[chillwaves]

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.

[fuoqi]

Are you serious? The NS/NS2 pipelines were a constant temptation for Germany and a good leverage for Russia. Before the pipelines got blown up we have seen quite sizable protests in Germany with demands to open NS2 and find some compromise with Russia.

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.

[justapassenger]

Sizeable protests? That’s a slight overstatement.

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.

[fuoqi]

Tens of thousands (24k by some estimates) is quite sizable in my book and it was long before cold weather and full economic impact of the high prices. The inflation issue is #1 in internal politics for many countries, add recession and job losses caused by raising energy prices on top of that and you can see environment prime for toppling governments. With rising populism everywhere the simple solution of using NS/NS2 for at least several years in exchange for not supporting Ukraine too much could be quite dangerous for the existing establishment.

>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.

[HKH2]

> And they lost remaining 1% the moment the weaponized energy.

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.

[flanflan]

If the pipeline was shut off it could presumably be turned back on. If the pipeline was blown up that changes things. At a time when much of the world is looking toward China and Russia instead of the US, Europe has been forced to be more dependent on the US.

[bsder]

This completely ignores:

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.

[fuoqi]

>The PR disaster that would ensue if the US were caught doing this

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.

[eloisius]

Spying between allies is not uncommon and is even tacitly allowed because it increases trust between partners.

[fuoqi]

Sure, I am confident the US will react in the same way to Germany or France intelligence services tapping their president.

[flanflan]

> The PR disaster that would ensue if the US were caught doing this

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?

[bsder]

> Why would the US care about a PR disaster? It's not like Europe has any choice in the matter at this point.

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/...

[flanflan]

I'm not going to keep going back and forth with you but since you insist on me addressing the subs thing it's worth pointing out that the ships mentioned in the article were just present in the days ahead of the leaks and there is no concrete evidence they were the attackers.

[Beltalowda]

But we can ask the same about Russia: how do they benefit? If there is any benefit to Russia then I'm not seeing it, beyond some vague and essentially meaningless chest-beating. And the pipeline was valuable to Russia, even when turned off, as it was a reasonably effective piece of leverage that's now just gone.

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".

[Espressosaurus]

It might help factions within Russia, or hurt factions within Russia. Not everything is about benefit for the country; in fact many things aren't. For example: continuing the war in Ukraine is beneficial to Vlad, or at least he must think it is to continue it over admitting defeat and withdrawing.

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.

[borissk]

Russia had long term contracts to support gas to many European countries. They stopped supplying gas, meaning the other parties on those contracts can sue them for many billions of dollars. But if the pipeline is destroyed it's not Russia's fault - no need to pay.

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.

[fuoqi]

There is absolutely no need to blow pipelines for that. Pipelines which were paid in half by Russia. Russia was successfully limiting gas supplies by citing "technical" issues, which were likely to continue until some solution for political. Have you heard about any countries suing Russia for that?

[borissk]

The "technical" issues they cited wouldn't stand in court, especially when experts from the western companies that produced and installed the equipment testify that they are made up and/or trivial to fix.

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.

[7e]

Russia doesn’t need to benefit. The sabotage just needs to influence or weaken some Russian obliarch subject to Putin’s whims.