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/r/stupidpol is abuzz with news of both NordStream pipelines being damaged, in what mainstream sources openly speculate to be an attack:
tagesspiegel.de (google translated)
welt.de (google translated)
Stupidpol being stupidpol, blames it all on the west (either the US or UK)... but it feels like the kind of have a point? Russian performance in the war doesn't exactly scream competence, so it would be surprising, if they pulled something like this off, so deep in NATOs turf.
When we were discussing the coming winter, some people were saying "the European gas storage is filled up, it'll be fine", but isn't the gas storage more like a buffer, designed to take advantage of the decreased demand over the summer, to even out the increased demand in winter, working on the assumption that there will still be a constant supply of gas coming in? Does this change the calculus at all?
IMO it's most probably NATO, though whether directly Americans or someone technically not subordinated but enabled by them, hard to say and not very interesting.
Among the trivial things this war has taught me:
It's never «they shelled their own» even if you can contrive a plausible story on how that's beneficial. False flag attacks are either done to third parties (reminder that Germany has long been a second-tier ally), to low-value props (like that car or a pro-Russian official in LDNR) or, apparently, just not done. (This does not rule out unintentional damage or lone wolf events). I suppose there are exceptions but as the first-line hypothesis this is non-viable.
Cui bono is the default and understandable lens for viewing any unsolved crime, but not infrequently it fails because people may have a very quixotic idea of their own or others' bono or just act irrationally, against their better judgement. Nevertheless it's a viable heuristic to prioritize hypotheses.
Nobody cares much who exactly delivered an unconventional and illegal attack, so long as it harms the enemy. If an attack is hard to claim as valorous, it's just ignored or turned into a cause for an unfunny circlejerk to assuage guilty conscience. So we shouldn't expect good analytics from the benefitting side.
Ukrainians have effective sabotage groups. Just today, a woman called Irina Navalnaya (not related) has been interrogated after being caught in a bombing operation not much different from the one that killed Darya Dugina. It's understandable that some people find more entertainment in speculations about maskirovka and ghoulish conspiracy theories about Dugin killing his daughter for esoteric reasons, but that's just noise whereas covert bombings actually happen.
Americans have their CIA. Well, you know how it works.
Cutting off Russian gas supplies precludes the possibility of Europe and specifically Germany buckling under the temptation to save their economy from what looks to be an inevitable deindustrialization, removes incentives to project the image of «unwilling American accomplice» to Russia, drag one's feet with military shipments to Ukraine and push for «diplomatic resolution». Many Western commenters unconcerned with more plebeian legal matters cheer the attack openly. It's a reasonable attack for people who don't lose anything of substance from it. Thus, Americans or their proxy.
I'm not even mad. Such infrastructure, eminently vulnerable to any party more sophisticated than a Mexican cartel, was a testament to a gentle era of common sense, globalization, business deals and little men pursuing their little happiness. Putin wasn't willing to accept that he's a little man too, smaller even than his European partners. So now we're living again in a historical era. Gentlemen's agreements are null and void, irrelevant in front of the simplest game-theoretical realities like the game of chicken, and logistics of competing war machines.
edit: one beautiful thing of the hypothetical true masterminds would have been to make the ultimate guilty party the radical wing of German Greens or some other environmental nuts. They are feverishly loyal to the US; have a long history of opposing NordStream; some greens are already accused of cooperating with Gazprom/Russia; and they're currently sabotaging German economy with their anti-nuclear power posture. Making them the scapegoat is a good move because it's believable, discredits dangerous Green Agenda and rescues EU and German economy, and – with NS out of commission – doesn't hurt potential American exports.
Nothing short of imminent mass production of nuclear reactors that could be used to provide heat and boost electricity production by replacing burners in thermal power plants could 'rescue' the EU economy. Last I heard the only EU company making such is just building their prototype for non-fission testing. Expect mass production in 2030. I'm almost certain EU never gave them a cent and has no interest in the design either.
Providing weapons to Ukraine is going to get a lot, lot harder when companies making components are going out of business, economy is in a downward spiral and there are rolling black outs and population is looking for someone to blame.
How fast can they scale up LNG shipments from the US and get serious about domestic fracking? Surely not fast enough to save them this winter, but I would (perhaps naively) think this is no more than a two to three year project before they start seeing some of the benefits.
Residential heat pumps are probably the best short-term answer.
A few years at least until there's enough LNG regasification capacity.
Domestic fracking is an non starter. Not sure if the geology fits - e.g. Poland supposedly has a lot of shale gas but apparently not(was somewhat confusing) and there is no existing industry to scale up, and it'd get bogged down in courts for a decade anyway.
Sure. Now try re-fitting an entire country and lots of old buildings with that. You need a well insulated structure.
It's not as egregious as 'let them drive electric cars if they can't afford gas' but maybe a quarter of the way there..
You might be surprised by the potential of an acute energy crisis to overcome political and legal constraints. And from what I've read, fracking has potential across the continent. It hasn't been proven, but my guess is they're going to give it a hard look.
I've been surprised by the lack of such potential. Both in Europe and in California.
Which acute energy crisis are you thinking of, exactly? I don't think they've had one so far in our lifetime.
California announced a ban on fossil fuel cars the same week they were threatening rolling blackouts, the latter amusingly resulted in a plea asking electric car owners to restrict charging. Europe is currently not only facing severe gas shortages but has had industries shutting down due to cost and availability of energy... and cutting production from gas fields, and still shutting down nuclear plants. The only slight concession they've made is they're going to only shut down one plant and move the other two (the last two) to standby.
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Fracking in Poland, it came to a naught.
TL;DR: regulations and customs are unfavorable. Exploration drilling is far harder because gas can't be flared. The few areas surveyed had unproductive shale that doesn't fracture well.
I've already responded to your point about regulations and customs. I agree that fracking in Poland came to naught, but of course Europe contains more territory than Poland.
No one else even tried, iirc.
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