[vkou]

The cost of betting wrong when you attack your own infrastructure is measured in rubles.

The cost of being wrong when you attack NATO infrastructure is measured in war, conventional or nuclear.

That's why Russia attacked Ukraine, but only postures and blusters when it comes to NATO.

There are red lines that you can't cross, and open conflict with a nuclear adversary is one of the latter.

[hackandthink]

"There are red lines that you can't cross, and open conflict with a nuclear adversary is one of the latter."

This is true for NATO powers as well. I can't believe Russia blew it up, it doesn't make sense.

But which NATO Country would blow up pipelines and risk a conflict with a nuclear adversary?

[vkou]

It can make sense if you think about it in the game theory manner. Sometimes, deliberately limiting your options improves your overall outcome.

One theory is that by blowing up the pipeline, Putin is limiting Russia's options. With the pipeline in place, ending the war would immediately cause the flow of gas, and dollars into Russia to resume.

Without the pipeline, ending the war would not cause the flow of gas and dollars.

This might improve his ability to politically maneuver within the country (As other political agents, who care more about money than the war are less incentivized to push for an end to the war.)

It's a similar idea to why the US stations troops around the Korean DMZ. Their job isn't to repel a North Korean invasion, their job is to die in the first few minutes of it, and thus force the US to intervene in any resumed Korean conflict. This very clearly communicates to North Korea how serious the US is about maintaining the status quo. By restricting its freedom of action (Forcing itself to go to war if hostilities resume), the US accomplishes a political objective (preventing hostilities from resuming).

---

Of course, this is all speculation. For all we know[1], the pipeline was blown up by Poland/Ukraine/Germany/the US/the Mossad/Morocco/Aliens.

[1] It's difficult to trust any information about this, as its impossible to impartially verify it, and everyone involved has their own agenda they want to push.

[hackandthink]

OK, this is at least a theory:

Putin wants to continue the war. He takes away his possibility of selling gas to Western Europe so that he is not tempted to make peace and sell gas. And his fellows can not be tempted as well.

(sounds as crazy as everything else)

[reitanqild]

Alternative: some group in the FSB or the Russian navy thought it would be impossible to blame it on Russia (for obvious reasons), then went ahead and blew it up to be able to blame it on someone else (UK, US or NATO in general maybe?)

Somewhere along the line something went wrong (for them).

(Not saying they did it, only that think it is the least crazy of the options I have considered.)

[hackandthink]

It's a kind of nice mystery, at least nobody died (I hope so). There will be novels and movies.

[reitanqild]

> I can't believe Russia blew it up, it doesn't make sense.

I think lot of what Russia does, doesn’t make sense at the macro scale, only in the context of internal power struggles.