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If things get tough for Germany, it's a big temptation for them. Doesn't cost you anything to take it off the table.
What risk? Why would there be any backlash?
It does cost!
That state-actor diplomacy is going to have opinions if evidence gets out that the US is actively blowing up Russian investments. We don't need to give Russia any more reason for saber rattling, and we don't want to give the German domestic politics any reason to give more slack to Russia.
That's aside from the potential gas-price consequences from any reduction in supply. Actions taken by Biden are going to be viewed, in a midterm year, as the exclusive cause if (when) prices go up again.
First, they have to be able to pin it on you, which right off the bat is doubtful.
Then, they have to go through their own calculus of whether going public with it will bring them anything, which I doubt again. A few headlines, that no one will remember in a few years, are not going to rebuild your pipeline.
As for the rest, I really don't see how that amounts to much. Russia saber rattling is to US advantage, the opinions anyone else don't matter much, and the NS pipelines will have 0 impact on energy prices in the US, at least in the short term.
This isn't a fucking court of law.
They don't need to 'pin it on you'. They only need to know they didn't do it themselves to get really pissed off. This was way beyond petty sabotage, delivering fairly big bombs to a precise spot on the seabed requires a navy or an extremely foolhardy private company.
I know it's not a court of law, but if you're the Germans, and you know you didn't do it, but the Russians are pointing at the Americans, and the Americans at the Russians, who do you get pissed off at?
The ones who had motivation to blow it up. Russians control one end of it, Germans control the other. They have no reason to blow it up because they control the pumping stations.
Ukraine or USA has reason to blow it up and doesn't control the pumping stations.
Ok, I think the conversation went a bit off track.
The original question was why would it be risky for the US to blow it up? My opinion is Biden could basically call Scholz and say "I hope none of your folks are working on these pipelines of yours, because we're blowing them up tomorrow".
If the Germans know who did it, even if they are explicitly told (but off record), what can they do about it?
By the way, what do you make of the theory that it could be the Germans themselves? Turning the pipeline back on would be the obvious demand of any winter-time protestors, and now they can say "gosh darn it, we'd love to, but someone blew both of them up!"
Because if it gets out that the US blew up the pipelines, the risk is that NATO falls apart. If it gets out that the US blew up the pipelines and the German government were complicit, the risk is that the German government falls AND NATO falls apart. The motive you mention is certainly real, but the risks are very high and it would take either desperation or extreme hubris to do it. The US isn't that desperate; the war isn't going well for Russia anyway. Hubris is a possibility, certainly, but I'd say a fairly outside one. Note also that whatever Biden's flaws, "warmonger" does not appear to be among them.
"Puppet of the MIC" certainly seems to be on the table though...
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