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Swedish prosecutor says Nordstream explosions were attacks, but nothing about who may have done it — 77 Comments

1. Um…why would Russia blow up a pipeline it could just shut down? What possible advantage is there to Russia to make it impossible short-term to restart the flow of gas through the pipeline? On the other hand, the pipeline out of commission reduces the pressure on Germany and Europe to bend to Russian demands because even if they did, it wouldn’t matter.

   I have no idea who did what but I find it hard to believe any intelligent person can reasonably believe it is more likely that Russia is responsible than anyone else.

   I guess “Russia Bad” has now joined “Orange Man Bad” in the list of modern political psychosis.

   Mike

2. MBunge:

   2 reasons. The first is to screw Europe instantaneously, undoing Europe’s own timeline and showing Europe’s weakness. The second is to show its power (or someone’s power) to sabotage Europe’s energy supply not just there but elsewhere. It’s like a spouse leaving another spouse rather than being left. And Russia loses nothing by it. Those pipelines were never again becoming operational anyway. Meanwhile, Russia gets to watch people blame the US. Win/win for Russia! It gets plausible deniability that it wouldn’t have if it had merely shut down the pipeline.

3. The German firm is Siemens, with no apostrophe.

   A Russian false flag operation to try to put blame on adversaries seems plausible, but plausibility is not proof. As you point out, Neo, the pipelines were not in use at the time, nor expected to be any time soon.

4. I see no reason to doubt that the pipeline was sabotaged but by who ? Russia is at a sort of warm war with NATO. I am one of those “Putin lovers” who thinks that Trump would have prevented this whole controversy/war. The eagerness to support Ukraine at all costs sounds to me like a revival of neocon thinking. The real story is modern nations putting their populations at risk because of some leftist fantasy of the world burning up. This is a fantasy for children, not senior government people.

5. Mike K:

   Again with the all-purpose neocon charge.

   Trump was a Ukraine supporter as president. I agree, though, that this wouldn’t have gotten so far on his watch. But only because Putin was afraid of greater retaliation from Trump, not less

6. My view matches MBunge; Russia had all the stick they could get by just shutting the pipe down; a destroyed pipeline doesn’t ship less gas than one which is shut down. Bombing the pipes deletes the Russian carrot of resumed shipments; it follows, then, that in a sane world only someone who benefits from Russian gas that can’t go to Europe, even potentially, is motivated.

   That’s a broad list, starting with Ukraine who absolutely would prefer Russia less able to negotiate with Europe with respect to their support for Ukraine, moving through Poland, which has its own brand-spanking new pipeline from Norway, in addition to an unfortunate history with Russia. Iran, India, and China which are getting bargain-basement prices on Russian petrochemicals that they can’t sell on the open market. And yes, the US government seems determined to ‘win’ against the Russians, which is easier if Europe is on board. Heck, throw Norway into the pile because their gas is more valuable since they don’t have to worry about Russian competition.

   Now, cui bono isn’t a definitive guilty or not; it relies on the investigator and the perpetrator agreeing on what is or is not a net benefit, and both being rational actors. Even then it’s little more than a high-level way to guess where evidence might lie.

7. Boobah:

   See my comment above yours where I explain what Russia has to gain.

8. any intelligent person can reasonably believe it is more likely that Russia is responsible than anyone else.
   Kind of a broad brush insulting a lot of people, including your Host. And I think I am a reasonable intelligent person and I think it is Russia that did it. Putin has shown he is not reasonable, nor stable.

   Has anyone mentioned China?

9. If Russia wanted to sabotage their own pipeline, why would they do it in waters that are accessible by Swedish investigators and not their own? They would have to know that they would be identified as the culprit sooner or later. I assume the investigators already know who sabotaged the pipeline and if there was evidence that Russian did it, we would have heard it by now. There are countless ways that Russia could have shut down the pipeline without blowing it up in waters accessible by international investigators.

   We have threatened to sabotage the pipeline on more than one occasion and our State Department really didn’t seem that concerned about it. If there is any evidence that Russia is responsible, I haven’t seen it.

   I don’t have any doubts that Russia wants to punish Europe for their role in supporting Ukraine, but blowing up their own pipeline in such a clumsy way just doesn’t make any sense.

10. The Democrats & leftists will always avoid giving Trump any credit for any good result.

    I suspect the sabotage is NOT Russia, because the current pro-Ukraine demonization of Russia would be better served if it was Russia, and it would be highly publicized. Large explosives ‘may have been ordered by “state actors.” ‘ (also maybe not?)

    Now flooded with corrosive sea-water, the $11 billion pipeline might not be repaired.

    If Germany has blackouts, their voters should blame Russia first, but also their own Greens, who have failed to supply lower cost alternative energy that is reliable on windless nights.

    Thanks for note about the start in the 70s, and how “less than 10%” can slowly increase by ~1% per year without war problems – until there ARE war problems.

    The 2014 semi-invasion should have been a far bigger wake-up call than it was.

    Trump, today, is a bit wrong to want a pre-mature peace before Russia is ready to leave Donetsk. I agree with Richard Hanania who thinks the US is willing to give Ukraine a blank check for fighting against Russia for the total return to pre-2014 borders, as long as Ukraine is willing to fight and die.

    https://richardhanania.substack.com/

11. Gregory Harper:

    It certainly does make sense, as I explained. And I do not see any reason to suppose the Swedes are hiding who did it.

    Also, doing it in Russian territorial waters would have implicated Russia further, which Russia did not want.

    The “not Russia” crowd has more convoluted reasoning than the “Russia did it” crowd.

12. Tom Grey, Greens did occur to me, but I don’t know if they’d have the equipment and expertise to do this. At this time they seem to prefer throwing paint in museums.

13. Peter Zeihan’s latest video delivers the opinion that the Swedes have determined, but not announced publicly, that the Russians probably did it. He thinks Swedish evidence is very strong.

    He also believes this will cause great damage to the German industrial capability, and ultimately to most of the European economy.

    OOT, I just talked to a friend who lives in southern Germany. He said there was a major public outcry the day after people lit up their wood burning stoves for the first time. He said the smell and smoke was terrible. But that won’t stop people from using woodturning stoves: people have stockpiled large quantities of firewood because of the Russian gas cutoff.

14. A whole lot of gas.

    Take a look at HI Sutton’s Youtube channel Covert Shores or the SubBrief Youtube channel for discussion of Roosian/Soviet submarine capabilities. Neither have posted lately about who most likely responsible, when they do you might want to pay heed.

    As neo said, we don’t know yet, but the threat by Roosia to F with western subsea infrastructure is not paranoia, Bunge and Mike K.

    Western Europe recently opened, or is about to open a natural gas pipeline from Norweigan North Sea fields. It would certainly be unfortunate if something happened to that.

    Its not like Roosia hasn’t threatened to nuke Western Europe already. Or have you forgotten that too?

    Sheesh! Neocons indeed.

15. My spell check believes woodburning should be spelled with a “t” in the middle. Please ignore that in the last Graf above.

16. The initial reporting suggested US was responsible, and our interests will certainly benefit from it.

    It doesn’t make sense for Russia to have done it. Had the pipeline remained intact, the EU would probably have hedged on committing to LNG. With the pipeline gone, they have no choice but to expand their infrastructure to handle the increased LNG imports.

    The three largest exporters of LNG are US, Qatar and Australia. Gobal production of LNG is 435 million metric tons, and about 70% of that is committed, which leaves 136 million metric tons on the open market. Europe would have to import 118 million metric tons to replace the lost Russia NG, but only has the capacity to handle about half of that– 65 million metric tons.
    Even expedited, facilities to handle additional LNG won’t come online to middle to late 20’s.
    Had Germany heeded Trump’s offer three years ago, it’s possible some of that additional storage capacity would be coming online now.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-lng-can-and-cant-do-to-replace-europes-imports-of-russian-gas/2022/08/26/b21d8a56-2536-11ed-a72f-1e7149072fbc_story.html

17. Honestly, the fact that a prosecutor is saying it is pretty strong circumstantial evidence that whoever did it is not Russian-aligned, to put it mildly. Not a certain thing, but some more weight into the other side of the balance. Especially since Sweden is about to abandon 200 years of neutrality by joining NATO and is probably not going to care as much about alienating Russia as it had in the past.

    To be honest I had been partial to the idea that these were accidents being covered up, ala the Lawdog hypothesis. There had been many disastrous pipeline failures in Russia before somewhat like this.

    But that started to lose ground because of the following:

    Firstly: The degree to which Kremlin propaganda has preferred to play “Fool” rather than “Knave” in its narratives, openly making itself and its servants look like fools in order to deny its enemies any credit; the sinking of the Moskva and the countless increasingly disreputable Kremlin narratives about it (peaking with the invisible storm sinking) is case in point. In hindsight I probably should have recognized that earlier, so mea culpa.

    Secondly: The news coming around about a ship near the pipelines with its transponder off (thus hiding its identity). Now, there are countless reasons why a ship would have its transponder off in the Baltic, and while most of them are at least somewhat shady they don’t have to be related to the Pipeline Blast, but it is more than a bit of a “Helluva Coincidence” as we call it in the business.

    Thirdly; This.

    Though in regards to what Neo is saying, I would also add there is also the possibility of using it as a way to try and further fan the flames of domestic support for the war (by portraying it as an extension of the war into the Baltic), and to try and use it to lean harder on the likes of Turkey in order to grant Russian warships passage through the straits to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet.

    Reasonable people can weigh the possibility and benefits of these against the loss of the pipeline (though I note it is hardly irreparably or irreplaceably crippled) and come to different – sometimes very different- conclusions, but failure to even consider these benefits in the calculation is a big oversight. Especially when we are dealing with a regime headed up by a former Chekist who has already been known to practice false flags and provocations, and whose country has a pretty long and proven history of doing them (just ask the Finns).

    @MBunge

    Um…why would Russia blow up a pipeline it could just shut down? What possible advantage is there to Russia to make it impossible short-term to restart the flow of gas through the pipeline?

    Neo and I gave a few reasons that may or may not be true (and increasingly based on the circumstantial evidence – including what you cite but not exclusively – seems to not be true) but were worth considering.

    On the other hand, the pipeline out of commission reduces the pressure on Germany and Europe to bend to Russian demands because even if they did, it wouldn’t matter.

    Except Russia still has the ability to send hydrocarbons by other pipelines and through other mediums such as by maritime shipping. These are in many cases inferior to Nordstream, but are still a viable option (indeed, in many European countries this IS what is happening).

    I have no idea who did what but I find it hard to believe any intelligent person can reasonably believe it is more likely that Russia is responsible than anyone else.

    Which underlines the fact that your bias is -once again- getting in the way of your calculations – and are seriously undervaluing the fact that the modern Russian government has already been caught pulling multiple false flags (and indeed started the Ukrainian War in 2014 with them). Reasonable people can and will disagree about the evidence, as people like our host and Lawdog pointed out, and this is also why I never jumped on anybody’s heads about who (or in the case of the accident theory, What) they suspected, but failure to even consider the possibility (while keeping in mind that one does not have to BELIEVE what one CONSIDERS) is a failure of critical thinking.

    And this of course goes with the unspoken assumption that you are, without question, an intelligent person. Something which is undermined by your recent conduct, which has been simultaneously quite insulting and bad-faith (to the point where our host had to call you out explicitly and even issue a formal warning) and often more blockheaded than you’d like to admit. We all make mistakes, but playing bull in a china shop with them is no minor thing.

    I guess “Russia Bad” has now joined “Orange Man Bad” in the list of modern political psychosis.

    The problem is that another modern political psychosis was and is Bush Derangement Syndrome and Iraq War Trutherism, but I don’t think you want to talk about those.

    I pointed out to you the destruction of gas-filled artillery shells that were “mysteriously” left intact in Iraq even after the 2003 invasion (and could have provided the relevant international law definitions of them as WMD) and things like the reports about Saddam Hussein’s embassy in the Philippines being caught funding Abu Sayyaf (a local franchise of Al Qaeda), and you responded with abject denial that this proved that there was WMD in Iraq and that Saddam had a functional (if limited) alliance with Al Qaeda, apparently because Bush Bad not merely because of his palling around with globalists and other sins but because literally financing known Al Qaeda satellite groups is not worth factoring in.

    I bring this up to “Pskircle Back” to intelligent people and the definition thereof, as well as to remind that one of the major problems with intelligence is the ability to rationalize that which one does not want to deal with, and that avoiding that is one of the major challenges of intelligence.

18. Today, we have F reporting this news from Germany:

    “I just talked to a friend who lives in southern Germany. He said there was a major public outcry the day after people lit up their wood burning stoves for the first time. He said the smell and smoke was terrible. But that won’t stop people from using woodturning stoves: people have stockpiled large quantities of firewood because of the Russian gas cutoff.”

    As narcissistic as it may be, I can’t help but say “I told you so.”

    Back on October 5th, Neo wrote a post entitled “Cui Bono?”. The comments quickly shifted into a seemingly relevant discussion of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

    On that day, I cut through the Gordian knot of “who done it”:

    “German manufacturers of wood stoves are the clear beneficiaries, and so also the clear culprits. (https://www.thenewneo.com/2022/10/05/cui-bono/)”

    When you’re right, you’re right.

19. Neo:

    There’s a typo in the heading of your post. You’ve spelled “Nordstream” without the second “r.”

    I tried keeping my mouth shut. Unfortunately, this kind of thing bothers me.

20. Cornflour:

    No reason to keep quiet. I don’t like typos, so I appreciate hearing about them so I can fix them.

    That’s pretty funny about the woodstoves and “Cui bono?”.

21. Another argument against the idea that the US blew those pipelines is that this would have required approval at the White House level. What evidence do we have that our current White House and State Department leadership have the will to make such a decision?

22. Related:
    House Republicans Introduce Legislation Auditing Ukraine Spending

    Sunlight, it’s a good thing.

23. @Boobah

    My view matches MBunge; Russia had all the stick they could get by just shutting the pipe down; a destroyed pipeline doesn’t ship less gas than one which is shut down. Bombing the pipes deletes the Russian carrot of resumed shipments;

    Fair enough, though I think this ignores Russian shipments through other pipelines or by shipment, which can still go on and in some cases are ongoing. Though that does not necessarily invalidate your other point.

    it follows, then, that in a sane world only someone who benefits from Russian gas that can’t go to Europe, even potentially, is motivated.

    The issue I see is that there are a whole host of people who do that, and not all are the people we’d expect. Cornflour’s point about German Wood Stove manufacturers being the logical culprit is tongue in cheek, but I think it points to a useful point on “Cui Bono?” And the thread Corn links also covers many worthwhile points, especially in a post from JE pointing out how Putin’s personal incentives might diverge from Russia’s national ones and how he might blow the pipeline the remain in power and deter a palace coup.

    That’s a broad list, starting with Ukraine who absolutely would prefer Russia less able to negotiate with Europe with respect to their support for Ukraine, moving through Poland, which has its own brand-spanking new pipeline from Norway, in addition to an unfortunate history with Russia. Iran, India, and China which are getting bargain-basement prices on Russian petrochemicals that they can’t sell on the open market. And yes, the US government seems determined to ‘win’ against the Russians, which is easier if Europe is on board. Heck, throw Norway into the pile because their gas is more valuable since they don’t have to worry about Russian competition.

    Now, cui bono isn’t a definitive guilty or not; it relies on the investigator and the perpetrator agreeing on what is or is not a net benefit, and both being rational actors. Even then it’s little more than a high-level way to guess where evidence might lie.

    Agreed tehre.

24. @Mike K

    I see no reason to doubt that the pipeline was sabotaged but by who ?

    Agreed now.

    Russia is at a sort of warm war with NATO.

    Not really. I have yet to see any case outside of the possible and contested missile landings on the Polish border where NATO and Russia have had their forces exchange gunfire, as would be the case in an actual warm war. Russia’s in a hot war with Ukraine who is backed by NATO but that is a far, FAR cry from being in any kind of shooting war with NATO.

    I am one of those “Putin lovers” who thinks that Trump would have prevented this whole controversy/war.

    Well, I’m a Trump supporter but this is objectively untrue. The war started in 2014, when Putin invaded Ukraine (as people like VDH and Mark Steyn predicted would be the case for Western appeasement), so Trump never had a chance to Prevent this whole controversy/war.” Which is why he engaged in diplomatic support for Ukraine and started shipping lethal weapons to it.

    He might have been able to deter Putin from dropping the mask and committing openly to the war, but that’s unknowable and even if true the war would still be going on and the controversy even more so, just along the previous lines.

    The eagerness to support Ukraine at all costs sounds to me like a revival of neocon thinking.

    Well, there were many good reasons for the emergence of Neocon thinking in the first place, such as the deep rooted and systematic failure of established politics and policy in the Middle East and now with the Kremlin. Our host was previously titled “Neo-Neocon” after all.

    The real story is modern nations putting their populations at risk because of some leftist fantasy of the world burning up.

    That’s a key part of it, but there can be multiple real stories.

    This is a fantasy for children, not senior government people.

    I’m sorry, but I don’t see how the largest war in Western Eurasia in decades – and one that seriously destabilizes things up to and including the global food and fuel markets – is a “fantasy”, let alone “a fantasy for children.” I don’t think even My Little Pony’s fiercest critics would contend that it has killed dozens of thousands of people.

    It is far from the most pressing concern for American patriots, I agree and will consistently agree, but that doesn’t mean it is a fantasy.

25. “…Saddam Hussein’s embassy in the Philippines being caught funding Abu Sayyaf (a local franchise of Al Qaeda),

    That reminded me of Jayna Davis’s investigation that pursued the third terrorist in the OKC bombing.

    DAVIS: “…I’ve been following this from its inception, from the moment of detonation, and I spent the next nine years documenting, very copiously, a Middle Eastern connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing. And I laid out that research in my book, The Third Terrorist, and it outlines details of sworn affidavits from very credible witnesses who link the convicted bombers, Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols, to an Iraqi hit squad of former soldiers who served in Saddam Hussein’s army, the Republican Guard, during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. They immigrated to the United States after Operation Desert Storm as false defectors.”

    Then the connection to Abu Sayyaf and Ramzi Yousef.

    “…what we were able to uncover, Terry Nichols was in Cebu City at the same time as the mastermind of the World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef. Now we looked for evidence if these two men crossed paths and according to the sworn statement of a co-founder of the Muslim terrorist group known as Abu Sayyaf-which is, for simplicity, it’s just a spin-off chapter of al Qaeda-Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef actually met, personally, to discuss, specifically, bomb-making.
    https://www.aim.org/podcast/take-aim-jayna-davis-on-okc-third-terrorist/

    This evidence is well formed that Saddam had his hands in terrorist attacks in the US, and Davis believes included at least knowledge of the 9/11 attack.

26. I say it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.

    It’s an interesting history that the Guardian brings up in that article, assuming that stuff from the paper is all correct. My attention was caught by that brief quote purporting to be from Schäuble. Neo, the way in which you have those particular two citations juxtapositioned (“Over 50 years […]” and “‘I was wrong […]'”) is incorrect, as they are separated by a considerable amount of text in the original article and, reading them together that way, the obvious immediate interpretation is that Schäuble was saying that he was wrong about the fact that he or the German government thought they understood the Soviet Union. But this is inaccurate; as expressed in the article, he was actually (apparently) saying more specifically that it had been wrong for Germany to have made itself dependent on Russian-sourced energy, which is quite a different assertion.

    Of course, the Guardian article doesn’t make terribly clear what the exact context of that quotation ultimately was. I mean that a seven-word extract out of what must have been a much larger interview in the original is necessarily quite devoid of any pointer to context and one just has to take the author’s word for it that this is what the interviewee, Schäuble, was referring to. But I think the connection of it with the part about the multi-decade-long disagreement between Washington and Bonn (later Berlin) on the topic is misleading, though I’m sure it would warm the hearts of quite a few people at State to see Mr. Schäuble make such an admission, which I suppose is all the more reason to correct this impression.

27. Mike K:

    Its quite a leap
    you have yet to make
    to join Geoffrey.

28. @Gregory Harper

    If Russia wanted to sabotage their own pipeline, why would they do it in waters that are accessible by Swedish investigators and not their own? They would have to know that they would be identified as the culprit sooner or later.

    A few issues with this. Firstly that it is quite likely they could avoid being identified as the culprit – especially if using a proxy or some deniable (preferably foreign) assets.

    But at least as importantly, there is a flip side of the coin. Why would a non-or-anti-Russian faction doing this destroy it in Swedish or international waters if the desire was to blame Russia, given the same issues, particularly since it would allow Russian investigation of the matter to proceed in pace with non-Russian ones and to check notes; in some ways it would be beneficial to put it in Russian waters from their POV, in part because it would make international teams unable to function without Russian approval (more on that later) and would thus possibly isolate the Russians, whose findings COULD be dismissed in isolation if they were doing it alone.

    But to be honest, I think that either argument leans too much on the politics of territorial waters. For a case of this it would most likely be rather simple for governments to demand access to the explosion site regardless of its location, and be hard to reject without looking suspicious as hell. The simple fact of the matter is that if this WAS sabotage, it would have to be done somewhere. So I think the focus would be on trying to do it without the perpetrator’s metaphorical fingerprints being traceable rather than specifically on which side of the territorial lines it was done.

    I assume the investigators already know who sabotaged the pipeline and if there was evidence that Russian did it, we would have heard it by now.

    I can’t agree. While I think the situation LEANS that way and it is notable circumstantial evidence, the fact is that you might know who did it and regardless of who did it, you will probably want to put an absolutely bulletproof case up precisely because of the scrutiny. It is one reason why – say – things like the 9/11 Commission and the current investigations at Bucha are taking so long.

    There are countless ways that Russia could have shut down the pipeline without blowing it up in waters accessible by international investigators.

    The thing is, if it was in waters normally inaccessible to international investigators, the first thing that would happen would be the international investigators start knocking on the door demanding access to it. And what does Russia do then, guilty party or not? Deny them access and thus look guiltier?

    We have threatened to sabotage the pipeline on more than one occasion and our State Department really didn’t seem that concerned about it. If there is any evidence that Russia is responsible, I haven’t seen it.

    Fair. This is one reason why there’s not a lot of evidence.

    I don’t have any doubts that Russia wants to punish Europe for their role in supporting Ukraine, but blowing up their own pipeline in such a clumsy way just doesn’t make any sense.

    Fair, though there are many reasons why it might be less clumsy. And of course this might not be an action by “Russia” per se so much as factions inside it, similar caveats can be made for other nations.

29. “Sweden is about to abandon 200 years of neutrality ”

    Swedish neutrality means bartering iron ore for Death Camp dental gold.such moral people. Greta is the pinnacle

30. Another thing that just struck me about that Guardian article, now that I’ve gotten all the way through it – and it was quite an interesting read – is that here we have one of the most prominent left-leaning newspapers in the world publishing an article critiquing Social Democratic politicians above all. Reagan and Thatcher are barely mentioned, Kohl (!) not at all. Indeed, the author even went out of his way in a sense to paint Thatcher’s reaction to the question of German-Russian energy dealings as praiseworthy, which it may indeed have been.

    I mention it only to wonder at Thatcher actually getting a favorable word in the Guardian. Maybe I’m just naive about the paper, not being a regular reader of it by any means over the years – of all the European media organs, I’m much more familiar with the German press than the British. But still, it’s a bit of a surprise, in terms of the paper’s reputation. Or perhaps such long-read analyses in the UK papers aren’t quite as ideologically policed, shall we say, by the respective editorial boards as those in the NYT often seem to be.

    Anyway, in the course of his article, Mr Wintour offers an intriguing (well, at least to me) interpretation of the prevailing German position on the Eastern policy question:

    Germany, in a sense, became a double prisoner of its past – bound both to the horrors it had committed, and to its belief that its response to those horrors was correct.

    Food for thought, to be sure.

31. I wonder when was the last time that a belligerent nation chose to destroy its own controlled infrastructure in order to somehow emphasize a strategic position that it already controlled 100%? When was the last time that a belligerent nation chose to remove options that it controlled from the field of play, not by choosing to leave them un-exercised and intact, but instead by obliterating them completely at their own expense – even worse, removing a significant potential source of cash flow?

    For example, when was the last time a belligerent nation intentionally scuttled their war ships in their own ports when they were not subject to hostilities, or trashed their own airfields? How about their cargo ships and logistics networks? These were billion-dollar pipelines we are talking about, that cannot be put back into service easily, and about $300 million in inventory boiled off. I cannot imagine how one could conclude that the Russians have decided their strategic position is enhanced by removing powerful negotiating options. Wars are not won by eliminating options and decreasing the opponent’s sense of uncertainty. Wars are won by gathering options close at hand, and working to increase the opponent’s sense of uncertainty. If Russia wanted to enter a Force Majuere claim to prevent the pipeline from fulfilling contractual obligations, there are dozens of ways to do this using engineering / technical justifications without obliterating the asset.

    The talking heads had great fun on TV being enabled once again to say ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ but I am surprised to see it here, with equally spare logic. ‘And Russia loses nothing by it. Those pipelines were never again becoming operational anyway. ”

    What does this mean? The pipelines could be repaired using rather conventional operations that have long been successful. If a diplomatic solution was agreed tomorrow, would there be no rationale for gas imports to resume, if Germany is strapped for gas? Russia lost quite a bit, in my estimation. If the investigation has recovered evidence, then a mass spectrographic analysis of the residues may well identify the culprit.

    I think the question is equal parts Cui Bono? and Cui Malo?

32. @Aggie

    I wonder when was the last time that a belligerent nation chose to destroy its own controlled infrastructure in order to somehow emphasize a strategic position that it already controlled 100%?

    Honestly it happens quite a bit. The Russians famously demolished the bridges over the Dnieper as they retreated from Kherson, and both Russia and France engaged in self-harrowing in order to help weaken their enemies when they advanced. And while not the “burning” of popular memory (Hunt for the Red October lied) Cortez did forcibly disassemble his ships so they could not be drawn back.

    When was the last time that a belligerent nation chose to remove options that it controlled from the field of play, not by choosing to leave them un-exercised and intact, but instead by obliterating them completely at their own expense – even worse, removing a significant potential source of cash flow?

    Happens more often than we would like to think, especially since it is rarely nations collectively making that decision but leaders in it. Just look at how the left has mocked and devastated the Keystone XL project and other valuable systems, and the German Greens kneecapped nuclear power.

    For example, when was the last time a belligerent nation intentionally scuttled their war ships in their own ports when they were not subject to hostilities, or trashed their own airfields?

    The issue I see is that this is at best somewhat uneven. Especially since if Russia did do this (and it is dubious if it did), this would be serving as a false flag for military or political gain during wartime when it is very much subject to hostilities, even if not with the nations of the Baltic.

    And the Soviets famously shelled one of their own villages in order to justify an invasion of Finland and gassed their own fields in order to devastate agricultural autonomy.

    Moreover, let’s not forget that the Russians did de facto give away much of their foreign currency reserves by not withdrawing them before escalating the invasion, leaving them vulnerable to freezing. So it’s not like this stuff is completely untold.

    How about their cargo ships and logistics networks?

    Cargo ships are pretty expendable; they aren’t nothing to lose, especially for the state of Russian shipbuilding, but they are fairly easy to rebuild. The logistics networks are another question.

    These were billion-dollar pipelines we are talking about, that cannot be put back into service easily, and about $300 million in inventory boiled off.

    Agreed.

    I cannot imagine how one could conclude that the Russians have decided their strategic position is enhanced by removing powerful negotiating options.

    For starters, as JE put it in the thread Cornflower observed, it might not be “the Russians” as a whole doing it but some subset thereof, such as Putin and his close loyalists viewing removing negotiating options as a benefit. If he was afraid of growing internal instability or possible coups, blowing the pipeline would hurt the ability of would-be “involuntary successors” to do an about face and make concessions.

    Secondly, it can also serve a domestic audience, trying to further direct anger towards the West.

    Wars are not won by eliminating options and decreasing the opponent’s sense of uncertainty.

    The problem with this is that one of the classics of Military Science written by a Chinese Flat Earther from the Bronze Age pointed out:

    “Throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight. If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve. Officers and men alike will put forth their uttermost strength. Soldiers in desperate straits lose the sense of fear. If there is no place of refuge, they will stand firm.”

    The truth is, wars are often won by removing uncertainty – both from one’s own side and the enemy’s – on certain factors, such as the Unconditional Surrender policy of WWII. Likewise, there are some times when you want to break your own toys and remove options from the table, mostly in order to prevent undercutting from your own side.

    And of course there are other times when people or factions judge “merely” winning the war as less important. Truman’s sacking of MacArthur and downplaying the atomic bombs did not do much to help actually “win” Korea in a conventional sense, but it stabilized domestic politics and checked most risks it would escalate into a nuclear world war.

    It is also worth noting that Putin’s regime making mouthy movements about how it finds the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine to be “unnecessary” is at least theoretically removing an option and limiting uncertainty. The extent to which depends on how much we believe such a claim (and I am leery at it at best) but it is something that can’t be denied.

    Moreover, one will naturally limit one’s own options and diminish uncertainty to some degree as the war goes on, due to Paths Not Taken. If there was any question that Ukrainian attempts to retake Kherson would be stopped by the deployment of nuclear weapons, that is well and truly done.

    It is one reason why war leaders have to actively try and create uncertainty and options for themselves; because of how their options diminish as time goes on and one’s enemies and other observers will get more used to you.

    Wars are won by gathering options close at hand, and working to increase the opponent’s sense of uncertainty.

    This is the sort of thing that sounds pithy and penetrating but isn’t, especially in the latter.

    Wars are won by applying military, political, and economic means to obtain a political end, usually by destroying the enemy’s capacity and will to fight on while maintaining one’s own. They are meant to increase the opponent’s certainty that it either cannot prevail, or that doing so would not be worth it.

    If Russia wanted to enter a Force Majuere claim to prevent the pipeline from fulfilling contractual obligations, there are dozens of ways to do this using engineering / technical justifications without obliterating the asset.

    Agreed, which is why I don’t think it was for that (though it might be a side benefit).

    The talking heads had great fun on TV being enabled once again to say ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ but I am surprised to see it here, with equally spare logic.

    I don’t think it is “equally sparse logic.” The talking heads of the MSM and the left were at best wrong to believe Putin held Trump’s strings and could rig US elections, but he was still a ruthless, bad man who has intentionally cultivated an aura that he is willing to do anything. It is also worth noting a man willing to sign over an entire region of Russia to a regime that is not that dissimilar to the Dudayev one that Russia went to war to overthrow – with corresponding knock on effects destabilizing the country and causing some troubles with his own loyalists – in order to better his grip on power is certainly willing to contemplate such destruction in principle, even if not in practice due to the many decent arguments you have made.

    ‘And Russia loses nothing by it. Those pipelines were never again becoming operational anyway.

    What does this mean? The pipelines could be repaired using rather conventional operations that have long been successful. If a diplomatic solution was agreed tomorrow, would there be no rationale for gas imports to resume, if Germany is strapped for gas?

    Agreed, and this is why I shy away from it.

    Russia lost quite a bit, in my estimation.

    Quite a bit I think sums up my view too; not nothing by any means as some have claimed, but I also don’t think a lot.

    If the investigation has recovered evidence, then a mass spectrographic analysis of the residues may well identify the culprit.

    Agreed. I suppose we will have to see.

    I think the question is equal parts Cui Bono? and Cui Malo?

    Agreed. The big issues I see with those are both how those are not necessarily super-helpful in narrowing it down, but also because there are so many answers. Russia (or at least as importantly, various factions within it) are one set of possible answers, but FAR from the only ones, with others being what people touch on. The US, Poland, NATO, factions within them, Ukraine, factions within it, and so on.

33. @Turtler

    Each of your examples shows a strategic decision to withhold the capture of assets by an invading enemy. This was not the situation with the pipelines in any event, short of wholesale invasion of Russia, in which case the pipelines would factor low on a list of strategic assets, by comparison. My point was that the Russians had an array of choices to disable the functional capability of the pipeline system that would leave the subsea assets intact. Nor do I see any attempts at using the demolition of the pipelines as a ‘false flag’ attribution, or to influence pubic opinion, strategically. Since no attribution has been forthcoming, then one can only assume that this was also not the purpose.

    What I find telling, in a way, is the lack of analysis, the lack of imagining why this event was undertaken. None of the diplomatic experts, none of the tall-forehead league, none of the foreign policy experts or 4-D chess players, seem to have any notions to explain why this action was undertaken for any purpose other than to obliterate the pipeline – and there seem to be very few that are even willing to take on the obvious and speculate the Why of Who Mighta Dunnit. Very curious, the dog that doesn’t bark.

34. Indeed. They depend on the “the Russia, it bad” mentality that has been built of equal parts Russian actions and Western media products using “the Russia, it bad” as a standard media trope.

35. Aggie:

    It has acted very much as a false flag operation to Russia’s advantage, in my opinion. Have you not seen all the people saying the US did it?

    Plus, you mention the Nord Stream pipelines as assets of Russia. They certainly once were. But they had already been rendered useless, so of what value were they to Russia anymore? Germany was absolutely committed to weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels. Russia had already brought pressure to bear on them and Germany hadn’t changed its mind. Russia had closed the pipelines down. Still no change. And it’s not as though Russia could pick up the pipeline and put it somewhere else where people wanted it – pipelines are not movable, as far as I know.

36. @Aggie

    Each of your examples shows a strategic decision to withhold the capture of assets by an invading enemy.

    Not quite true. It would be an exaggeration to say Cortez was operating on a mission of peace (indeed, he was being hunted by his own government’s colonial authorities at the time) but he was on a mission of exploration rather than war, and he dismantled the boats not so much to deny them to an enemy but to deny them to his own troops. Likewise the shelling of Mainilla by the Soviets was not to prevent an enemy from seizing a desolate village in a war but to provide pretext to start a war.

    And I can think of a few other cases, such as the destruction of vast amounts of valuable military equipment by the Allies after WWII – sometimes in things like Operation Crossroads (where we nuked lots of old warships ) for testing, but otherwise just to avoid devastating the economy by melting down so much steel and aluminum or having to maintain it in peacetime (which in hindsight seems bizarre given what we now know of Stalin’s ambitions but which at the time seemed necessary). And then there are “oopsies” like the aforementioned failure to withdraw currency reserves before Feb 24th.

    This was not the situation with the pipelines in any event, short of wholesale invasion of Russia, in which case the pipelines would factor low on a list of strategic assets, by comparison.

    Agreed.

    My point was that the Russians had an array of choices to disable the functional capability of the pipeline system that would leave the subsea assets intact.

    Agreed, and this is made more telling by the fact that the Russians had used such reasons (whether intentionally or from actual issues) in the form of malfunctions (real or invented) in NS. So this would be a very drastic case and why I was leery about the “Russia Did It” explanations from the start.

    Nor do I see any attempts at using the demolition of the pipelines as a ‘false flag’ attribution, or to influence pubic opinion, strategically. Since no attribution has been forthcoming, then one can only assume that this was also not the purpose.

    They absolutely are being used to influence public opinion, mostly on a domestic Russian audience or in its “Near Abroad” but also wider. But that is about what we’d expect of any government or faction, and so not really strong evidence.

    Attribution on all sides for now seems to consist of a lot of vague but heated finger pointing where the different great powers accuse each other of doing it but are vague about the how or about going so far as to make it a formal accusation. Also rather weak sauce IMHO.

    It is also why I thought it plausible that this was an accident or series of accidents until rather recently, and I suppose that is still VAGUELY possible even if increasingly unlikely.

    What I find telling, in a way, is the lack of analysis, the lack of imagining why this event was undertaken. None of the diplomatic experts, none of the tall-forehead league, none of the foreign policy experts or 4-D chess players, seem to have any notions to explain why this action was undertaken for any purpose other than to obliterate the pipeline – and there seem to be very few that are even willing to take on the obvious and speculate the Why of Who Mighta Dunnit. Very curious, the dog that doesn’t bark.

    Agreed, and understandable. For my own part my issue doesn’t come from lack of explanations for it, but a preponderance of them. The thing is, if one is so inclined you can probably find any number of explanations for Who Mighta Dun It and explaining why. Ukraine is probably the most obvious suspect in terms of Cui Bono and Cui Malo but has projection issues (though those can be overcome) in the Baltic, but I can probably think of quite a few explanations for why the US, UK, Russia, Norway, Poland, Germany, Sweden, or even factions within them (Putin Loyalists, Russian Ultranationalists trying to gain on Putin like Prigozhin, Russian internal opposition to the war trying to kneecap Putin and humiliate him, Ukrainian Ultranationalists trying to pull a fast one, and even radical Greenies using the fog of uncertainty to do it). Cornflour jokingly (I think) proposed this was the actions of German wood furnace producers, and I can’t even 100% rule that out.

    Obviously a lot of the explanations I come up for these would stretch plausibility or sense (which doesn’t necessarily mean that isn’t what happened; people have done plenty of stupid, illogical, or irrational things before) and many would clearly be more likely than others, but if you think too much about it you can easily come up with a lot of theories, rationales, and counter-rationales.

    What’s worse is that from what little we know about the theory of the attack, it seems like it required some specialized knowledge and equipment, but not THAT much. Deep diving is not a skill most people have, and neither is working with explosives while doing so, but it isn’t a Super Rare combination of technologies either, and you can probably find literally hundreds of thousands of former frogmen (and women) or pyrotechnically inclined deep sea divers who an interested faction could try and recruit for this deed.

    Which is why I am largely playing Devil’s Advocate rather than coming to a lot of firm conclusions, and you certainly are right to be questioning a lot of “the narratives” around, since a lot are based on wishful thinking or bias rather than considering it.

37. @neo

    But they had already been rendered useless, so of what value were they to Russia anymore?

    I think it has great potential value. In particular coming into what is probably going to be the hardest winter in modern Western history, which is going to make the sunshine warriors with Ukrainian flag emojis in their user names think twice and consider how much they are committed to supporting it. I am not well versed on maritime engineering beyond the very bare minimum and so I cannot estimate how long it would take to repair the alleged damage (let alone how that would compare with or stack on top of the time and effort needed to bring the inactive NS back on), but blowing it just before winter when Western Europe will be at its most vulnerable did strike me as odd from a rational point of view from the Kremlin’s standpoint. Which of course doesn’t mean the Kremlin DIDN’T do it, and even less that some faction originating with Russia did not do so independently of the Kremlin as a whole, but is something to consider.

    Germany was absolutely committed to weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels.

    Was. But if there are a few lessons modern German history should have taught us, two such lessons are about how drastically German commitments and stances can change as well as how deep Russian influence is in country. I’m not saying Germany will break from such a commitment for sure, but I am saying that if it did happen, we would expect this Winter and shortly before and after it to be exactly when it would happen.

    And as the others have pointed out, blowing up the pipes would be more likely to steel German and other European resolve.

    Russia had already brought pressure to bear on them and Germany hadn’t changed its mind. Russia had closed the pipelines down. Still no change. And it’s not as though Russia could pick up the pipeline and put it somewhere else where people wanted it – pipelines are not movable, as far as I know.

    Agreed, but sometimes persistence pays off (as it has done many times in Russo-German relations before) and this winter would be a powerful blast.

    I’ll need to do more research about how quickly the pipes could be repaired and re-flowing to see if these sabotage moves actually put a significant dent into Russia’s possible timelines for re-opening the pipe during or after this winter.

38. “US President Joe Biden could not have been clearer when, in early February, he promised to bring Nord Stream ‘to an end’ should Russian troops and tanks enter Ukraine.
    The invasion happened. So did Mr Biden take revenge as he promised to?
    At the time he dismissed suggestions such an operation would be too complicated to carry out or too damaging diplomatically given Nord Stream 2 was controlled by Germany. To the doubters, he added: ‘We will, I promise you. We will be able to do it.’

    But whose long-term strategic goals are achieved by the attacks, Russia’s or the US’s? The plot thickened on Tuesday when a former Polish minister thanked the US for the Nord Stream explosions.

    On Twitter Radoslaw Sikorski posted a picture of a massive methane gas spill on the surface of the Baltic Sea with the comment: ‘Thank You USA’. The hawkish MEP later tweeted that if Russia wants to continue supplying gas to Europe it must ‘talk to the countries controlling the gas pipelines’.

    Whatever did he mean? Both Russia and the US have the technology and the wherewithal to pull off such an attack, while surveillance of the North Sea and Baltic Sea is said to be patchy.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11264547/Who-DID-blow-Nord-Stream-gas-pipelines-Russia-America.html

    As to the CIA needing White House approval to pull off such an operation, according to Biden, he doesn’t know much about anything that happens by his administration.

39. The destruction of some of the Nord Stream pipes makes the Russian pipes in the Ukraine more valuable as well as more vulnerable. Russia is already trashing “infrastructure” in the Ukraine so it is an obvious threat.

    The Baltic has the residue of at least two World Wars and several decades of training by “everyone”, so what does a piece of scrap metal prove? Sweden has been tracking the Russians since WW2, so unless they have pictures, it don’t mean nothing. The gas lines work at several thousand psi, so you don’t need a whole lotta boom to breach the tubes. Something stinks.

40. @Gerard vanderleun

    Indeed. They depend on the “the Russia, it bad” mentality that has been built of equal parts Russian actions and Western media products using “the Russia, it bad” as a standard media trope.

    I don’t think for a second it is built on equal parts such. In particular while I do consume more Western media products than I care to admit in spite of barely heeding the MSM any more (mostly video games and books), I also worked in Russia a fair bit and saw how Putin’s Russia is bad indeed, and to few people more than the Russians themselves.

    Indeed, I have been rather baffled at how many people from across the political spectrum have underestimated just how bad Putin is, moreso before 2016 but still after that (like the traditional early-term US Presidential Rapprochement with Putin under Biden that happened after 2020, which was more muted than the norm but still there).

    I also distinctly remember you linking to a blog featuring some idiot’s cloying remarks about how the West hates Putin because he is a “Daddy” and the “woke” “women” of the West hate “daddies”, while ignoring the fact that on an objective level he rather sucks as a Daddy, both on a personal level (he is apparently a distant, stern father and unfaithful husband; which is hardly the worst combination in the world and one of the less nasty parts of his life but also hardly a model) and as an abusive, corrupt, entitled patriarch of the state who likes breeding a toxic mixture of dependency on himself in Russian policies (right on down to making sure the constituent regions are dependent on the central government for tax money because they cannot finance themselves) and those with the abroad (to the point where even Lukashenko has gotten irritated with him on occasion).

    Putin isn’t Satan, though I don’t doubt that he is slated for delivery to him barring some uncharacteristic change of heart, and he isn’t the likes of Hitler or Stalin (though he happily uses strategies from both and tacitly glorifies the legacies of both, even Hitler in the case of his outreach to Neo-Nazis like Medvedev and Utkin), but he is plenty awful. That doesn’t mean he is responsible for X or Y Bad Thing like this happening and he should be evaluated on the merits of the given case, but that doesn’t mean I would rule him out for it.

41. A lot of gas, because of course Putin is acting as we would expect. Seems like a lot of speculation ignoring VDH’s points that emotions, fears, hatreds, (and idiocy – om) lead to decisions preceeding
    and during wars.

    Hubris, nemesis, and humility.

42. @neo

    As I understand it, Nordstream II (A&B) are wholly owned and operated by Gazprom, while Nordstream I (A&B) are owned by the multi-national consortium based in Switzerland, with Gazprom as the majority partner. One of the four lines is still intact – I think it’s Nordstream I B. Gazprom is a multinational, majority state-owned, with Russia being the state.

    “But they had already been rendered useless, so of what value were they to Russia anymore?” I don’t understand this statement. How were they rendered useless prior to the sabotage? They were pipelines held idle at working pressure (1800 psi), fully packed with product inventory. Is a parked car ‘rendered useless’? Or held in readiness, pending future decisions?

    @Turtler

    The 48″ concrete-coated pipelines could be repaired. It’s very shallow water depth, diver-accessible, although they might not need them. A large pipelay vessel – such as the Allseas Solitaire, which originally did part of the lay – would recover an end, cut back to virgin pipe, and start replacing sections. A new spool piece would be fabricated to complete the splice. This would be the most conventional repair. Depending on availability (which also depends partially on willingness to spend) I would imagine that full repairs and commissioning could take place within a year quite easily – if the will was there. It would be normal to have replacement pipeline stock already on hand. It’s a natural gas pipeline, and I would imagine the gas specification does not pose any challenges whatsoever. It’s a straight forward job and the shallow water depth makes it easier.

43. Besides Biden’s ego, you know who would have the most to gain by rendering the Nord Stream pipelines inoperable? Ukraine– especially if there were sufficient psyops blaming Russia.

    No off ramp for Europe to waffle on the war, Russia takes the blame and the existing pipelines through Ukraine just increased in value. There are three pipelines running through Ukraine with the capacity about 70% of Nord Stream 1.

44. A Ukrainian’s view of Euromaidan. What would they know?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJh9aPuatKg

    But but but, Vlad is misunderstood, or whatever. Poor Roosia, no offramp, always gets blamed. Crimea, Georgia, MH17, Ukraine war 2022. What Roosia needs is better PR and spin (sarc).

45. Aggie:

    I’ve already explained several times why and how they were rendered useless, so I have no idea why you don’t understand what I mean and why I say it. I will try one more time but not waste a lot more words on it: (1) fairly early in the war Russia had shut the flow down to only 20% (2) a few months later Russia closed the pipeline entirely (3) the first reason Russia gave was that there was a mechanical problem (4) Russia demanded the German company fix it, but the German company said they could not or would not (5) the shutdown continued on Russia’s part (6) Russia said the pipeline would not be reopened till Europe ended its sanctions on Russia (7) Europe made it clear that would not be happening, and therefore the pipelines were closed indefinitely by Russia. Russian leverage was not working and the pipelines were not working, and there was no end in sight. (8) Germany had also made it clear that ASAP they would be stopping all dependence on Russian energy.

    Combine all those factors: cutting off the pipeline flow was used as leverage over Europe but it became clear that it was useless as leverage because Germany would not bend, the pipeline was also useless at generating revenue because it was closed indefinitely until Germany made concessions it would not be making, and the pipeline would never be anything but useless in the future because Europe was weaning itself as quickly as possible off Russian energy.

46. Since there has been a lot of gas spouted here, here is a link from an assessment 1 month ago.

    Nord Stream Sabotage Investigation Update – SubBrief

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUNFTjbjI1E&t=115s

47. @ Phillip > “I say it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.”

    That may be as accurate a guess as any.
    The discussion is interesting but we are still lacking solid information.

    The discussion at the LI post Neo linked covers much of the same ground as the one here, with two additional suggestions.

    georgfelis | November 20, 2022 at 3:57 pm

    “…show traces of explosives on several of the foreign objects that were found…”

    Pardon me for being skeptical, but I’d like to see those ‘foreign objects’ and have them examined by outside experts. Also ‘traces of explosives’ can be anything. What *kind* of explosives are we talking about? Every nation tends to use different boom-stuff. Gas chromatography can isolate out the components down to parts per billion after all.

    Until the specifics come out, all we have is more smoke. If none of the specifics ever do come out, it is manufactured smoke.
    

    Abbie at NCIS would have nailed that down before the first commercial break.
    If the Swedes know anything, they aren’t telling yet.

    rwingjr in reply to DelightLaw1. | November 21, 2022 at 8:19 pm

    Actually, it makes more sense for Russia to sabotage the pipeline rather than shut the pipeline down.
    As reported in Forbes:
    “One may be tempted to ask why would the Russians bother with sabotage and denial? After all, hostility toward Ukraine and Europe is neither novel nor secret. The shutoff of gas from sabotage does not fundamentally change Russia’s stated aims or enacted strategy. The answer lies in the strength of Western financial institutions, Russia’s lack of leverage or soft power, and the devastating impacts sanctions are having against Russia. If Nord Stream is shut down suddenly through “force majeure,” a sudden uncontrollable stop that is the fault of neither party, then Russia can void its obligations toward European stakeholders without legally breaking contracts, thus dodging the many penalties in doing so.”
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2022/09/29/russian-sabotage-of-the-nord-stream-pipeline-mark-a-point-of-no-return/?sh=57355c6b5dba

    I remember reading the Forbes post at the time and thinking that might have some relevance.
    However, now I doubt that Putin cares much about being sued for breaking contracts and there really is no way anyone could collect the penalties from him, at least not directly; Russian assets could be commandeered, but I suspect any amounts that a court or arbitrator might award would be dwarfed by what has already been lost in the Ukraine fighting.

    I think I’m more partial to Mrs. Peacock in the kitchen with the poker.

48. Couple of thoughts here:
    It pretty much depends on what Putin thinks. And we don’t know what he thinks.
    For example; coming up through the KGB–not soldiers, uniforms notwithstanding–he had no idea how hollow the Russian military was. Huh? Then he got to be in charge and he STILL didn’t know. Or, he knew but figured it could manage anyway.
    Either one was not something a rational actor sitting at an American keyboard with no skin in the game would entertain for an instant. Or he was figuring something else.
    He did not anticipate western support–not in words and sanctions as usual but in a flood of top-end weapons systems whose designs were the fruits of half a century’s efforts to…counter Russian weapons.
    Putin, of all people, was supposed to know this stuff.. Smart, connected with the inside of everything being KGB, and made the decisions…as if he had no idea.
    As I’ve said before, we don’t know what he thinks, we don’t know what he thinks he can get away with, we don’t know what he thinks the top guys in his government will stand for, we don’t know what he thinks the people will stand for. And it’s what he thinks that matters, no matter how many chin-pullers go into calculating his best rational next move.

    Energy is fungible…but it still has to be moved. To whom and at what unit cost? That takes more chin-pulling by Americans sitting at their keyboards with no skin in the game.

    During WW II, when cold and not particularly secure, my father became fixated on a book he’d read as a youngster; “The Nuremberg Stove”. It ended up with the kid warm and secure and the Emperor taking care of his family. So I’ve been a bit more than others interested in such things.
    Mark Twain, remarking on such, observed that when you get the bill for staying warm using a traditional pot-bellied stove or some variant, you think you’ve been supporting a volcano.
    Opposed to which,. he described a room in a Paris hotel with a ceramic stove. The staff puts in a few sticks to get the day started, comes back an hour or so later with a few more and that’s it for the day. Even, consistent heat.. No roasting on one side freezing on the other.
    The further east you go in Europe, the less moderating effect the Gulf Stream has and the colder things get. And the more you would have found the ceramic stoves; massy, whose function was themselves to be warmed and emit radiant heat evenly, consistently, and economically.
    But these are bigger, more expensive to manufacture and install, and are not likely to be what’s being banged out in the factories for the current use.
    We have a conventional fireplace. A couple of hours’ cheerful fire on a nasty winter’s eve takes a double armful of wood.
    Which is to say, it’s likely the odious smell of wood fires isn’t going to be a problem in about a month.

    Kipling, in a poem for the music halls calling for support for the families of the reservists called up for the South African war, whichever one it was, said, in part, “Half their furniture’s up the spout.” Staying warm isn’t cheap and people get really, really tired of being cold.

49. Russia isn’t engaged in a “warm war” with NATO. Its the other way around. Please.

50. Putin doesnt want us eating bugs in the dark this is schwabs objective

51. I am not well versed on maritime engineering beyond the very bare minimum and so I cannot estimate how long it would take to repair the alleged damage

    First you would need a dive support vessel along side a salvage vessel to remove debris and clean up the site. The engineering to do that would take about a year, and likely 2 years to get on the schedule for the DSV. Assuming survey vessels have already looked over the area for geohazards from the explosion, you might start concurrent engineering work on designing the repair pipe. At worst, you might have to go from valve to valve, but you might be able to patch with a sleeve or new valves at the damaged end. That will take 2 years, but again concurrent to other work. Long leads will take at least 18 months and probably wouldn’t be ordered until half the engineering work is complete. When you order long leads, you can then schedule a pipe lay vessel, which is about 3 years out on schedule. Execution would take 4 to 6 months. So likely 4.5 years if really compressed.

    No money to be made in the salvage operations. I’m not sure a repair would make money considering the market is currently closed, so it is doubtful the return on investment would hurdle the cost of repair. The indecision to move forward will push back the start date of any repair.

52. Yep, NATO invaded Roosia, set up a no-no fly zone over Ukraine and the Black Sea, marched or rolled into Kalinigrad, threatened Roosia to return Crimea to Ukraine or else. Yep NATO is in a warm war with poor, persecuted, peaceful Roosia; the defender of Christianity. Da!

53. Thank you Neo, I wasn’t sure that was what you had been referring to. From my operations / engineering perspective, I would say the decision had been made, for political reasons, to suspend gas export/import operations. From that perspective, the infrastructure was far from being useless, and more like simply being ‘out of use’ but obviously held in readiness.

    I have read elsewhere that the ‘mechanical’ problem you refer to has to do with the compression equipment, and I suspect there’s a contractual or warranty tussle over the issue that could easily be affected by diplomacy efforts and outside influence, as I have seen this before.

    A simulation run of the future weather is predicting historically bitter cold as far down as the Med. Looks like we could be testing resolve here sooner than they think.

    https://twitter.com/LeopoldHeinrich/status/1594656331268595713

    Pipelines are damaged all the time for various reasons, most often having to do with trawlers or dragging anchors, and sometimes natural disaster. Sections are replaced as a matter of common practice, and while the normal Sanction / Engineering / Procurement / Planning / Execution cycle might take a couple of years, if people were freezing to death and the cities go dark, the will (and the money) would be there to knock it out much more quickly.

54. Nope Putin wouldn’t want the evil, corrupt, decadent West to be eating bugs, for that might cause additional chaos and social disruption in the West. After all, Putin is fighting against Schwabb, Davos, and the WEF. (sarc x infinity)

    Sometimes you have more than one enemy, miguel.

55. Well, as long as there’s a worm in the tequila…

    Anyway, speaking of Swedish prosecutors…here’s one spicy meatball:
    “Judge Says Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Must Answer Questions Under Oath”—
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-says-former-white-house-press-secretary-jen-psaki-must-answer-questions-under-oath_4876822.html
    Key grafs:
    ‘…In October, Doughty ordered Psaki and other former and current Biden administration officials to answer questions under oath because evidence has been put forth indicating they colluded with big tech firms to censor users.
    ‘Plaintiffs in the case said that Psaki’s public statements about the administration pressuring Facebook and other companies to crack down on supposed disinformation and misinformation and to ban users showed she had personal knowledge about communications between officials and big tech executives. Doughty agreed, finding the plaintiffs “have proven that Jennifer Psaki has personal knowledge about the issue concerning censorship across social media as it related to COVID-19 and ancillary issues of COVID-19.
    ‘He also said that “any burden on Psaki is outweighed by the need to determine whether free speech has been suppressed.”…’

    Hmm.
    Gosh, doesn’t the good judge KNOW that the only possible collusion/lying/conspiring/law-breaking MUST BE of the Trumpian kind?
    That Psaki speaks ONLY TRUTH (anything else is just not possible).
    No doubt the usual suspects will spring into action…to teach this judge a thing or two.

56. My 2 cents:

    Poland with UK support. See Liz Trusses supposed text “it’s done”

    https://realfactsamerica.com/articles/its-done-did-liz-truss-text-antony-blinken-after-nord-stream-attack-economy

    Poland’s current leadership hates Russia, and Polish “mercenaries” are fighting in Ukraine. My guess similar to the Chinese “volunteers” in the Korean War.

    Russia was yanking the chain of Europe by turning on and off the gas. And if the energy crises had gotten bad enough with huge public demand, perhaps Germany would have allowed the flow in Nordstrom 2, bypassing Ukrainian pipelines. With the explosion that option is off the table.

57. Aggie:

    Yes, I meant useless to Russia in the political and economic sense, and therefore completely expendable in that sense. If I had meant it was useless forever in the mechanical sense, I would have used some other word like “inoperative” or “unrepairable.”

58. Miguel cervantes:

    On the contrary, I am pretty sure that if the Western countries Putin considers his enemies end up “eating bugs in the dark” it would make Putin very very happy.

59. Gosh, those Polish mercenaries must have also hijacked a submarine or diver support vessel too. Those crafty Poles must have had their boat’s location transponder turned off too. Yep it was the Polish frogmen, they hate Roosia!

60. Well, one theory is that they bombarded the areas in question with huge amounts of extra-aged kielbasa, deploying the stuff like depth charges from their upgraded—thanks to NATO—naval fleet of three state-of-the-art, extended-length stealth rowboats.
    I’m a bit skeptical, mind you, but apparently, there’s a precedent for this….

61. I would urge everyone to re-read Neo’s comment at 12:19 a.m. She nails it more clearly and concisely than anyone else I’ve read on the subject.

    To expand on what she wrote…

    Neo wrote: “…the pipeline would never be anything but useless in the future because Europe was weaning itself as quickly as possible off Russian energy.”

    Aggie wrote: “The pipelines could be repaired using rather conventional operations that have long been successful. If a diplomatic solution was agreed tomorrow, would there be no rationale for gas imports to resume…”

    I get the feeling many Russophiles think that the Ukraine situation is just some diplomatic tussle that could be patched over tomorrow, and then everything will be back the way it was.

    Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that Russia is committing a genocidal war of conquest *in Europe*, and Europe is restructuring its diplomatic, economic, and military systems as a result.

    Europe is now more united than at any time since the fall of the Roman empire. Ukraine and Moldova are joining the European Union. Sweden and Finland are joining NATO. Europe is weaning itself completely off of Russian hydrocarbons as quickly as possible. NATO is strengthening its eastern border with 300,000 troops. Germany is doubling its defense budget and has announced an additional 100 billion Euro modernization fund on top it it.

    Poland has ordered *500* HIMARS launchers, 266 M-1 tanks, 980 Korean K-2 tanks (better than anything the Russians can put in the field), 96 Apache helicopters (making theirs the second largest Apache fleet in the world after the U. S. Army’s), and 32 F-35 fighters. Poland is also installing eight Patriot missile batteries, the Aegis Ashore missile defense system, and a plethora of short-range missile and air-defense systems. 15 northern European nations have announced the European Safe Skies Initiative, building an integrated low, medium, and high missile defense system consisting of German IRIS-T, American Patriot, and Israeli Arrow 3 systems.

    Russia, by its actions in Ukraine, has completely divorced itself from Europe. There is no going back in the short or medium terms. To believe otherwise is to completely ignore current events. Knowing all of this, as Putin does, it is not inconceivable that he ordered the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines himself.

    The Ukraine war is shaping up to be an identity-defining event for not just the nation of Ukraine but to a lesser extent all of Europe.

62. Hold on!
    It does seem that Europe, or parts of it, is prepared to “compromise” (or “reconsider”—but not “fold”, most certainly not “fold”) on certain issues.
    Could it be that extreme cold or the threat of it might be viewed as a kind of torture session…or at least have a “behavior modification” effect…?
    “Oil Prices Slide After EU Appears To Fold On ‘Tough’ Russian Crude Price Cap Scheme”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/oil-prices-slide-after-eu-appears-fold-russian-oil-price-cap-idea

    If this is indeed the case, might it be said that having NO, or limited, energy pipeline to Europe strengthens Putin’s (shaking) hand?

63. mkent, for all your confidence of Europe’s resolve, reality may interfere. Assuming Europe gets through this winter without severe disruptions to their economies, the reality is they will have no path to refill storage facilities to prepare for the next winter. While LNG can help, based on what I’ve read they won’t have the capacity to store enough LNG for the 2023-24 winter. That’s when the real devastation will occur.

    Will Europe push for a negotiated settlement, if it becomes clear that the next winter will be substantially worse than this one?

    “…For now, Russia is delivering 86 million cubic metres (mcm) a day into northwest Europe via Poland and Ukraine, compared to an average 360 mcm/day last year, down 76%, Bernstein analysts said.

    Analysts’ estimates vary. If supply continues at current levels, Europe faces a 155 mcm/day shortfall, Bernstein figures show, based on average daily demand in northwest Europe for September to March from 2017-2021 of 930 mcm.
    EU countries have agreed to reduce demand by up to 15% or a total of 50 bcm this winter.
    If they achieve that, storage levels should end the winter at around 55 bcm. Refilling them in time for the following winter will be complicated by absent Russian supplies that Europe was still receiving earlier this year.

    A more comfortable energy supply situation could be many winters away.
    Francisco Blanch, analyst at Bank of America, estimated the normalisation of gas prices in Europe could take five-to-ten years.

    “Europe will have to keep paying up for gas and praying for warmer weather,” he said.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russian-gas-supply-gap-casts-chill-europe-winter-nears-2022-10-11/

64. “The Ukraine war is shaping up to be an identity-defining event for not just the nation of Ukraine but to a lesser extent all of Europe.”– mkent

    Based on history, I wouldn’t bet on Europe.

    “Ukraine and Moldova are joining the European Union.” – mkent

    Maybe, maybe not.

    “WASHINGTON — Ukraine’s bid to fast-track its efforts to join NATO, following Russia’s annexation of four more Ukrainian territories, is being met with caution in Brussels and Washington, where top officials are trying to shift the focus to their unwavering support for Kyiv.”

    https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-pushes-for-fast-tracked-nato-membership-us-pushes-back-/6770904.html

65. “…and praying for warmer weather…”(!!)
    Alas, poor Greta…

    Just a sec.
    Before they can pray for warmer weather, shouldn’t they first be praying that they can, somehow, rediscover religion?—i.e., someone, something to pray TO?
    (OTOH, maybe they’d prefer to freeze….)

66. Why would Russia blow up its own pipeline??

    1. they knew they were going to cut off / drastically reduce gas supplies to Europe anyway – to further “punish” Europe, so Russia had nothing to lose in destroying the pipeline.
    2. they knew that by doing so, Russia’s , western , dependable “useful idiots” would all come out of the woodwook – yet again !!! – to proclaim that the USA or Germany or the UK or Costa Rica or Singapore or Martians blew up the pipeline.
    3. it would provide a very good excuse for Russia to claim that they really wanted to maintain gas supplies to Europe, but the USA, Martians, Costa Rica, etc., prevented them from meeting its gas delivery obligations by blowing up the pipeline.

    Here is my prediction; when the blast by-products are analyzed, it will be shown that they were of the sort typically found in Western / NATO explosives devices. This will be a slam dunk.

    When it comes to disinformation the Russians are the world’s best. Of course, they are greatly aided by western useful idiots, that never, ever find fault with anything Russia ever does or will 1000% of the time find a way to excuse Russian actions and blame the USA, NATO, Martians, Klingons, Climate Change, etc. .

67. Nord Stream 1 is owned by a consortium of companies. Gazprom owns 51%.
    Nord Stream 2 is owned by a Swiss company and just filed for bankruptcy and laid off its employees.

    Will the damage to the pipelines put insurance companies on the hook?

    After the incessant claims the Biden laptop was Russian disinformation and Putin, PUtin PUTIN did it, I think it’s only natural to be skeptical blaming Russia for the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines.

    And as a famous American politician once quipped, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

    Seriously, it may have been Russia. I see a lot of actors that had reasons and would have benefitted from this. It’s just prudent to look at the evidence, which at this point we don’t have.

68. BrianE:

    Ukraine joining the EU and Ukraine wanting to join NATO are not the same.

    I am surprised you conflate the two.

69. I think I understand putin, the carnival barkers like sachs and summers, enabled the oligarchs to liquidate much of Russia’s infrastructure, and put it in their own private hands many of these men, backed putin, because the chaos they had wrought was consuming them as well, but there’s that line about the frog and the scorpion, and that applies as well to countries in western europe, which seem enthused about extra doses in scorpion venom, sadly so are the pirates that have seized the ship of state in this country,

70. putin is perfectly happen to let people freeze and starve after all this was what that Russian winter of at least 91-95, felt for many average Russians, while the west championed yeltsin the parliamentary revolt of 93, and the subsequent rise of zhirinovsky was expressions of discontent,

71. om, I misread mkent’s comment.

    I’m skeptical Ukraine will become a member of the European Union either.
    From Politico:

    “The surprise application from Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova is the right opportunity to finally drop the pretense that the EU will always admit new countries to membership when they claim to be ready — a fiction that has hampered positive developments in the Western Balkans for years and ended up with Turkey, a candidate since 1999, beyond the pale.”

    “The main thrust of the Commission opinion will be on Ukraine’s ineligibility to be declared an accession country under present rules. Even before the Russian invasion, Ukraine was a very poor country, its GDP per capita below half that of Bulgaria. Since its 2014 association agreement with the EU progress has been slow, with the country’s integration into the single market stalling because it failed to meet EU norms of governance.”

    “The fact is that Ukraine simply lacks the capacity to shoulder the burden of EU membership. And in its opinion, the Commission will have to warn that although Kyiv is right to apply for membership, in practice, its accession process will take at least a laborious decade to complete.”

    The author of the piece, Andrew Duff, a former member of the European parliament, suggests a new category, “affiliate” membership, which would be a bridge from its status as affiliate member to full membership.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-isnt-ready-for-eu-membership-the-eu-isnt-ready-for-it-either/

72. Miguel explains it all. He “understands” Vlad. But then George W. Bush also claimed to have looked into Putin’s soul IIRC.

    I also recall a lot of people saying Roosia gets what Roosia wants. I hope it gets what it deserves.

73. Whoops, Duff calls for a new category affiliate membership as a bridge from associate membership to full membership, which is where Ukraine is now.

74. Brian E:

    Well Ukraine has had some other pressing issues to deal with since 2014; one is quite pressing right now. Interesting that it has no desire to be under the benevolent wing of mother Roosia.

75. i think its a very unsentimental view of things, Russia at the turn of the last century, was in a position close to when Peter the Great assumed power, in terms of territory and prestige, hence the wars with sweden and turkey their northern and southern rivals, why is vyborg where it is, because it was the spoils of the war with the former party, the last engagement ended disastrously, in the 1770s,

76. Well the Tsar didn’t handle the Balkan adventures very well. And then one thing led to another, loosing to Germany in WWI and all that personal unpleasantness helped along by the return of some unsavory characters, courtesy of the Germans.
    Now the Germans and Russians/Soviets didn’t play well together in the 1940s did they? But Vlad pines for the glories (and atrocities) of the old days. Funny, few others do? But some claim to understand him. Hubris and folly.

77. Nobody knows what Vlad is pining for. As a KGB guy, used to false flag ops killing Russian citizens, his sympathy cannot be counted on.
    But the glories of whatever era may be marinating in his brain….

    There was a report his personal protection detail was undergoing some additional training including how to spot efforts to infiltrate them. You might be loyal to Vlad but if somebody gives you some video footage of a cartel execution of a family taking hours….
    Presumably somebody thought this was the best use of the guys’ time, as opposed to range time, intel briefings, roster arranging, tactics in the Kremlin as well as without. How to convince the principle that, given the circs, maybe the back door would be best just now….
    Nope, most urgent…how to avoid being coopted.

    I repeat, how did somebody in his position think this would be a week’s live-fire exercise? Since things were that bad, how come they were not at least a bit obvious to the GUY IN CHARGE? Or if they were, how come he went ahead?

    I say again, parsing out Vlad’s rational decisions coming up is not a good use of one’s time.

    Being prepared for the, to us, irrational would be a good investment.

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