Seems to me equally likely he's saying they'd pressure Germany to not use it or introduce sanctions (to bring an end to Nordstream 2, as a source of foreign currency for Russia and as leverage over the EU). Additionally wasn't Nordstream 2 not yet operational, and mostly Nordstream 1 that was sabotaged?
Nord Stream 2 was operational. It was also targeted but one of the pipes was hit twice, leaving the other intact.
Up to that point, the Russians clearly communicated to Germany that the flow of gas could be resumed either by dropping the sanctions to "repair" Nord Stream 1 or by opening Nord Stream 2.
The reason given by the Russians as to why Nord Stream 1 wasn't running at capacity was technical problems. First it was a turbine which eventually was replaced by Germany. Next it was allegedly damage to a control unit. The Russians claimed the repairs were impossible because of the sanctions.
So up until the bombing, Nord Stream 2 was always there as a possible fallback. Had Germany run into difficulties procuring gas from other sources up until winter, there was this dangling bait in reach of the German government. A freezing population would have been very unkind to a government that refused to open the second pipeline just for political stance.
Since the bombing it has become clear that operating any pipeline through the Baltic might only last for a short time.
Nordstream 2 was not delivering any gas at that point, Germany had refused the offer to open NS2 (after a series of comically timed "repairs" that just happened to require the new sanctions to be broken) and showed no signs of relenting. I think it is an enormous leap to assume that Germany would in this alternate reality inevitably relent and do what amounts to a pro-Russia stance in backpedalling and using NS2, that would not only fracture the country internally but would cause a foreign policy nightmare at the heart of the EU and NATO. As we have seen it was well within the world of possibilities to stand up LNG terminals for delivery by tanker, this would've been known to both Germany and the USA who would have been in discussion about this the entire time Nordstream was being discussed.
My position is: we just don't know yet, nothing is completely certain. I am surprised that people seem 100% convinced because they read an article by Hersh that paints a nice story and uses an as-yet unnamed source as proof and are prepared to take it all at face value. It may well turn out that the USA was responsible after all. But this recent article is, as it stands, no more than a story. It's still completely possible Nordstream 1/2 was blown by the Russians or the Ukrainians or the Brits or the Poles...
> Nordstream 2 was not delivering any gas at that point
I agree. I meant "operational" as in "ready to operate". Sorry for causing confusion here.
> I think it is an enormous leap to assume that Germany would in this alternate reality inevitably relent and do what amounts to a pro-Russia stance in backpedalling and using NS2, that would not only fracture the country internally but would cause a foreign policy nightmare at the heart of the EU and NATO.
I live in Germany. Through the entire summer I heard more and more people (and from surpising directions) voice their frustration that Nord Stream 2 wasn't opened in the face of gas shortages. Where I live, every week protests gathered that demanded NS2 to be opened and sanctions to be lifted.
The signs of a weak polar vortex came in around that time https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32985927. Had Europe seen the kind of winter that eventually befell North America, matters would have shifted dramatically. From the outside there was no way of knowing whether an already weak looking German government would not flip whith riots at the door.
For what it's worth I think your use of "operational" was in this context more correct than mine :)
You've probably got a better feel for public opinion in Germany than I do - I'm over the border in Czech Republic so while we'd have also suffered with a gas shortage, the idea of any concessions to Putin here is nearly unthinkable (people crowdsourced a fucking tank they called "Tomáš" for god's sake :D). I figured Germany might be more forgiving, but would still be very resistant and would be supported in doing so by its NATO allies in any way possible.
“Put an end to it” seems to carry a bit more finality then “we are going to encourage to not use it, or introduce sanctions to not use it”. Especially in light of the damn thing actually being destroyed…and an end being put to it.
The action that was taken, even though it’s not acknowledged, has brought weight to the statement.
I think if they were planning to do this they wouldn't have sent Joe Biden out and said "alright, drop a little hint that you're going to bomb Nordstream in the event of a Ukraine invasion". And if they were planning to do so and Biden blurted it out (because ... he's Joe Biden) I imagine any plans to bomb the pipeline would surely have been scrapped as he'd have just given the game away.
More realistic is the old man who has famously delivered gaffe after gaffe, who has repeatedly stumbled on his speeches and said dumb shit, said something a bit inelegant that everyone's now seizing on like a bunch of qanoners baking the latest q-drop on 8chan
Even a gaffe doesn’t change the core strategic value, it only adds another variable to consider as part of the possible blowback of the operation.
Regardless, it’s apparent that even with a Biden gaffe in the mix, if the US was responsible it was done in a way that preserved enough mystery to minimize the blowback.
Right, this is what I'm saying. The situation is anything but clear and I don't think Biden's comments that day tell us anything concrete about this one way or another, and I think it's a mistake that some people think it does.
If the USA didn't commit this, then through their various covert actions over the last half-century they only have themselves to blame for the suspicion that it was down to them.
A general criminal law principle known as the corpus delicti rule provides that a confession, standing alone, isn't enough for a conviction.
I am not taking a position. I'm saying no one has presented hard evidence. And until they do, if ever, both sides will play hot potato and nothing will happen.
When someone presents hard evidence for either position I'll listen to them happily.
He said that in the context of sanctions, and which did end up shutting it down long before it was blown up. It only appears to be a threat of destruction retroactively because it was later blown up. There were no articles claiming he was threatening to blow it up at the time. Everyone knew the context was with regards to sanctions at the time.
You're looking at a youtube short that explicitly cuts out any semblance of context. The entire world had been discussing nothing but Russian sanctions for weeks at that point. And no, it wasn't a weird way to threaten sanctions, and no one at the time thought any differently, otherwise there would've been a flurry of articles saying Biden threatened to blow it up. But that never happened.
You're looking at a youtube short that explicitly cuts out any semblance of context.
> Lol. Here's the video.[0] The 'context' you're arguing for was a question posed to someone else. The question she asked to Biden--the immediate context for his comment--clearly strengthens the argument that this was a threat against the pipeline.
> The entire world had been discussing nothing but Russian sanctions for weeks at that point.
I don't even know where to start with this one.
> And no, it wasn't a weird way to threaten sanctions, and no one at the time thought any differently,
Listen to the lady in the video above. Why's she so flabbergasted after Biden's answer? How does her follow-up question make sense if she thought he was talking about sanctions?
> otherwise there would've been a flurry of articles saying Biden threatened to blow it up.
> Why's she so flabbergasted after Biden's answer? How does her follow-up question make sense if she thought he was talking about sanctions?
She just asked how Biden would do it, since the pipeline was within Germany‘s control. And he answered: „We will be able to do it.“
He did not identify who „we“ is and how it‘s done. „We“ could be the US and Germany together, it could be the western World or it could be the US alone. If it were the US alone it could be done by imposing sanctions on that particular pipeline and it could be done by putting diplomatic or economic pressure on Germany (many ways to do that) and it could be done by putting sanctions on companies that interact with the pipeline and so on. It could also be done by using force, but that is merely one of many options and I believe that Biden at that time didn‘t even know how himself. He made a strong assertion in order to take control of the situation and he did.
Yes. We can continue to hold reservations but that can be considered evidence. It is akin to someone getting killed and someone else prior saying they would kill that person. It doesn't mean they actually did it, but it is suspicion and motive that should lead to further investigations. That Germany and other countries aren't looking into it can also be considered circumstantial evidence.
It‘s not evidence because the pipeline wasn‘t that important anymore. They also looked into it. And finally any of them could have done it themselves as well. Nothing points to the US specifically.
For the US such an operation would have a huge amount of risk and they have to gain nothing until the war is over and even after that very little or nothing. (Potentially they can sell their gas - but others as well.) So why do it?
On the other hand, Germany had to gain a bit (shutting down the voices calling for it being opened) and Russia had to gain a lot (sowing distrust within NATO; forcing a change from NS1 to the remaining NS2; as a show of power and a threat; making a strategic change impossible to shut down future opposition within the power structure of Russia) or just to complete their shift to trade with China now instead. The NS2 project was already dead.)
The US runs no risk at all in doing something like this.
They've been doing war and killing innocents ("collateral damage", sorry...) for decades, all in the name of some doubtful "freedom and democracy", and what has happened to them? Nothing whatsoever.
Your original claim, which was an opinion stated in the form of a fact, was that it is a Nothing Burger.
Stating one's opinions on social media is generally fine, but stating them in the form of facts is dangerous in that it can cause other agents in the system to have incorrect state, which can have very serious causal consequences, up to and including death, which most people claim to be "a big deal".
It is counterintuitive to think in this way, but many useful things are counterintuitive.
Many people already speculated it was the US, because Biden himself literally says "we will bring an end to it": https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8
With a smirk. Even when pressed how he is going to do it.
For me, Hersh' story is the secondary corroboration.