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Even if everything you're saying is true, a) Russian actions are obscenely beyond the pale which excuses anything that can be plausibly framed as counterattack, and b) Americans have won cultural victory, so economic elites of those European states are of no consequence against their own populace (and media elites).
The game is played masterfully, I can't really even object to the sentence. Europeans are in no position to compromise with the plainly irrational Kremlin, and they're in no position to sustain their economy, and they can't blame anyone but themselves, same as Russians.
On the other hand, I can call out Europeans who are still pretending that this is fine. The EU will survive, but it will fall rather far behind without cheap energy, in the crucial period where everyone has to maintain a stake in high-tech economy. The entire fucking continent is going to become irrelevant.
A translation from a biased pro-Russian souce. It's not very insightful, catastrophizes the situation and frames it as an unprovable conspiracy but, I think, is directionally correct with regards to the consequences:
Surely the US shouldn't be attacking it's allies? You're arguing and I agree that the US is sabotaging Europe. They could have compromised with the Kremlin if it weren't for the US and UK sabotaging them, time and time again. France and Germany were always more Russophilic.
Furthermore, I don't think there is a cultural victory. If someone is sabotaging you, they're your enemy. Look what the US did to the UK in Suez and so on. So much for the special relationship and Anglo-Saxon solidarity.
The EU is pretty stupid, sluggish and incompetent (see their nuclear/regulatory fiasco). But they won't permanently let the US sabotage them. Maybe the coming recession will shake them out of their myopia. Maybe they're inwardly seething, hiding their hatred until the moment the US's back is turned. You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back. Unlike Britain, the EU is big and could theoretically compete with America, if they got their act together.
While true in a technical sense, this is softened a great deal by:
Germany already rhetorically committing to wean themselves off Russian Gas within a couple of years
The pipelines currently being turned off by Russian shenanigans (so the official projections for the winter are unimpacted)
A difficult political problem (see: protests to open NS2) no longer is theirs to make and defend
Messy enough to demand something covert, but no military could get away with literally burning their boats now, even if it was actually the right thing to do
https://seapowermagazine.org/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-resting-new-technology/
The US literally had mine warfare forces training in the exact part of the Baltic Sea where the explosions happened, 3 months later! Polish officials thanked America, Biden threatened to make the pipeline stop regardless of German opinions, they have all the means and motive to do it. There's no question about this, it's an open and shut case.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'true in a technical sentence' or 'no military could get away with literally burning their boats'. What I mean to say is that the US literally and physically blew up $30 billion worth of pipeline that supplied about 58% of Germany's gas. Even if some genuine liberal democrat (as opposed to the megalomaniacal Russian liberal democratic party) somehow got into power, the pipeline is still destroyed. No matter the context it's done, not just for this winter but for years to come. Whilst politicians often don't follow through on their rhetorical commitments, the Germans will now be forced to.
I'm no undersea pipeline engineer but it seems pretty permanently wrecked. The gash is apparently hundreds of metres wide, the whole thing has been filling with water.
This is possibly the least covert attack on an ally since Operation Barbarossa.
Yes? And? So what?
This is a 'correlation is causation' argument. It provides not temporal relevance, since it does not address why the three months is relevant. If- as seems implied- the argument is that 3 months ago the US used a highly publicized, visible mine warfare excercise as the pretext for laying mines to sabotage the pipes, it doesn't imply why now. Why didn't these mines go off a month ago? Or two months ago? Or three months ago, and cite a training accident?
Nor does it explain why bother with a public training exercise as the pretext for mine laying. If the bombs are deliberatly placed- as they seem to be in their position just outside territorial waters- there's no need for a military ship of any sort. You place that sort of precision via scuba, so you just need an underwater GPS, a scuba team, and a boat big enough for the explosive.
If the argument is that the timing was delayed 3 months (again- why?) to provide deniability, why use a publicly announced training exercise in the area as the means to emplace?
Your other arguments via tweet are at least better soundclips that, without context, could easily support this context (though why a Polish twitter account of someone who is supposed to know of the event is immediately revealing the actor, you still haven't explained), but this 'three months ago the US was in proximity' is a really dumb argument. Everyone who sails through the Baltic Sea has been in proximity in the last three months, and had the opportunity to send small boats through the area.
Give the French some credit. Rainbow Warrior wasn't even 40 years ago.
Right. And by now, small unmanned subs – of the type even Ukraine or Russia could build without much assistance – can probably do that well enough. Those arguments cannot be relevant.
To be honest, it's amazing how nobody bombs infrastructure of this sort all the time. It's fragile, stationary, unfeasible to guard and very expensive/consequential, so the infamy alone is a massive prize. Proof of our common civility and rationality, I guess.
US set a new, very expensive precedent. Expect small drones flying into LNG liquefaction facilities, time bombs going off near pipelines, that kind of thing.
It's really not hard for a navy to drop a half-ton time bomb next to a pipeline.
You, uh, realize that drone attacks on gas infrastructure has been going on for years in the middle east, right?
Not in Europe though. Which is probably going to change, seeing as Russians are mad and in no mood to play.
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