia should have conducted business as usual after 300 billion in foreign oil reserves were seized?
You don't have to like Russia, but you can at least be honest.
1) The PR disaster that would ensue if the US were caught doing this
2) The fact that the US does this sort of thing with submarines, not ships.
Whereas: we have Vladmir Putin who is looking at would be assassins who have a nice, ready-made source of cash if they take him out simply by turning the pipeline back on. And Putin will suffer neither PR nor diplomatic repercussions for blowing up the pipeline.
Why would the US care about a PR disaster? It's not like Europe has any choice in the matter at this point.
> Whereas: we have Vladmir Putin who is looking at would be assassins who have a nice, ready-made source of cash if they take him out simply by turning the pipeline back on. And Putin will suffer neither PR nor diplomatic repercussions for blowing up the pipeline.
What?
Because the will of the allied sanction group is strongly dependent upon PR? The EU nations are a fractious group on the best of days. One of the reasons why the support for Ukraine and sanctions for Russia were so swift was the fact that Biden played the PR and intelligence game perfectly.
> What?
What part of my statement is not clear? Putin is worried about assassins. Taking out Putin and taking over Russia can be converted to cash very quickly by turning the pipeline back on even before sanctions get lifted. Blowing up the pipeline prevents any would be assassins from making use of it later. Putin will suffer neither PR backlash (he controls the Russian media) nor diplomatic backlash (he has already been isolated) for blowing up the pipeline.
And I note that you completely ignored the point that the US would do this with subs (and this was what they could do 30+ years ago). See: Blind Man's Bluff--https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/...
Ha-ha, let's take a look how much of "PR disaster" was direct spying on European "allied" leaders. Europe simply swallowed it without much trouble. With NS/NS2 we have a much better field for deniability. Simply say that any evidence is a Russian conspiracy or false flag.
I'd be surprised if the US was involved because the thing could backfire massively it were to come out they were behind it, and it's just not worth the risk. But Russia is not really an "obvious" suspect either IMO. My best guess is that it's an irrational act from an irrational regime (Putin) as a kind of "fuck you".
I can imagine Vlad or a faction aligned with him thinking this severs the ability for someone else displacing him to just turn on the taps, retreat out of Ukraine, and say "lol, whoops, our bad".
So the benefit may be to factions within Russia, even if it's detrimental to Russian economic capabilities.
The fact that out of 4 pipes 3 were destroyed and one was left impact IMHO strongly points to Russia doing it - any other country would destroy all 4.
Practically every country that has it's gas cut off is preparing to sue.
During the summer the price of gas on the European exchanges was often over $2000 for 1000 cubic meters. The long term contracts signed years ago had the price fixed around $200. Russia was losing a ton of money everyday these pipes were pumping gas. On top of that these deliveries were decreasing the global demand for gas - lowering the price Russia could sell gas outside of contract. There was a huge pressure from the top in GasProm to find a way out of those contracts.