site banner
ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35329 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

26
Top Bottom New Old Controversial
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

/r/stupidpol is abuzz with news of both NordStream pipelines being damaged, in what mainstream sources openly speculate to be an attack:

Massive drop in pressure – Nord Stream 2 pipeline apparently partially destroyed

There was an incident on the Russian Baltic Sea pipeline, as confirmed by the Danish shipping authority. The operator Gascade speaks of a sharp drop in pressure in the tube. An accident is considered unlikely. The timing of the accident suggests sabotage.

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?

This is obviously an American op. The Poles know:

https://twitter.com/radeksikorski/status/1574800653724966915

Biden made the threat:

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1490791554088321024

The Scandies say it was explosives:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hit-major-russian-undersea-gas-pipelines-europe-2022-09-27/

Seismologists in Denmark and Sweden said they had registered two powerful blasts on Monday in the vicinity of the leaks.

"The signals do not resemble signals from earthquakes. They do resemble the signals typically recorded from blasts," the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) said.

And seismologists at Sweden's Uppsala University, which cooperates with GEUS, said the second, bigger explosion "corresponded to more than 100 kilos (kg) of dynamite", adding the blasts were in the water not under the seabed.

And best of all, the US had mine-planting/explosives forces right on Bornholm island in June! The bombs we're talking about detonated just off the coast of Bornholm island!

https://seapowermagazine.org/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-resting-new-technology/

In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.

Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring

How much more clear could it be? A few mines were left behind.

With friends like America, Europe doesn't need enemies. The US-initiated war on terror got them targeted for terrorist attacks. The US destabilization of Syria and Libya got them a flood of refugees. Yes, the Europeans were partially complicit in these foreign adventures but they were really just being dragged along. The Prime Mover was Washington. When NATO made that fateful statement that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join the alliance, the French and Germans were trying to tone it down. They didn't want to antagonize Russia. Thanks to the US, Western Europe has been pushed into a proxy war against their energy supplier. Now, the US is making sure Russia can't supply Germany with energy, that it will be dependent upon US puppet states in the Middle East or expensive fuel from America directly.

I don't even think this is a wise strategy for American interests. If you try to weaken your allies so they can't form a viable bloc to oppose you, you're antagonizing them. You're giving them a reason to oppose you and sabotage you. Why should the US expect much help from Europe on the main front against China in the Pacific? 'You're fighting your main industrial supplier? Tough - we'll sell you some overpriced goods. Good luck!'

Thanks to the US, Western Europe has been pushed into a proxy war against their energy supplier.

No this is still very much thanks to Russia, the US may benefit from this, but Russia chose to launch this utterly idiotic and needless invasion in the first place.

But for the encroachment, coup, and 8 years of shelling rebel oblasts, the invasion probably wouldn't have happened.

Like most wars, this one is not mono-causal. We can certainly blame Hitler for invading the Sudetenland, but we can also blame the Allies for creating the conditions that would lead the Germans to rally behind a strongman.

But for the encroachment, coup, and 8 years of shelling rebel oblasts, the invasion probably wouldn't have happened.

Like most wars, this one is not mono-causal

This one absolutely is, it stems entirely from a Russian inability to face reality and accept that it is no longer a great power and that Ukraine is no longer inside its orbit. If Russia was serious about the whole "multi-polar world" thing they would have recognised that their best bet was becoming part of Europe, instead they launched a war that will impoverish Russia and Europe, strengthening China and the US.

You think that Russia would've invaded Ukraine in Feb 2022 if Yanukovych had never been deposed?

Why would they bother?

Without the coup, there would have been no rebel oblasts. With those oblasts continuing to participate in elections there probably would have been no government elected that would seriously entertain the idea that Ukraine join an anti-Russian military alliance.

On Russia and Europe: Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin have all floated the idea of Russia joining NATO. No one in NATO has ever appeared to like that idea, with American Presidents and Secretaries of State dismissing it. It was the Americans that pledged there would be no NATO expansion into former Soviet states after the fall of the Soviet Union, "not one inch eastward." That was obviously a pledge broken, and not even in response to any Russian hostilities.

I'm American and I can't make any sense of our foreign policy strategy in regards to Russia. It all seems like dick-waving with potential nuclear consequences. What do we even get if we "win?"

The Soviets talked about joining NATO as early as around the time of its foundation. Their idea though was to either exclude the US from NATO or to require unanimous agreement for any NATO action, either way gutting NATO.

Putin did indeed at one point talk about joining NATO. He asked when they would be invited to NATO. Was told that it didn't work that way that countries applied to join. Then Putin said "Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

In addition to not wanting to follow the process, I'm not sure Russia would really want to be in an alliance where another country was the dominate member (Russia would be 2nd in population, and military strength, 3rd in PPP GDP, and 7th in nominal GDP).

And I'm not so sure it would have qualified for membership -

While there is no membership checklist for interested nations, NATO has made clear that candidates for membership must meet the following criteria. Interested nations must:

Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;

Be progressing toward a market economy;

Have their military forces under firm civilian control;

Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations; and

Work toward interoperability with NATO forces.

https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_970815members.html

The first and 2nd to last points have been questionable at best for years and has become more so lately. And I'm not sure Russian leadership would care to change the way their military operates to fit with the last point.

Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;

Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations

It's a relief to know Ukraine and the United States will never join NATO.

Some sort of argument can be made about the US. I don't think its as strong as the people normally making the argument would claim, but on respecting sovereignty it isn't nonsense, there is a real argument there. Less so on the democracy question.

Ukraine? Maybe its just because they haven't had a lot of time or a lot of power as an independent country but they haven't done much in the way of infringing on anyone's sovereignty. As for democracy they are far more democratic than Russia, corrupt maybe but a solid democracy, at least until after they were invaded and large sections of their country occupied by a foreign power (when they outlawed pro-Russian parties as traitorous)

More comments

I'm American and I can't make any sense of our foreign policy strategy in regards to Russia. It all seems like dick-waving with potential nuclear consequences. What do we even get if we "win?"

It doesn't seem so hard to understand to me. Russia is openly defiant of the Western order and props up our military adversaries like North Korea, Syria and Iran. Even Turkey, ostensibly a NATO member, became a patron of Russian defense systems. Adding insult to injury, Western Europe voluntarily made themselves dependent on Russian energy and starved their own militaries of funding and capabilities necessary to pull their weight in furthering the US's foreign policy goals.

Now, Russia is isolated, its military has been revealed as an underperforming anachronism, its brand has suffered in the arms marketplace, the Russian energy link to Western Europe has been perhaps permanently severed, Europe is committing to nuclear energy and US LNG imports as fast as it can, Putin is facing domestic political troubles, NATO is expanding to include wealthy Nordic nations that have resisted membership for decades, China has distanced itself from Russia and is probably rethinking its ability to take Taiwan by force, Russia's ability to maintain its support of its military client states (e.g. Azerbaijan) is faltering, and all of this has been achieved with no more cost to the US than a few hundred billion dollars of military equipment and some intensive military consulting with Ukraine. Europeans will shiver through the winter and Ukraine's streets are red with blood, but those are other people's (and peoples') problems. Even if Putin uses nuclear weapons, it seems unlikely that he'd target US territory, it's an open question how effective they would be, and he'd open the door for a much firmer response that would further accelerate all of the above.

If you're an unsentimental partisan of US interests, what's not to like?

That doesn't seem like there's any material benefit except perhaps to LNG suppliers, am I missing anything?

The status quo already greatly favored the United States. Neither Russia nor China were posing any threat to American interests. If it's all about posturing and letting everyone know who's the big dog, I don't think anyone could have forecast with any certainty that Russia could be held off by Ukrainian forces. We'd just been defeated by the Taliban and to sink billions into Ukraine and be defeated there as well would further the idea that America isn't such a formidable opponent.

A prosperous Russia seems far better for Europe and the world than a Russia with serious fears of collapse. Mutually assured destruction doesn't work if one party's destruction is already a foregone conclusion. At that point you're relying on Putin to care about American lives, and why would he?

A collapsed Russia also greatly increases the likelihood that someone spirits away a nuclear weapon and later detonates in an American city.

If it's all about posturing and letting everyone know who's the big dog, I don't think anyone could have forecast with any certainty that Russia could be held off by Ukrainian forces. We'd just been defeated by the Taliban and to sink billions into Ukraine and be defeated there as well would further the idea that America isn't such a formidable opponent.

If your best argument is that we were right for the wrong reasons, I'll take that any day of the week.

A prosperous Russia seems far better for Europe and the world than a Russia with serious fears of collapse.

A prosperous Russia would have gone right back to reassembling the Warsaw Pact and threatening the West. A collaborative and friendly Russia hasn't been in the cards for at least the past couple of decades, and it's categorically better to have a weak geopolitical adversary than a strong one.

A collapsed Russia also greatly increases the likelihood that someone spirits away a nuclear weapon and later detonates in an American city.

This very much depends on the manner of its collapse. Anyway, it proves too much. Was the fall of the USSR also lamentable for the same reason?

More comments

If you're an unsentimental partisan of US interests, what's not to like?

The ever-present risk of nuclear escalation for middling gains. Russia has been inflated as a geopolitical enemy for decades; they were not a serious thorn in our side or a yoke holding us back before the war with Ukraine, and they won't be after, but maybe there's a big ol' fireball along the way and that'll suck.

Like, yeah, undeniably, this has weakened Russia. From where I'm standing Russia was already very weak compared to us.

I think the US foreign policy establishment is actually doing a pretty good job of threading the needle and avoiding the risk of nuclear escalation. It is possible that Putin will resort to a tactical nuke, but (1) I suspect it'll be less effective than the conventional wisdom has it, and may actually deflate some of the mystique around nuclear weapons and lower the odds that they're used in the future, (2) I'm sure we'll have a very sharp response but will avoid retaliating with nuclear weapons of our own, and if NATO is not directly kinetic on (actual) Russian territory and Ukraine constrains its kinetics only to military resources on Russian territory, then Russia will have every incentive not to use nukes outside of Ukraine, and (3) breaking the nuclear taboo will make it even harder for Russia to come back from its isolation even after this has all blown over.

Sure, a fireball in Ukraine would suck, and the mountains of rubble and shattered bones in Ukraine already sucks, but neither really damages US interests.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with both-sidesism (often called "centrism", "moderation" or "nuance")

I do love watching the shift from "the US would never do that, it's too risky, it was probably literally anybody else" to "LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!" in real time.

I saw "the US did not blow up the pipeline." But I do not see anyone saying "yes the US did blow up the pipeline and Russia made them do it."

Oh, did I extrapolate too much? I thought that was the point made in the comment I replied to.

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:

Chronicles of the Death of the EU.

Carthage delenda est.

The real U.S. goals in Ukraine are the destruction of Europe and its economic leader: Germany.

Why?

So let's describe the global situation at the beginning of 2022 (I note right away that the numbers are imprecise, go to MMI and @Spydell_finance for accuracy, but the approximate numbers do not distort either the layout itself or the conclusions):

China. GDP: 16.9 trillion USD. Industrial sector ≈30.5% or 5.1 trillion USD. Export economy 15.3% with an export sophistication rate [here and below actually economic complexity, Export Complexity is another measure but correlated] of 1.35 (easily replaceable, not technologically intensive, but produced at scale, elastic prices, requires small producer margins and inexpensive labor, as well as agglomeration of producers).

Germany. GDP 4.2 trillion USD. Industrial sector ≈27-30% or 1.1-1.3 trillion USD. Export-heavy economy of 35% with almost the highest sophistication on the planet of 2.07 (only Japan is above with 2.49. That is, exports are not replaceable, technologically complex, and therefore VERY MARGINAL).

EU as a whole. GDP 17 trillion USD (suddenly !!! more than China, or at least equal). Industrial sector ~25% or 4.1 trillion USD. (suddenly a little less than China).

Except this industry, as written above, is high-tech, and therefore marginal, giving rapid positive capital growth.

U.S.. GDP of 22.9 trillion USD. But the industrial sector is only 18% or 4.1 trillion USD. (Suddenly less than China and the same as the EU)!!! And the financial sector is over 20%, as is the total services sector at 77% of the economy.

But even this industrial sector, giving only 7.7% of exports, has ECI of only 1.57 (so, like China).

Now, if we look to the beginning of the year, the accumulated imbalances in QE are accelerating inflation and could bury the entire dollar system [lol no].

Stopping QE and the start of the Fed's balance sheet reduction guarantees the decline of the service sector, the de facto death of the financial sector, as well as much of the venture capital IT that's zombie companies with negative turnover margins or no cache-flow.

In order to survive, the States need to urgently develop the real economy, i.e. industry.

However, since the world has gone global, no new markets are expected, the system cannot take over Mars with the Martians, which means it must grow in the intensive mode, which means negative capital work, since the total venture capital investment on intensives does not pay off, this has been obvious since 2009.

So what to do?

We have to kill the competition.

Option 1: China.

However, first of all China is a subject, secondly the economy of China and the U.S. are [still] too connected, and thirdly, the development of industry similar to the Chinese means low margin, long payback period and a drop in personal income. And the drop in personal income means revolution in the U.S. This is not an option.

Option 2: EU.

It fits perfectly, no subjectivity and high-margin business.

But the business is high-margin because it is very technological, that is, it has a high and long threshold for entry. It takes decades of development, thousands of patents, and cultivating a team of specialists.

But the patents, specialists and companies do not belong to the EU.

We need to force these companies to move to the US in their entirety, just as, for example, low-margin manufacturing moved to China in the 90s.

To do this, you have to create unbearable conditions for business: war, hunger and cold.

Now look at the EU!

News 1:

Germany's industrial production fell 1.8% in the first 8 months of 2022 amid sanctions against Russia, and Germany's chemical-pharmaceutical sector (high dependence on gas) saw a 10.7% decline.

News 2:

The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 21 published a story about big German businesses relocating en masse to the New World.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-natural-gas-prices-push-european-manufacturers-to-shift-to-the-u-s-11663707594

News 3:

Explosion on the North Stream 1 and 2 branches.

I connect the last news story into the same single chain of events.

Carthage (the EU) must be destroyed. At any cost.

This is the main goal of the U.S. in Ukraine.

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.

The US literally had mine warfare forces training in the exact part of the Baltic Sea where the explosions happened, 3 months later!

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.

This is possibly the least covert attack on an ally since Operation Barbarossa.

Give the French some credit. Rainbow Warrior wasn't even 40 years ago.

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

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.

To be honest, it's amazing how nobody bombs infrastructure of this sort all the time.

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.

More comments

The US didn't bother covering up the attack because it's blatantly, absurdly obvious who did it. The US has made very open, public threats about making these pipelines disappear.

The ex-Polish foreign and defence minister knows perfectly well what's going on. This is just like attacks on Iranian scientists or centrifuges. We know perfectly well it's Israel and/or America behind it.

If I had to guess, I'd say the bombs were planted so the US could have another card up its sleeve in case Russia or Germany did anything. They just mobilized, so the US is using more pressure. But I guess that's just correlation=causation too.

I'm fairly confident it was someone in Nato or aligned with them, just pointing out that there's a bit of 'worst argument in the world' going on calling it an attack on state infrastructure when that infrastructure was not in use and the government had standing political commitments to not use it again.

The practical function of "covert" means state actors can let norm violations slide without undermining the norms. Sometimes it is in your interest to pretend not to see something. Ukraine equivocating as to whether it directed the helicopters that bombed Belgorod is another example: everyone knows they did it, but Russia and the US can pretend otherwise if a frank accounting of the facts would trigger responses they actually don't want to or can't follow through with (e.g. US constricting arms shipments, Russia escalating).

A military would sometimes burn their boats after landing on enemy shores to impress upon all soldiers that the only way back is through (Cortés, famously). Everyone may vocally say they'll cooperate at the outset, a good way to get them to commit to that is to just burn the defect button.

Burning your own boats is one thing, burning someone else's boats is another. That's what the Trojans tried to do to the Greeks when they were sallying out!

If your crazy girlfriend convinces you to stop driving and you reluctantly accept, that's one thing. If she blows up your car, that's another.

If you think people are going to be less mad when a solution to the energy problem is off the table, think again. Germans may be cucks but after some weeks of freezing their asses off Africa style (few know that most cold-related deaths happen in the tropics) that may change. Banks in western EU have been preparing for riots since summer started.

If we're talking predictions, I'd say with 80% confidence that nothing of political consequence (leadership changes, notable policy backflips) will happen in Germany as a result of energy-related popular unrest that remains salient or has otherwise lasting effects into the following summer. Similar 80% prediction that winter protests or riots don't noticeably exceed the impotency of the covid ones.

notable policy backflips

Yes, who could possibly predict, that protests won't have impact on resuming gas delivery from Russia.

We don't live in the realpolitik era to expect Europeans to compromise with that. Putin has only himself to blame for having become a cartoon villain. Tolerating a little sabotage comes to people much easier than excusing Bucha because of muh economy.

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.

Not sure what you're arguing here: obviously the US has lent a hand to the dismantling of British empire, but individual Brits think very warmly of America.

The EU is pretty stupid, sluggish and incompetent (see their nuclear/regulatory fiasco). But they won't permanently let the US sabotage them.

If Russians can permanently let Putin sacrifice them for geopolitics, certainly the EU can keep coping with some economic costs.

Unlike Britain, the EU is big and could theoretically compete with America, if they got their act together.

20 years ago this looked almost like a real possibility.

Now it's a joke. People should just think of themselves, pack their bags and families and go to the US.

The entire fucking continent is going to become irrelevant.

The continent has been irrelevant since it lost WW2. Economically EU could never compete on account of not being energy independent and not having the scale or more friendly business environment of the US.

EU itself is a fucking joke, with cargo-cult education policies, inability to keep out unproductive riff-raff such as North Africans and blacks, inability to have a solid energy policy, etc. It's been a joke since it came into existence, because the same cretins were in charge. Any university teacher not in pedagogy could have told you that the 'Lisbon strategy' and 'Bologna process' which herded everyone with IQ above room temperature into universities, were just pure BS.

Maybe as a west-slobbering Russian you had some rosy glasses on, but in all metrics that mattered EU and Germany specifically was coasting on past accomplishments. Apart from former WP countries it can't even claim it's safe.

a west-slobbering Russian

sorry I'm not English native. Does "west-sloberring" here mean same as "west-sycophant" or some kind of bias toward west?

Slobbering all over the edifices of lies & delusion that is characteristic of post 1945 Western 'liberal democracies'.

I don't really like Russia, and China even less. But petty statist evil or the psychopathic lawful evil of Chinese Communist Party pale in comparison to the sheer Joker-esque insanity of western PMCs.

E.g. did you know how flashmobs looting shops came to also happen in the UK ?

10 years ago, their 'conservatives' decided to prosecute fewer juveniles.

And you find this pattern everywhere. Energy policy. Schooling. Immigration. Trade. Etc. It's all just plain crazy, done by people more in tune with feelings than figures.

Maybe as a west-slobbering Russian

You really need to chill out and start expressing yourself in less belligerent terms, rather than searching for the keenest way to express your dripping contempt. Make your arguments passionately and forcefully, if that so moves you, but try using facts, sources, and civility.

"The signals do not resemble signals from earthquakes. They do resemble the signals typically recorded from blasts,"

Is it possible to determine what type of explosive was used from the seismic data? I'd imagine different types of material would have a different pattern.

And best of all, the US had mine-planting/explosives forces right on Bornholm island in June! The bombs we're talking about detonated just off the coast of Bornholm island!

Which, if we know about, then Russia would have known about it as well. I've read UK ships were in that area, too. This could have been done with an underwater drone filled with explosives. The area could have been chosen because of the activities of the US/UK and others in the area, in order to create doubt.

For all we know the mine-planting/explosive force was there because of concerns about explosives being placed on the pipeline, or intelligence about a possible attack on it.

mine hunting technology

Seems plausible that they were there based on intelligence. But it's also possible they did it, released this story, and can now simply say "why would we publicly announce that if we were going to blow the pipeline?" And then pull out some vague, uncorroborated, anonymous, top secret intelligence that suggested a threat on the pipeline. Yellow cake.

Why would the Russians blow up their own pipeline that they control?

The Russians need that pipeline for leverage. They can say 'stop waging proxy war against us and we'll send you gas'.

Why would the Russians blow up their own pipeline that they control?

Because Putin benefits from sowing confusion among Europeans. He also gives a signal that Russia can do the same to any other pipelines or cables in the sea.

What's best for Russia has long been irrelevant here. Putin goes with what's best for his personal aims and nobody in power dares to go against him (at least yet).

Two sequences of events

  1. US officials have long hated this pipeline and publicly threatened to terminate it, regardless of what Germany wishes

  2. US military forces stage a mine-clearing exercise off Bornholm island, testing their snazzy new drones and technologies. They leave a couple of mines or smart torpedoes behind. If they're somehow discovered, it's an accident from the exercises. These are now a method they can use if Germany starts getting antsy about waging proxy war against their energy supplier or if Russia moves more aggressively.

  3. Russia commences partial mobilization, stages referendums on parts of Ukraine joining Russia so it can creep its nuclear umbrella forward into Ukraine

  4. US blows up the pipeline in response, securing profits for its energy exporters, tying Germany's hands and hurting Russian diplomacy in Europe by removing leverage

Alternately

  1. Russia spends billions of dollars building a pipeline to Germany so it can make a great deal of money selling gas

  2. Russian naval forces, not known for their excellence, lay explosives in their own pipeline (which they control the flow of gas to and could turn on or off at any time)

  3. Russian forces blow up their own pipeline to show they can blow up other people's pipelines, like the Norwegian-Poland pipeline that finished just today, which they don't control, didn't pay for and actively harms their interests!

Surely you see that the former approach makes more sense than the latter!

US officials have long hated this pipeline and publicly threatened to terminate it, regardless of what Germany wishes

This is what happens when you are linked to Biden's speech by someone saying "oh he threatened to take out the pipeline no matter what Germany wants" without realizing that he was standing right next to Germany's chancellor answering that question. In the statement "I promise you we'll be able to do it" the "we" includes Germany.

BIDEN: "There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

REPORTER: "How will you do that, exactly? Since the project and control of the project is within Germany's control?"

BIDEN: "I promise you we'll be able to do it."

He didn't say, 'we'll get the Germans to cancel it' or explain anything further. I interpret that as a threat. He made a promise that they'd have the power to make it end, not contingent on what the Germans say.

Other officials like Ned Price said they'd work together with Germany to cancel it. But it's extremely obvious that the Germans want this pipeline more than the Americans do. The Germans were the ones defending it for the past few years because it advances their interests and the Americans hate it because it threatens their interests. They have been putting sanctions on this project, they've been hectoring the Germans to cancel it. Sanctions are not 'we're talking with our allies to get them to agree to cancel this', they're using pressure directly. All you have to do is put two and two together.

Imagine that your rich, influential girlfriend is really into environmentalism and hates that you drive a car. She's begging and threatening you to stop driving. She manipulates the system to make it harder for you to get your license renewed. You give in and stop driving after the petrol store owner throws some molotov cocktails at a rival of his. Suddenly, your car becomes totally inoperable in a way that's only explicable by sabotage. Isn't it natural to assume she's behind it, as opposed to the petrol store?

That sounds like a pretty clear statement by Biden.

Question: What's special about this particular statement by Biden that leads you to believe it reflects American foreign policy? It's not uncommon for Blinken or unnamed staffers in the White House to issue statements that "American policy in this area remains unchanged" following a Biden statement that is sharply contrary to the status quo.

More comments

I interpret that as a threat.

You are free to interpret it however you want. If you start with the assumption that the US is evil, you will quickly find everything they do to be a threat. And it is a free country, so no one will stop you!

Because Putin benefits from sowing confusion among Europeans

This sounds like a line taken from a movie, that I'm supposed to nod along to, because I did it once, while suspending disbelief.

How does it benefit him more, than having a pipeline he can use for negotiations?

He also gives a signal that Russia can do the same to any other pipelines or cables in the sea.

Except no one feels threatened by that, and that signal means people will now be paying attention to make sure no one is trying to damage their pipelines.

Except no one feels threatened by that

The Irish are as there are apparently some important undersea internet cables connecting Europe and America off the Irish coast which Ireland doesn't have the naval capacity to protect (the US, UK, and France have been patrolling the area but that still leaves Ireland's territorial waters).

Russian vessels were in the area a few months back. I'm not saying that's what they were there for, but that's what people here are saying.

Which, if we know about, then Russia would have known about it as well. I've read UK ships were in that area, too. This could have been done with an underwater drone filled with explosives. The area could have been chosen because of the activities of the US/UK and others in the area, in order to create doubt.

Also Russia had a naval vessel there a week after the Americans. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-warship-violated-danish-territorial-waters-baltic-danish-military-2022-06-17/

There's evidence pointing in many directions. It's completely inconclusive.

Except US insiders (NRO, Sikorski) are chortling. The threats were made on record by the US president.

It's completely inconclusive.

If chortling is not enough, you have to look at who profits. Not Russia, which was expecting Germans to crumble after some weeks of Africa-tier 'load shedding' by the power utilities.

No, US benefits here by making it impossible for EU to renew gas supplies even if Russia were to win or there was some peace treaty.

The link you posted is a short post, mostly speculation by a NR political correspondent, who appears to be mostly a regular journo. His analysis substantially equal to what we have here on the Motte already (it would serve the US interests to blow it up); he doesn't cite any named or anonymous insiders. Did you intend to post something else? Sikorski you refer to, in turn appears to be ex-Finance minister of Poland, which again doesn't sound like a credible insider. (IIRC there is an Israeli ex- minister of defense who proclaims aliens are visiting Earth on regular basis: showcases the quality of ex-ministers.)

making it impossible

Do we have any estimates how much time and money it would take to repair the damaged portion to the pipeline? Only thing I have seen is an estimate that will take up to couple of weeks before the area is safe and clear for investigation. It certainly does not appear impossible, by googling I can find companies that advertise case studies of providing gas pipeline repairs at depths of several thousands ft, though usually it is smaller scale leaks in production.

Do we have any estimates how much time and money it would take to repair the damaged portion to the pipeline?

Assuming it holds up to saltwater fairly well probably several months, at the very least.

The Libya, / Syria instability and NATO expansion were the pet projects of Administrations that were 'popular' among current year European PMC.

True, they should be dealt the same way as the American establishment.

Guillotines?

Why should the US expect much help from Europe on the main front against China in the Pacific?

Who's expecting that? Europe's NATO expenditures speak for themselves, and even those are defensive in nature. Any European participation in a Taiwan defense will be to support a branding of multilateralism, not for their direct material support.

I think there is an active media psyop when it comes to German-US relations that aims to hide or obscure that there is substantial mistrust between the two. How quickly did the people forget about this https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spied-merkel-other-top-european-officials-through-danish-2021-05-30/

Post-war Germany is allowed to prosper economically and have a semblance of independent foreign relations, but always within limits that the Americans set. When they exceed these limits (as in the case of Nordstream 2 or trying to negotiate a peace in Ukraine through the now forgotten Minsk processes), the US has many open or covert ways to correct the course.

Who knows if the Americans did this pipeline leak? But it certainly benefits them and wouldn’t be that unprecedented.

remember that time the NSA used Danish wiretaps on Germany?

yeah i bet they blew up the pipeline

You're entirely relying on FUD. These two things aren't equivalent, and unless you have a good reason to believe that the US is seriously upset with Germany, why would you assume we'd pull something like this? What's so serious about Nordstream that we'd "need" to risk a huge PR backlash and shut it down violently?

What's so serious about Nordstream

If things get tough for Germany, it's a big temptation for them. Doesn't cost you anything to take it off the table.

that we'd "need" to risk a huge PR backlash and shut it down violently?

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.

First, they have to be able to pin it on you, which right off the bat is doubtful.

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.

More comments

We don't need to give Russia any more reason for saber rattling

You just gave them the pretext to blow up the North sea pipelines that supply quite a lot of gas to EU,though.

Breaking precedents hath its consequences.

I will maintain that no, we didn't.

Please do prove me wrong if you can find anyone more reliable than he said/she said Twitter.

Please do prove me wrong if you can find anyone more reliable than he said/she said Twitter.

Potus swearing that it's going to be wrecked, not enough?

I assume you mean this quote?

“If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2”. When reminded by reporters that Germany controls the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the President stated: “We will – I promise you – we will be able to do it”.

Alright, that’s stronger than I expected to see. Still not a claim of responsibility or a smoking gun, but I guess it does make it more likely.

More comments

This is silly. His argument is obvious - you did it first, so they can now do it too. You can't dismiss it with a simple "nuh-uh".

Also, there are no reliable people on these matters, because everyone just pushes their interest.

His argument is fine if and only if we actually did bomb the pipelines. I’m expressing my disbelief in that premise.

active media psyop

It's called diplomacy and it's ten-thousand years old.

Diplomacy is aimed at other state actors, media psyops are aimed at the public. They're pretty old too, but we pretend they don't exist in liberal democracies.

Diplomacy has always been a performance.

Yes, but what Pasha is describing is not diplomacy.

Germany and America not making a public display out of their misgivings for each other is quintessential diplomacy.

We're talking about the media conveniently ignoring things that are already on public record, and go against the prevailing narrative. What America and Germany say, or don't say to each other is not relevant to the question.

Mainstream news media takes its foreign policy cues from the Government as a matter of state cohesion and security. If you want to call that a psyop then fine, but it's also the way the world has worked for centuries.

More comments

Anyone surprised that one country's security apparatus was spying on the communications of another country's leaders is not mature enough to be in any position of power. Even if the two countries are friendly.

She wasn't surprised. She had to act surprised- be shocked, shocked that an ostensibly friendly government is spying on hers.

How quickly did the people forget about this [...]

The outrage about this always perplexed me. Countries spy on other countries, even allied ones. The US just happens to be better at it than, say, France who was surprised at Australia changing its mind and purchasing Anglo subs instead of Franch ones, and at Moscow invading Ukraine.

I think there is an active media psyop when it comes to German-US relations that aims to hide or obscure that there is substantial mistrust between the two. How quickly did the people forget about this https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spied-merkel-other-top-european-officials-through-danish-2021-05-30/

No one forgot, since those are the same period revealed by the Snowden leaks, the Germans just stopped trying to make an issue of Americans spying on Merkel as a breach of trust or friendly relations when someone leaked information that the Germans had been doing the same on other European allies and partners hand-in-hand with the US for years, so Merkel's protests were a little hypocritical.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/30/germany-spied-on-european-partners-on-behalf-of-us-for-years

The previous German government was a wee bit preoccupied with other events at the time- the European migration crisis, the rise of the right in Europe, and Crimea amoung them- and once the effort to get into the FVEY alliance failed, the German government didn't have much reason to keep re-elevating the topic when their own sins would be very easily revealed as well.

Post-war Germany is allowed to prosper economically and have a semblance of independent foreign relations, but always within limits that the Americans set. When they exceed these limits (as in the case of Nordstream 2 or trying to negotiate a peace in Ukraine through the now forgotten Minsk processes), the US has many open or covert ways to correct the course.

In normal parlance, this is called 'lobbying' and 'diplomacy.' If you'd like the publicly-facing website of how the Germans do it in reverse, their website is below. https://www.germany.info/us-en

The reason the Minsk process was forgotten is that the Russians and the German/French-backed Ukrainians had divergent interpretations. When Russia gave up the effort of having the Germans and French back its interpretation of Minsk- which would have functionally broken Ukraine as a unified state due to the special status and veto rights to be given to the Russian-backed parts- there was no use for it. In so much that the US had a role in the failure of the Minsk proposal, it was in backing either the Germans or the French or both, not in overruling them.

Who knows if the Americans did this pipeline leak? But it certainly benefits them and wouldn’t be that unprecedented.

Lots of things benefit the Americans, which certainly wouldn't be without precedent, but this is a pretty vague and unspecific note. The US isn't exactly known for doing direct actions on treaty-ally infrastructure, though, but then that's not what you're claiming so shrugs.

Is nobody considering that a third party could have sabotaged it?

This is a major escalation in a war which which likely benefit China and India.

Sure, but that's pretty risky. If Russia or Ukraine do it, that's just war, to be expected - if any other country does it, then that's them being willing to blow up other country's infrastructure do destabilize them and to harm their economies. It may be worth it in some strategic sense, but the consequences if found out may be too severe to justify the risk. At the very least they'd need some very believable and reliable catspaw.

I have to laugh at this. China leaked a virus that killed millions of people and majorly disrupted every economy on the planet. They continuously lied about it and covered it up to the point where the intention can reasonably be called into question.

Their punishment? Nothing.

When I get out my extra shiny foil hat (shiny side out of course) I start to wonder whether the US developed it, to reduce the world's pension overhang (the virus seems to target pension aged people a little too well), in China planning for its eventual leak to cast blame on a rival with a reputation for poor controls.

the virus seems to target pension aged people a little too well

Doesn't almost every disease do this?

Yes, but most diseases aren't as contagious to infect a meaningful fraction of the world's population within a year of release.

I believe a meaningful fraction of the world population catches different competing strains of flu every year.

Err, yes, but...

In the context of COVID, we naturally compare it with the 1918 Spanish Flu. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the young and old, with a higher survival rate in-between, but this pandemic had unusually high mortality for young adults.

and also

The virus was particularly deadly because it triggered a cytokine storm, ravaging the stronger immune system of young adults,...

When COVID started, there was much to fear. It might be a repeat of 1918 and clobber young adults, disrupting everything. But it rather quickly became clear that COVID was not that kind of pandemic.

Notice how poorly counting deaths works. Death for death, the Spanish flu cost at least ten times as many Quality Adjusted LIfe Years. Sticking with death counts, rather than estimating life years lost, exaggerated the severity of COVID by a factor of ten or more.

A virus that predominantly kills people who are five pension cheques from the grave hardly seems worth the effort to me.

Those last six months cause most of healthcare spending. By making people die of pneumonia earlier..

Still, nah. It was just incompetence and hubris.

Are they covering things up anymore than the corresponding American institutions?

Besides, the virus didn't disrupt much. 75yo people with 2+ co-morbidities aren't responsible for a lot of critical infrastructure. Western governments got themselves into lockdowns on their own will and continue to fervently defend this decision.

At this point it looks like China is on the way to be the most-harmed country by corona related events as everyone else totally forgot about it but they are stuck in their hypochondria.

The virus may not have disrupted much on it's own, but Fauci and friends disrupted a lot.

Their punishment? Nothing.

They seem to be punishing themselves rather effectively. Kind of incredible, really, that they're still toiling away at zero covid.

Their punishment? Nothing.

Only because US is equally culpable. The virus that leaked was paid for by the US NIH.

Yeah, but they released it in China. That's a lot easier to swallow as an excusable "oops" than blowing things up in Europe.

When you say it like that it sounds exactly like the sort of brazen maneuvers that specifically the CIA would do.

I am offended on France's behalf. Does no one remember Rainbow Warrior?

If you *really *want to get conspiratorial on the 'who benefits most' narrative, the US being the obvious target for blame that might harm regional influence, but the Russians and the Germans both sucking it, would give greatest benefit to whoever would benefit most from being the mix of most capable but least maligned in the EU for European influence.

Environmentalists were the first thing that popped into my head when I heard about this.

In America we have caught ecoterrorists planning and executing pipeline sabotage many times.

In Googling to confirm my memory, I found that a movie called "How To Blow Up a Pipeline" premiered at a film festival in Toronto two weeks ago, and has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 14 reviews. It's based on a 2021 book which lauds this kind of property destruction.

This is nothing new. Even if it is government actors, they can easily blame ecoterrorists because this is what ecoterrorists do.

Are sea pipelines just as easy to sabotage for civilians as land ones?

I know home made explosives are relatively easy to make, but depth charges sound like a hassle.

This is nothing new. Even if it is government actors, they can easily blame ecoterrorists because this is what ecoterrorists do.

Thermite will burn underwater, through what I assume is steel, and is easily manufactured. You wouldn't even necessarily need a diver, you could ignite and toss a whole bunch of thermite pots over the target area and hope for a strike.

Danes and Swedes say it was a pretty big explosion, would burning termite do that?

Fermite on its own, no. I don't know how much energy would be suddenly released by burning a hole in a pressurized pipeline, though.

I am not really an expert on the transport of LNG, but I presume if the gas went up as a result of the initial hole-making blast, the pressure in the pipeline would spike before suddenly dropping. It sounded like the instruments recorded only a sudden drop in pressure, so who knows if there was a gas explosion too.

More comments

Gas can't burn underwater..not enough eoxygen.

through what I assume is steel

The pipeline is concrete plated steel: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nord_Stream_pipe_in_Kotka.jpg

Would be pretty funny if that was the case actually. But in this day and age I don't believe there are many terrorist groups left in the world not sufficiently infiltrated by one or more governments.

Way, way beyond their capabilities.

The explosion was 2.3 on the richter scale according to Swedish seismologist. Probably the size of a truck bomb.

This is the most likely explanation.

Both sides of a pipeline want it operating, by definition, or else it would not be operating.

More complex "teaching the other side a lesson about the pipeline possibly closing off" explanations require big assumptions on who exactly is supposed to be learning what, since again both sides want it operating.

My gut instinct is a non-state-actor LARPING or thinking "I AM HELPING."

Is it really larping when you've reached the point of blowing up major international infrastructure? I'd think the difference between larping a war-brazened saboteur and actually being one probably includes actual acts of destruction that require at least some skill and planning.

I think LARPing jumped the shark as a term that means anything when I've heard it applied to both armies actively in the field, and to people on Reddit. Both kind of fail the definition.

I think it's worth considering that if this were a Russian operation (likeliness unknown), it could look something like an intentional Crossing the Rubicon moment. It would serve as both an outward proclamation that Putin wishes to punish Germany and other parts of the EU for opposing him, but also burns easy pathways for anyone toppling the regime to return to the previous status quo. I'm reminded of how Cortés burned his ships on reaching Mexico to prevent mutiny.

People have been sharing around instructions to sabotage pipelines and there's quite a few would be ecoterrorists sharpening their knives these days, so some random group of people is worth considering as an option, but usually you'd get some claim of responsibility in that case.

ENTSOG map, for reference, with the breach occuring around Bornholm Island. Also to note, gas hasn't been flowing through either pipeline anyway: NS2 approval got spiked with the invasion, and NS1 has been shut off since the first of September, with the official excuse being a Russian turbine needing to be replaced and not being able to due to sanctions (though this is isn't true -- Canada, the repairer of such turbines, carved this out of their sanctions). Volumes have been flatlined since then, per the Nord Stream site. Accordingly, any recent projections of European gas scarcity (whether optimistic or pessimistic) shouldn't have been dependent on flow through Nord Stream. One such recent model has the biggest short term salve being energy generation substitution to coal, for example.

It's also very unlikely that Russia is responsible in this light -- the pipelines were already not being used via their equivocations over the turbines with Canada. Throwing Germany's steering wheel out of the window for them is not likely to yield them any concessions in the gas standoff, or poke at any weak points to unravel European solidarity over sanctions. This was likely West-aligned, but beyond that, who can say? These pipelines are notoriously vulnerable, I'd only be moderately surprised if it turned out to be a non-state actor (if only because overland pipelines are much easier targets, even if they don't have as much symbolic mindshare as Nord Stream).

One thing I do wonder is if they even get repaired now? NS1 potentially -- with its fate so uncertain whose to know -- but there isn't even a legally functioning entity on the European side to take responsibility for NS2. Who's justifying that expense?

It's also very unlikely that Russia is responsible in this light -- the pipelines were already not being used via their equivocations over the turbines with Canada. Throwing Germany's steering wheel out of the window for them is not likely to yield them any concessions in the gas standoff, or poke at any weak points to unravel European solidarity over sanctions.

Depends if they ever really planned on providing gas to Germany again.

Russia had made some rather large agreements with China on oil & gas prior to the Ukraine invasion. Russia has been ramping up construction of pipelines east.

If Russia had planned on cutting off these pipelines all along, it'd make no sense to cut off the flow on day 1. That would give a bit of pain to Germany (and the EU), but it would lead to an actual solution in short order, with spring/summer giving a decent buffer to prepare for winter. Also, if Russia cut gas day 1, then the EU (and particularly Germany) would have likely gone all in behind Ukraine. Maybe even boots on the ground. There surely wouldn't have been hemming and hawing about whether to send weapons, which ones, how many, etc.

A big sticking point for me is that I do not believe there was an actual issue with the turbines. I believe the particular compression station has 4 to 6 turbines typically installed, with 4 needed for operating easily at full capacity. There's another ~4 turbines that were spares, iirc. One was off for maintenance in Canada.

So how does Russia go from a full set of turbines, pumping at full capacity (I think they were actually pumping over capacity for much of the past few years), down to just 1 that's barely useable? It seems like a story they are telling. If the turbines were an issue, and they actually wanted them back up and running, Germany was willing to give them full support. But Russia refused, adding obstacles to it. And Russia was really only asking for a pretty narrow exception to the sanctions, not lifting of all sanctions. And from what I understand, Germany was happy to provide them.

So there's obviously more going on. Maybe Russia was leveraging the flow in order to prevent arms transfers? If Germany (or other EU states) were sending weapons, Russia throttles it. So Germany delays sending lethal/military aid to Ukraine.

But I think Russia is simply taking these turbines and tossing them on their eastern pipelines to accelerate construction, which is why they denied all offers to fix the things. Now this incident gives Russia the opportunity to begin peeling down the NS2 pipeline, and probably ripping whatever else they can get from NS1.

This will be the end (for awhile, at least) of cheap energy for the EU. But it will bring a ton of cheap energy to China.

I think Russia's actions are largely done at the behest of China. This is China's moment to make the multipolar world they've been talking about. Though I believe the multipolar world is simply a transition to a unipolar world with China at the top. And somehow we in the west continue to sit on our hands, and I fear we'll respond far too late.

Many years until those pipelines to China are built.

At the moment, the gas fields that were supplying EU are thousands of km away from nearest China pipeline connection. The pipelines to China are from much smaller eastern fields.

All the gas that went to EU has nowhere to go. Unless they start with selling LNG, too.

Unless they start with selling LNG, too.

They have very little capacity to compress it. And are unlikely to be able to expand that much while under sanction.

And are unlikely to be able to expand that much while under sanction.

Yes. Chinese are completely unable to build gas liquefaction machinery. It requires high tech industry such a backward country cannot possibly manage to build.

Lmfao.

I get tons of downvotes when I point out 'sanctions' are no such a big deal when the country with half of the world's industry and the world's most rampant IP theft program refuses to sanction Russia on account of it being its biggest ally.

Cope & seethe, cope & seethe. Keep the downvotes coming.

Whining about downvoting is never productive.

"Cope and seethe" is just being obnoxiously antagonistic in a petty and immature way. This is not the playground and you aren't "winning" with the best neener-neener. Don't do this.

Okay.

I find it hilarious, this assumption that Chinese are traitorous idiots who are going to backstab Russia and can't even get high tech working.

Wishful thinking by yanks all the way, obviously.

Huge market out there for China related cope material. That they're going to betray Russia and snag some territory is about the most common talking point I see though.

More comments

China has collapsing demographics, little naval power, and an economy that's still poor and not growing... as well as the worst geographic vulnerabilities to its see trade and an entire ring of enemies around it...

China becoming an equal power in a multipolar world is optimistic, them winning the 21st century is laughable.

Well if you envision it as a game of chicken, the exchange has gone something like this:

EU: Stop invading Ukraine, or at least do it more quietly, or we're going to stop buying gas

RF: You're bluffing. You won't stop buying gas, you'll freeze to death. You don't care about the Ukies that much. Give us your money and shut up.

EU: We totally will stop buying gas, even if the poor freeze, we're Americans now we don't care about the poor. We're going to stop buying gas altogether in three months time. Three months time and you're cut off, no more money.

RF: Well, fine, fuck you, no more NS1 pipeline right now. "Maintenance" you know? See if you can hold up your end of the bargain.

Seen in this light, with Russia having recently called the EU's bluff by cutting off gas supplies early, it could make sense that a Western aligned actor attacked the pipeline for the purpose of calling Russia's bluff, "We don't need your stinking pipeline, in fact watch us blow it up." On the theory that Russia, realizing that pipeline diplomacy won't work, will be forced to settle for a lesser deal. Or it could be an escalation of Russia's earlier calling the EUs bluff, hoping to inspire panic in energy markets that will lead to cracks in the pro-war coalition in the West.

Not sure either plan will work. Both sides are far too organized to respond to intimidation in that way.

Euro gas futures markets have been chilling out for a bit, ironically.

The reason why it doesn't make much sense as Russian bluff/escalation is that the only important costs borne by Germany are political costs -- the cost of making difficult, painful, but ultimately strategically correct decisions. Taking that decision out of German hands is a gift. Blowing the pipeline ends the game, no more concessions to be extracted or cracks to leverage. However much Germans suffer this winter is of vastly less strategic import to Russia than the unified front of sanctions against it. That suffering is only a chip to be traded for relief on the latter, and is near useless on its own.

The conspiracy theory I'm seeing is that it's Putin's way of not giving anyone who seeks to replace him a way out. If the pipelines are destroyed and Europe becomes energy-independentish then there's no way for a successor to make a rapprochement take things back to normal. Ship goes down with the captain.

If the pipelines are destroyed and Europe becomes energy-independentish

Not happening. Barring the discovery of some brand new too-cheap-to-meter form of energy generation. there's no way for Europe to become energy independent without a dramatic decrease in quality of life, energy usage and/or population.

They could power up the decommissioned nuclear plants, stop cutting production, and start fracking like there's no tomorrow. But they won't.

Very unconvincing to me, not least because Putin has been incredibly risk-adverse and reticent to do anything that could be construed as escalatory as far as Nato is concerned.

I'm not averse to blaming Russia, but that's way too complicated.

However much Germans suffer this winter is of vastly less strategic import to Russia than the unified front of sanctions against it. That suffering is only a chip to be traded for relief on the latter, and is near useless on its own.

I'd go so far as to say that German suffering is actively a bad thing for Russia. The goal of the game of chicken isn't to crash your opponent's car, it is to get him to swerve first. Both sides are attempting to show that they are indifferent to the suffering inflicted by cutting off trade, which is considerable on both sides. See the series of planted talking points stories in Western outlets recently, about how "actually Russian sanctions evasion in third countries is the ideal outcome for NATO because it stabilizes energy markets while forcing Russia to sell at a discount."

What better way to show that you are indifferent to the flow of gas being cut off than bombing the pipeline? It can be repaired for a few billion, the gain of your opponent folding in the face of your massive bluff is much higher.

Well if you envision it as a game of chicken, the exchange has gone something like this:

EU: Stop invading Ukraine, or at least do it more quietly, or we're going to stop buying gas

RF: You're bluffing. You won't stop buying gas, you'll freeze to death. You don't care about the Ukies that much. Give us your money and shut up.

I approve of the game of chicken metaphor, but raise that it doesn't need to be a game of chicken between EU and RF, but could be between Germany and other members of the EU (or NATO) trying to constrain Germany's options.

While unlikely, it could also be an action by someone else trying to constraint Russia's options. As in- 'Russia, don't put your hopes on the Germans breaking ranks, they can't do so now.'

I approve of the game of chicken metaphor, but raise that it doesn't need to be a game of chicken between EU and RF, but could be between Germany and other members of the EU (or NATO) trying to constrain Germany's options.

Why not both? The benefits can be multi-faceted.

This was likely West-aligned

Could have been Belarus, now they have the only pipeline from Russia to Europe. Very nice position for Lukashenko to be in. Also third parties, as previously mentioned.

Belarus would have to get Poland to agree to let the gas through their territory, wouldn’t they?

Something tells me Poland will hold out longer than Germany.

Finally, a real conspiracy! Clearly, someone is doing policy with other means here, will we ever know who?

This is an act of war, right? Against whom?

These things usually happen in the shadows and you don't know if something did happen or not or if it was all just an accident, so refreshing to have something where it's totally obvious that that black ops are involved but still unclear who did it. I can't remember the last time something like this even happened. Has it ever happened?

If Russians blew up their own pipeline for whatever reasons (and it would be possible that the explosives have been rigged to the pipeline right at the construction stage for this purpose), I don't think it would qualify as an act of war by itself, considering the explosions happened (just barely) in the international waters. A huge destabilizing factor, certainly.

It probably wasn't Russians.

Looks like Americans, given that their naval assault ship was right on the spot this week.

However, just now Poland and supposedly also Bulgaria have asked all their citizens to leave Russia, so quite possibly it was done by Poles, who have capability. All you need is an unimpressive ROV and some explosives and timers.

As someone not enthusiastic by AI panopticon nonsense or humanity going extinct, I'm liking this new development as it makes it look like the great atomic cleansing is getting more likely. Given a good nuclear war, mankind may even survive the 21st century. Can't get replaced by AI and bots if your tech base is early 20th century.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises against all travel to the Russian Federation due to the war in Ukraine and the recognition of Poland by the Russian Federation authorities as an unfriendly state.

Attention is drawn to the suspension of direct flights between Poland and Russia and the very limited opportunities to travel to/from Poland, the lack of or extremely limited access to funds located in Poland (e.g., the inability to use Polish payment cards), as well as the actions of local services, such as arbitrary detentions, cell phone searches, and the potential impossibility of leaving Russia if one holds dual citizenship.

Due to the significantly reduced size of the Polish diplomatic and consular staff in Russia, the possibility of providing direct consular assistance to Polish citizens is very limited.

In the event of a drastic deterioration of the security situation, border closures or other unforeseen situations, evacuation may be significantly hampered or even impossible.

We recommend following the announcements on the Ministry's website and on the websites of Polish missions in Russia and reporting your stay in the "Odysseus" system.

We recommend Polish citizens remaining on the territory of the Russian Federation to leave its territory by available commercial and private means.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The water at the site is allegedly less than 350 feet deep which would put the pipeline within reach of conventional civilian diving equipment. Now I'm imagining a conversation in a pub frequented by fishermen and oil rig workers somewhere on the Polish coast...

Jan: Hey Wojak, wanna fuck the Germans and Russians over for a change instead of them fucking us?

Wojak: You son of a bitch I'm in!

The water at the site is allegedly less than 350 feet deep which would put the pipeline within reach of conventional civilian diving equipment.

What civilian diving equipment gets you to 350 feet? Do you mean non-military industrial/mining equipment?

What civilian diving equipment gets you to 350 feet?

Most of it in fact. While recreational diving is generally restricted to depths less than 100 feet so as to avoid having to worry about decompression sickness. The maximum practical depth for conventional compressed air diving gear is actually closer to 100 m or 350 feet as that is where nitrogen narcosis tends to set in. That the water in that region appears to be shallower than this threshold suggests that a diver could reach it without the need for specialized equipment / breathing gasses.

350 feet as that is where nitrogen narcosis tends to set in

Alright here's where I'm going with this. I'm a lapsed divemaster so my expertise may be rusty, but IMO a dive to 350 feet is considered specialized technical diving even if normies manage to do it with recreational dive gear and not kill themselves. Lots of recreational divers are simply not cut out for that kind of dive with a task.

Adding a bomb payload to the task and bringing it to that depth and securing it stretches credibility for me a bit. Actually, they did this twice, to NS1 and NS2, yes? Yeah. Hard to fathom.

Not saying it's not possible, but the list of suspects would not be very long.

I would love to read their biography.

(If commercial divers that are used to surveying/mining the area did it, that's believable. In that case I was genuinely curious what that equipment is. I have no experience in that stuff.)

Though I'm working off the dive medicine classes I took while still in the Navy which were a good 15 - 20 years ago now so I might have it all wrong, but my recollection is that any depth from which you'd have to do a staged ascent to avoid the bends is classified as "technical". I remember 350 feet being considered the maximum "safe" depth for conventional scuba gear due to high concentrations of inert gasses in the blood (relative to oxygen) producing a similar effect to intoxication and in more serious cases hypoxia. I don't think that some random normies pulling this off with recreational gear is all that plausible, but I did find it interesting that it was at least hypothetically possible.

In terms of diving deeper, the sort of specialized equipment we're talking about is at a minimum, a pressurized diving helmet (vs conventional mask and regulator) and breathing gear that'll give you a higher concentration of oxygen than the 20% oxygen 78% nitrogen mix you'd get from regular air.

Ukraine had oil rigs and thus also commercial divers. Poland has a navy of sorts, so probably professional divers.

The whole are was being patrolled by NATO helicopters in the days ahead, and extensively surveyed during a recent exercise that also involved 'demining' in the depths.

All these unlikely coincidences.

Yeah, that 350 feet deep point raised an eyebrow to me too. That's not exactly a restricted naval zone either.

Poles have no oil rigs and associated industry and probably no divers that skilled outside of military.

Of course, they might have done it. Just yesterday told all their citizens to leave Russia, so who knows.

However, just now Poland and supposedly also Bulgaria have asked all their citizens to leave Russia, so quite possibly it was done by Poles

I'm not sure I follow the (possible) innuendo here. Are you implying that asking their citizens to leave Russia is not a direct follow-on to Russia's doubling down on their war efforts with more conscription and staging a referendum in the occupied Ukraine?

Why should Russian mobilisation be concerning ? Nothing but the number of military formations in UA is going to change.

Seems more like a reaction to Russians getting pissed. They, like many other countries have a bad habit in crisis situations of grabbing suspicious enemy citizens to use as bargaining chips.

Baltic Pipe is also scheduled to start operating at the start of October, delivering gas from Norway to Poland (via Denmark). So the destruction of Nord Stream doesn't hurt Poland much and puts them into a good position to sell gas to other countries.

Remember the Maine.

The what?

The Maine, a US Warship Allegedly sunk by a Spanish mine or torpedo in the lead up to the Spanish American War, but in post war analysis may have been destroyed by accidental detonation of coal dust in the fuel bunker.

The USS Maine.

USS Maine sunk in Havana kicking off the Spanish-American War.

Remember the Maine.

It's plausible that the Maine sunk by accident. No-one is claiming that this is an accident: it's very clearly black ops.

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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

escues EU and German economy

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.

Residential heat pumps are probably the best short-term answer.

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..

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.

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.

You might be surprised by the potential of an acute energy crisis to overcome political and legal constraints.

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.

More comments

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.

people may have a very quixotic idea of their own or others' bono

By far my favorite phrase of the day.

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.

But these groups are surely even more ineffectual than the Mexican cartels, no? It takes a lot less sophistication to bomb an undersea pipeline than to put a man on the moon or whatever, but surely a lot more than it takes to block traffic, and I see the latter as more within the capabilities of enviro-nuts.

Edit: Seeing elsewhere in the thread that the pipe was only 350 feet underwater. Maybe this operation would have been within the capabilities of the enviro-nuts after all, and could have been disguised as such -- but the size of the actual explosion seems like it would have been beyond them.

Half a ton of explosives (1009 kg per explosion according to Swedes) and some very good amateur divers could have done it.

Of course, right before the explosions and in recent weeks the areas was being patrolled by US Navy helicopters, according to a plane movement website.

Breivik made a bomb of that scale in his garage barn, alone, from freely available fertilizer. McVeigh's one was vastly more potent. Dumping something of that sort from a fishing vessel or a yacht, guiding it with a few underwater scooters to the pipe, is not much harder. I suppose you're contemptuous of Greens and believe they're intellectually below either of those men, but it's eminently doable.

You could be right. I really don't know. Do you really just build a bomb like this and then shove it off the side of a boat? Do fertilizer bombs even detonate when they're waterlogged? Do the kind of detonators someone like Breivik could access even work under 350 feet of water pressure? Beats me.

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.

Why'd they be sabotaging their own pipeline ?

Biden himself hinted USA is going to do "bring about an end to Nord Stream 2" and declined to elaborate.. A submersible drone bomb was found on site couple of years back.

Biden himself hinted USA is going to do "bring about an end to Nord Stream 2"

It'd be redundant (and risky) for USA to sabotage Nord Stream 2, as it was killed and buried the day Russia attacked Ukraine. Trying to continue the certification would be a political suicide in Europe unless Russia faces a complete regime change. It's Nord Stream 1 and the related continued dependence on Russian gas that has been the problem.

You are repeating the anglo consensus on the subject without taking into account that European politicians don’t play within the Anglo consensus. Germany has been very clearly trying to keep the Nord Stream open. Scholz posed for pics in front of the freaking turbine like a month ago! I have no clue who did this or if this was sabotage but it’s pretty obvious that in the winter Germany (and many others) would very likely push for resuming gas imports under some pretext. Scholz had a 90 minute phone call with Putin like two weeks ago and we know basically nothing of what they talked about. Russian gas isn’t some moral question, it’s an existential threat to European economy.

Why would I as a Finn care about some Anglo consensus? Yes, Scholz has been trying to sell out the rest of EU (although not nearly to the same extent as Schröder) but he’s far from having the final say about Nord Stream 2.

Why would I as a Finn care about some Anglo consensus?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM

he’s far from having the final say about Nord Stream 2.

It is a direct pipeline between Russia and Germany. I would expect Russian and German sovereign governments to have the final say about what happens with it. After all we are fighting the war in Ukraine because we care about the world order with sovereign states right?

Anyway. Now very conveniently nobody has anything to say about the pipelines anymore.

It is a direct pipeline between Russia and Germany. I would expect Russian and German sovereign governments to have the final say about what happens with it.

And Germany did have the final say. Their say was 'no,' despite much internal twisting, in part because many Germans recognize that Germany has far more interests, economic and political, than a Russian pipeline that was going to be vulnerable to sabotage in the midst of a war where the Russians are trying to use energy supplies as a weapon to break European solidarity and the alliance.

After all we are fighting the war in Ukraine because we care about the world order with sovereign states right?

Which 'we' here? Many would argue the Germans are not fighting the war, and that the German government has been trying to get out of even supporting the war beyond bare minimum expectations of its public and diplomatic partners. (IE, the helmet fiasco.)

That is certainly a sovereign state's right, but sovereign states can also be pressued by the opinion of other sovereign states. Sovereignty is not an opinion-free zone, and if you care about other people's opinion for your own sovereign interests- such as not being alone and losing influence within your own economic block- it is your sovereign right to weigh those opinions and pressures accordingly.

Anyway. Now very conveniently nobody has anything to say about the pipelines anymore.

Quite convenient for the German government, in its own way, as now they don't have to treat the prospect of a Nord Stream 2 start as a serious option at international political cost, and can avoid the domestic political cost of rejecting it.

Eh. I think there's a spectrum. The German government is trying to avoid paying the cost of supporting Ukraine as much as possible, because that cost will be internally unpalatable. That doesn't translate to rapprochment with Russia, which is broadly a domestic nonstarter.

What inflation per year and how many hours of winter rolling blackouts do you think are going to be needed until Germans reconsider buying gas from Russia ?

Hell, in this situation they may even start reconsidering nuclear power. Which, let's remind everyone against used to produce as much energy yearly as all the nat-gas plants were producing in recent years.

I get it that you don't get it, but what they don't tell you is that at the moment there isn't enough LNG exports in the world to keep the heat on in Europe and industry working.

That is, it'd take 40% of world's LNG market, where traditionally EU didn't figure much, and the currently the entire spot market for LNG.

Let's not forget Biden was against increasing fossil fuel production.. Although that may be changing.

Which Russians know because unlike journalists they can do elementary research, so they were almost certainly banking on getting some sort of deal during or after the winter. Rolling blackouts, possibly outright blackouts and a collapsing economy which is going to translate into everyone getting poorer are likely going to force Europeans to rethink things.

By 2025 there's going be enough LNG terminals to allow for keeping the lights on, at a much higher cost than previously, but until then, EU is screwed.

Of course, this is assuming no one "smokes around flammables" to use the annoyingly stupid idiom for war-related sabotage now in vogue. The Iranian copy of a Israeli suicide drones Russia is now using in Ukraine has a 20 kg warhead. Almost certainly wouldn't play nicely with LNG infrastructure which tends to go 'boom' in a impressive manner. It's also quite hard to detect and impossible to defend against unless you're willing to station automated flak guns all around critical infrastructure.

Of course, this is assuming no one "smokes around flammables" to use the annoyingly stupid idiom for war-related sabotage now in vogue

Oh come on now, have a sense of humor.

Trying to continue the certification would be a political suicide in Europe

Political suicide in what sense?

In my view, current inflation pressures already make it palatable domestically across majority of countries. Perhaps less so after winter, if little additional pain is felt by average person, in contrast with current fears. I'd guess the opposite. Internationally, I fail to see the issue, beyond US pressure.

I could see an advantage in having an excuse not to deliver gas, even when the Germans ask for it (see the turbine drama), but yeah, this feels over the top. The point of withholding the delivery, is the implicit promise it will resume once you get what you want. If you actually can't deliver the gas, you don't have leverage.

I doubt Putin would have any difficulty coming up with excuses for not delivering the gas or well... just not doing it without any excuse. What are the Europeans going to do? Complain to the manager? It

I feel like the real question now is if this ocean sabotage thing might escalate. There is tons of critical infrastructure beneath the oceans entirely vulnerable to sabotage.

Two bits of contextual info that makes me believe it is America/NATO: (1) George Friedman of Stratfor fame has often said that America’s primary geopolitical interest in the whole of Western Europe is to prevent the cozying up of Germany and Russia; with cuddling season approaching, making it impossible for Germany to utilize Russian gas could be a way to prevent the idea of reducing pressure against Russia re: Ukraine. (2) Neocons at National Review are subtly admitting to the likelihood of American involvement.

Neocons at National Review are subtly admitting

So subtle you do not need it to be in the article to say it exists.

These are both true:

  • Jim Geraghty is clearly happy that this happened.

  • Jim Geraghty is American.

But that is different from him admitting (even "subtly") that the Americans did it.

Let’s say my neighbor Devonshire, who I do not like, buys a car. I say, “Nice New Car You’ve Got There. Shame If Something Happened to It,” with a smug look on my face. This will be construed as a threat given the strength of the connotation behind the expression “shame if something happened to it”.

If I go on to say, “looks like it drives well. Of course, if something happened to make it unusable, that’s a different story. Hey, what is felon friend doing these days? Where are those gangsters when we really need them?” Really any person with a working grasp of English would now construe this as a threat.

Now let’s say your car actually wound up being destroyed. And I “Just about anyone could have destroyed your car, but whoever it was, they wanted to make sure your car would not work for a long time”.

This reads like an admission to me, given the previous threat as well as the author reiterating the previous threat in the article.

The only way this analogy makes sense is if you think Jim Geraghty blew up the pipeline, or arranged for it to happen.

I already said that

  • Jim Geraghty is clearly happy that this happened.

  • Jim Geraghty is American.

but without some as-yet-unrevealed capacity for Jim Geraghty to execute pipeline sabotage, any reading of it as "an admission" reveals something about your paranoia about your outgroup, and nothing about reality.

Jim Geraghty is not causally involved, obviously. His role here is as an analyst and commentator at best. Still, his analysis makes sense to me.

Right, Jim is saying that someone blew it up, that there was lots of incentive for people to blow it up, and is pleased as punch about it blowing up.

But the other poster seemed convinced that this was an "admission" of USG involvement.

Geraghty should not be described as simply “an American”, but “the experienced senior correspondent of an influential neocon magazine who is privy to information that we are not.”

Really shows how stupid it was for Germany to join an organization dedicated to "keeping the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". Frog, meet scorpion.

That's merely what one British guy thought. An American guy famously proposed arming the last of the Nazi Germans and sending them against the Soviets.

As much as I like you guys, cutting transatlantic internet cables is the only way of excising the cancers of Tumblr, Meta, Reddit and all that.

It'd be a great boon to EU internet businessess too, so Russia should just go right ahead.

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.

Why would russian competence at large-scale mobilization or logistics or strategy have anything, at all, to do with their competence at an individual sabotage mission? If russia was, say, Chad in africa, you'd expect them to be related - but russia is clearly capable of maintaining nuclear weapons, spy satellites etc, and the failures of the war don't necessarily suggest they'd fail at that. That doesn't have much to do with anything.

No idea if anyone did it, or who, at all, but that approach isn't useful.

Russia hasn't really shown any competence in small tactical operations (Hostomel airport, Zelensky death squads, Snake Island) or intelligence operations (Sims 3, "Signature Unclear"). Personally I'm not surprised that they can blow their own pipeline on international waters I'd be more surprise if they did it without leaving a shitton of evidence. We'll see in the coming days.

This may be the least exciting take, but there is such a broad range of potential actors who could have done this, and such a variety of possible motives, that I'm inclined to suspend judgment and wait for more information (including, outside chance, someone truthfully claiming credit).

It's geopolitics; I assume everyone and anyone will lie if the matter's important enough, though the fingerpointing seems to be a particularly wide-ranging free-for-all in this case.

This would never have happened under deontology.


What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats