Nord Stream Pipelines Sabotage

There has been a lot of silliness bandied about concerning last week's sabotaging of the Nord Stream pipelines off Germany.  First I would note I'm a Norwegian-American and maintain connections in the Old Country; I lived in Germany and maintain connections there; and once upon a time I could read Russian pretty fluently for reasons I shall not go into here other than to say it was the late 70s and early to mid 80s, so go figure it out.

The problem is something Sherlock Holmes warned against repeatedly: People are jumping to conclusions without facts.  I expect this kind of crap from mainstream media.  They have deadlines to meet, and the little problem that they have no idea what they're talking about or their sources are entirely Russian trolls is at best a secondary concern.

For a level-headed analysis of the matter, I recommend you watch Anders Puck Nielsen.  More on this later.

More of a problem than misreporting by mainstream media is that sites that used to be go-to for solid analysis are now shoveling barnstuff with big shovels.  One example is Eurotrib, which I've been on for some time and which used to be a home for a number of significant European policy analysts.  Now it's virtually swamped by drivel from Oui from the Netherlands and Cat from...Planet Claire, two people who know far less about things than they think they do.  On 1 October Oui dumped one of his word salads on this topic, a mishmash of "supporting cites" from legit sources that don't necessarily apply or aren't necessarily consistent (and many of which are 10, 15, or more years old), nonlegit sources such as Kim Dotcom and the Chinese government, and people who used to better but apparently no longer do such as Pepe Escobar and Yves Smith (nom de plume for Susan Webber).  Oui's conclusion: The US must have done it to stop German activists from reopening the pipelines, and Russia couldn't do it because it would only hurt them.  Ahem.  More on this below.

Speaking of Ms. Webber, she did a dump on her site, Naked Capitalism.  I used to be a regular at NC back in its heyday during the financial crisis, but it has gone steeply downhill since then to the point that the bulk of its writers are there because they have nowhere else, and they don't even write under their real names.  The heavy hitters, such as the MMT scholars like Bill Black, are long gone.  Anyway, Ms. Webber made a blog post supported by such totally legitimate sources as the Chinese government and retired diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar (most of whose postings were in the USSR/Russia and whose father was a very active member of the Communist Party of India) to conclude the US must have done it.  She actually wrote, "On top of that, the area of the attack was heavily monitored by both Sweden and Denmark, and the Baltic generally is also well surveilled…by NATO members. And as many have pointed out, on top of Russia having at best limited opportunity, it lacks apparent motive."  Impressive, every word in those sentences was wrong.  First, yes NATO surveils the Baltic, and so does Russia.  Second, Russia has tons of opportunities.  Finally, Russia has tons of motive.  More later.

The next day NC doubled down with Conor Gallagher's post.  It takes Russian and Chinese sources at face value (In fairness it quotes Nielsen, but not on a matter that matters.) and then trots out true tinfoil-hattery with John Helmer's allegation that Poland did it on behalf of the US.  Wow.  Just wow.

If you haven't yet, go watch Nielsen's YouTube.  It lays things out really well.  Nielsen starts from the rational position that Russia is losing in the Ukraine.  And that's the crux of the problem.  The people who think the US did it and Russia couldn't have also think Russia is winning.  The pace of the attack is just Russia biding its time.  The recent withdrawals in the east were completely orderly and strategic.  Russia is about to unleash 300,000 well trained, well equipped, highly motivated troops on Ukraine.  Why would Russia blow up the pipelines when Ukraine is about to be KO'ed, and the EU is about to lift sanctions and buy Russian again?  It's like listening to MAGAts talk about how Trump won the 2020 election.

The truth is that Russia is losing.  Badly.  It was routed out of areas it had just illegally claimed sovereignty over.  Civil unrest is growing.  A quarter-million potential draftees have already fled, with more on the way.  And the ones who will ultimately be sent will be about as effective as the Afghan Army.

Could the US have done it?  Of course.  It certainly had the opportunity and the means.  But did it really have a motive?  US intelligence and the military have made a lot of stupid moves over the last 75 years, but this would have been a whole 'nother smoke.  Supposedly the US blew the pipelines to prevent Germany from reopening them.  This ignores that there were no forces in Germany that could make the government lift the sanctions.  AfD and Die Linke?  Are you kidding me?  So of course, let's risk the progress of the war by blowing up the pipelines, the only inevitable consequence of which will be increased turmoil in Europe.

Further, as Nielsen point out, none of this makes operational sense.  The US could have used a fully clandestine attack, such as a cyber attack planting a seed to be triggered if someone actually did try to lift sanctions.  If it had been a US covert attack, it would have been closer to Vyborg.  It certainly would not have been so close to the Baltic pipeline, and the Poles would never have signed off on it.

Now consider Russia.  Bad Vlad and his rat pack are in a corner, and they know it.  They are losing on the battlefield, so they need to find a way to disrupt the opposition, break it apart, make it want to stop supporting Ukraine.  So perform an act of sabotage, and use the sock puppets to blame the US.  Putin's Ardennes Offensive (Not the Steiner Offensive.  Yet.).  Opportunity and means?  With the Baltic bases right there, definitely.  Motive?  Oh yes.  But the pipelines are Russian!  Well they twarn't usin' 'em none.  Remember, Putin and his people are in trouble.  They need solutions immediately.  They may as well get some return on the pipelines now, because there may be no tomorrow.

And so far, courtesy the sock puppets, the plan is working.  How long it will continue to work only Winter can tell.  But there's one more thing to toss in.  As I mentioned above, Russia surveils the Baltic as well.  Do you really think that, if Russia had spotted a US submarine operating in the sabotage area, it wouldn't have already broadcast it to the world by now?  Yeah, I didn't think so.  Consequently, unless a bunch of evidence rolls in actually implicating the US, I'll view anyone pointing the finger this way as tools and fools.