8 ms·

I still want to know where the USS Jimmy Carter was right before this happened. Undersea espionage and sabotage is one of the specified missions for that boat.

by mikece 4y ago

eli 4y ago
Sounds awfully conspiratorial. What would the motive be?
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  The theory is that the US did a Cortez and burned the hypothetical escape route Europe had for its NatGas problem. Now they are committed to the Ukrainian cause because they won’t get their gas either way.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > The theory is that the US did a Cortez and burned the hypothetical escape route Europe had for its NatGas problem. Now they are committed to the Ukrainian cause because they won’t get their gas either way. That's pure bollocks because the pipelines through Poland/Belarus and Austria/Hungary/Ukraine still exist and work. They were able to handle the entire European gas supply before Germany decided to build NordStream to reduce the leverage of these transit countries.
    - arrosenberg 4y ago
      I wasn’t endorsing the notion, but thats the motive being assigned when the US is blamed. I wouldn’t say its an unrealistic POV though, Ukraine and Poland would likely block gas if the alternative was letting Russia win the war.
    - nathanaldensr 4y ago
      The point is to remove a direct source of gas. Just because there is an indirect source doesn't mean it's reliable or a full replacement; leverage can be exerted on those transit countries just as easily, or those countries may, on their own, decide to join Russia's economic sphere of influence.
  - T-A 4y ago
    ... but spectacularly failed to blow up one of the two Nord Stream 2 pipes. Instead, they put two holes in one of them, and a hole in each of the two Nord Stream 1 pipes. Lest anyone forget, Nord Stream 1 is the pipeline which Russia had been throttling and shutting off and on for months, before finally stating that it wouldn't be reopened until sanctions are lifted - which is obviously not going to happen anytime soon - while Nord Stream 2 is the brand new pipeline which Germany declined to authorize for use following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As pointed out by Putin, that leaves Nord Stream 2 ready to start sending sweet, sweet Russian gas to Germany as soon as they say so. Incidentally, the attacks were carried out just in time for the inauguration of the Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland and close to its southward bend off Bornholm, in the Danish EEZ, AND half a kilometer from the SwePol cable between Sweden and Poland, in the Swedish EEZ. I guess besides aiding Putin's stick-and-carrot gas policy in Germany, the US also wanted to send a really strong message to Ukraine-supporting Poland and NATO-hopeful Sweden.
- colpabar 4y ago
  Europe used to buy a lot of natural gas from russia via these pipelines. Now that they're gone, they will have to buy from someone else. The united states has a lot of natural gas to sell them. edit: nice stealth edit. the original comment was just "what would the motive be?" which imo is a perfectly fine question to ask. the "conspiratorial" line has me wondering though: what would a non conspiratorial theory be?
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    One of the NS2 strings is still operable, and Russia is still offering to sell gas to Germany through it.
    - JasonFruit 4y ago
      That seems like an odd offer from a nation that allegedly attempted to destroy the pipeline.
      - matthewdgreen 4y ago
        Invading Ukraine and blowing up your most lucrative export relationships also seemed pretty odd to most observers. I don't really know how to judge what's "odd" anymore.
    - nathanaldensr 4y ago
      While this is true, it seems to be only incidentally true--i.e., the intent was to blow up all the pipes.
  - mantas 4y ago
    Both pipelines were not operating for a while. They’d be helpful after the war to get gas as reparations though.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- poopnugget 4y ago
- kornhole 4y ago
  -Eliminate any leverage Russia had with Germany and EU. -Supply more LNG from US
- thrown_22 4y ago
  Bringing Europe to heel. Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis. Since people don't seem to get it: Europe will now be an energy subsidiary of the US. When the next US president says that they need to contribute 4% of GDP to Nato it will come with the promise of an unpleasant winter if they don't.
  - staunch 4y ago
    > Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis. The Suez Crisis is when the British, French, and Israeli governments conspired behind the back of the US to invade Egypt and install a puppet regime. With the goal of taking back the canal and stealing their oil supply. Pretty much the same thing Putin just attempted in Ukraine. It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century.
    - thrown_22 4y ago
      >It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century. Oh wait, you're seriously using a moral argument about the cold war. Let me laugh harder.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      True, with one tid bit: it was more about the Suez Canal then oil. Oh yeah, and the US was pissed not because of the conspiracy but rather because it interfered with US plans. And because the US didn't get any of the spoils if it would have worked out.
      - staunch 4y ago
        > And because the US didn't get any of the spoils if it would have worked out. That may be true of some people in his administration but I don't think that was Eisenhower's view.
    - baud147258 4y ago
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Disrupting Nord Stream 1/2, which the US has wanted and been very explicit and vocal about since day one. Why? The theory goes that they want to sell gas to Europe rather instead of Russia. That seems plausible if not obvious, but what's definitely true in any case is they did not want Europe buying gas from Russia. The official propaganda is that it was for Europe's own security (which we see now is not completely invalid.)
- pydry 4y ago
  To prevent Germany from caving to Russia in the middle of winter when it is suffering an extreme energy crisis. Also to shift European dependence away from Russian gas and on to American LNG.
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    I hear this a lot, but my understanding is that shipping LNG across oceans is very inefficient and would require far more terminals to receive LNG than exist. My impression is it's not even close to a 1:1 substitution.
    - pydry 4y ago
      Nowhere near. Right now that's more of a Germany problem than a USA problem though. America would like Europe to build more LNG terminals to accomodate its growing gas surplus but first investors will want to feel confident that that tap wont be switched on again soon coz LNG wont ever be able to compete with a pipeline.
  - fabian2k 4y ago
    The gas storage is >95% full and it looks like households are reducing their gas usage significantly so far. So the outlook for this winter is not too bad. Unless something really big happens that changes this the situation is nowhere even close to being bad enough to cause any change in Germany's policy regarding Russia and Ukraine.
    - pydry 4y ago
      95% full is enough to last two months in an averagely bad winter. That might stretch to 4 if you ration.
- WatchDog 4y ago
  Biden publicly stated that he will shut down the nord stream if Russia attacked Ukraine[0], so he’s sticking to his word. [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbEoZXhCrM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbEoZXhCrM
  - smegsicle 4y ago
    whether the US was involved or not, i hope people are starting to see what a dangerous idiot he is to have in power that stupid smirk on his face really makes it look like he's eager to blow it up
    - rasz 4y ago
      especially compared to completely rational stable genius in the Kremlin, right?
      - smegsicle 4y ago
        what?
      - Gud 4y ago
        No one’s arguing that Russia is a rational actor. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable if you had a commander in chief in the US who didn’t appear half senile?
kranke155 4y ago
- colpabar 4y ago
  Could you elaborate? We're not all as smart as you :) edit to add the now-dead comment I was replying to so people can still see it (and hopefully forgive my snark): "Completely insane hot take but sure."
  - kranke155 4y ago
    Just read informed commentary instead of conspiracy theories? 1. The US is already selling gas to Europe and there was no sign that would change. Europe has already committed to disinvesting from Russian energy. The pipelines were dead already. The US and others had already captured the market. Increasing the usage of Russian energy again during a bloody war against a neighbouring country would be political suicide for any European country I can think of. Maybe this is not obvious to Americans, and maybe this explains the obsessions with American intervention here - Americans always think their country is behind everything good or bad in the world, which in my mind explains a bit of the “Russia attacked due to NATO” delusional narrative. If anything happened in the world, US must be behind it, military industrial complex blah blah blah. 2. Like other posters here have already mentioned the consensus hunch (and that’s all we have - a hunch) for now is this was a warning to internal competitors in Russian internal politics. This was a way to burn the ships and end any idea that Russia will come back to the West. We are in unrestricted warfare against Russia. 3. If you look into Russian propagandists online, they are 100% behind the idea that America did it to deindustrialise Europe, increase dependency, etc. I regularly follow the rule that whatever Russian propagandists say is higher in likelihood to be false, something which has been demonstrated again and again with - MH270 flight, invasion of Crimea, the killing of Boris Nemtsov, the Skripal poisoning, the invasion of Ukraine, now the usage of Iranian drones (Russia denies ever using them as they rain upon Kyiv). I could go on and on. 4. Like others have said, there are other operational pipelines. Thinking the problem with Russia selling Europe energy is “pipelines” is the definition of missing the forest for the trees. Assume we are at war with Russia and that they are a full blown revisionist militarist state in the Nazi tradition and everything will make more sense. Stop making stuff up and start dealing with reality - we are in a state of direct economic and information warfare with Russia, and in a proxy hot conflict where we hope to annihilate their armed forces. They are acting accordingly, and in order to prevent a “detente” later on after perhaps a change in leadership, the core rulers of Russia decided to blow up remaining economic bridges. Effectively the world is at war against a new form of fascist/hypernationalist superpower and you guys are arguing about who blew up a pipeline that the fascists would use to feed energy to their now sworn enemies. Stop guessing. It was the fascists.
Deganta 4y ago
But why would the US destroy NordStream? There was no gas flowing through the pipeline anyway. Ukraine is already winning the war. European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US. If any evidence ever surfaces, the US may lose the trust of most of its allies. I don't see why taking this risk would be justified.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Though possible, the damage to the US if found responsible would be unfathomable. I can't imagine Joe approving that.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - kcplate 4y ago
    It’s a little hard to deny you did something when you said publicly you were going to do it… https://youtu.be/k8YC7UQVmis https://youtu.be/k8YC7UQVmis
- m000 4y ago
  > European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia Yes, because Russia is temporarily sanctioned. The moment the sanctions are lifted, Russia will still have the cheapest prices due to proximity and infrastructure. And Europe, of course, would resume buying from Russia, although they will try to secure better backup solutions in case of a future incident. Blowing up the pipeline makes sure that gas flow will take a considerable time to resume. This gives leverage to alternative suppliers to negotiate for long-term deals with EU. With long-term deals in place, it will take several years for Russia to regain its dominant position in the European energy market. > And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US. What risk? The Baltic Sea is controlled by NATO. It's fairly easy for the US to find or create a window of opportunity to carry the operation.
  - mcphage 4y ago

I still want to know where the USS Jimmy Carter was right before this happened. Undersea espionage and sabotage is one of the specified missions for that boat.

by mikece 4y ago

I still want to know where the USS Jimmy Carter was right before this happened. Undersea espionage and sabotage is one of the specified missions for that boat.

eli 4y ago

Sounds awfully conspiratorial. What would the motive be?

arrosenberg 4y ago
The theory is that the US did a Cortez and burned the hypothetical escape route Europe had for its NatGas problem. Now they are committed to the Ukrainian cause because they won’t get their gas either way.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > The theory is that the US did a Cortez and burned the hypothetical escape route Europe had for its NatGas problem. Now they are committed to the Ukrainian cause because they won’t get their gas either way. That's pure bollocks because the pipelines through Poland/Belarus and Austria/Hungary/Ukraine still exist and work. They were able to handle the entire European gas supply before Germany decided to build NordStream to reduce the leverage of these transit countries.
  - arrosenberg 4y ago
    I wasn’t endorsing the notion, but thats the motive being assigned when the US is blamed. I wouldn’t say its an unrealistic POV though, Ukraine and Poland would likely block gas if the alternative was letting Russia win the war.
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    The point is to remove a direct source of gas. Just because there is an indirect source doesn't mean it's reliable or a full replacement; leverage can be exerted on those transit countries just as easily, or those countries may, on their own, decide to join Russia's economic sphere of influence.
- T-A 4y ago
  ... but spectacularly failed to blow up one of the two Nord Stream 2 pipes. Instead, they put two holes in one of them, and a hole in each of the two Nord Stream 1 pipes. Lest anyone forget, Nord Stream 1 is the pipeline which Russia had been throttling and shutting off and on for months, before finally stating that it wouldn't be reopened until sanctions are lifted - which is obviously not going to happen anytime soon - while Nord Stream 2 is the brand new pipeline which Germany declined to authorize for use following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As pointed out by Putin, that leaves Nord Stream 2 ready to start sending sweet, sweet Russian gas to Germany as soon as they say so. Incidentally, the attacks were carried out just in time for the inauguration of the Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland and close to its southward bend off Bornholm, in the Danish EEZ, AND half a kilometer from the SwePol cable between Sweden and Poland, in the Swedish EEZ. I guess besides aiding Putin's stick-and-carrot gas policy in Germany, the US also wanted to send a really strong message to Ukraine-supporting Poland and NATO-hopeful Sweden.
colpabar 4y ago
Europe used to buy a lot of natural gas from russia via these pipelines. Now that they're gone, they will have to buy from someone else. The united states has a lot of natural gas to sell them. edit: nice stealth edit. the original comment was just "what would the motive be?" which imo is a perfectly fine question to ask. the "conspiratorial" line has me wondering though: what would a non conspiratorial theory be?
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  One of the NS2 strings is still operable, and Russia is still offering to sell gas to Germany through it.
  - JasonFruit 4y ago
    That seems like an odd offer from a nation that allegedly attempted to destroy the pipeline.
    - matthewdgreen 4y ago
      Invading Ukraine and blowing up your most lucrative export relationships also seemed pretty odd to most observers. I don't really know how to judge what's "odd" anymore.
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    While this is true, it seems to be only incidentally true--i.e., the intent was to blow up all the pipes.
- mantas 4y ago
  Both pipelines were not operating for a while. They’d be helpful after the war to get gas as reparations though.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
poopnugget 4y ago
kornhole 4y ago
-Eliminate any leverage Russia had with Germany and EU. -Supply more LNG from US
thrown_22 4y ago
Bringing Europe to heel. Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis. Since people don't seem to get it: Europe will now be an energy subsidiary of the US. When the next US president says that they need to contribute 4% of GDP to Nato it will come with the promise of an unpleasant winter if they don't.
- staunch 4y ago
  > Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis. The Suez Crisis is when the British, French, and Israeli governments conspired behind the back of the US to invade Egypt and install a puppet regime. With the goal of taking back the canal and stealing their oil supply. Pretty much the same thing Putin just attempted in Ukraine. It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century.
  - thrown_22 4y ago
    >It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century. Oh wait, you're seriously using a moral argument about the cold war. Let me laugh harder.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    True, with one tid bit: it was more about the Suez Canal then oil. Oh yeah, and the US was pissed not because of the conspiracy but rather because it interfered with US plans. And because the US didn't get any of the spoils if it would have worked out.
    - staunch 4y ago
      > And because the US didn't get any of the spoils if it would have worked out. That may be true of some people in his administration but I don't think that was Eisenhower's view.
  - baud147258 4y ago
guerrilla 4y ago
Disrupting Nord Stream 1/2, which the US has wanted and been very explicit and vocal about since day one. Why? The theory goes that they want to sell gas to Europe rather instead of Russia. That seems plausible if not obvious, but what's definitely true in any case is they did not want Europe buying gas from Russia. The official propaganda is that it was for Europe's own security (which we see now is not completely invalid.)
pydry 4y ago
To prevent Germany from caving to Russia in the middle of winter when it is suffering an extreme energy crisis. Also to shift European dependence away from Russian gas and on to American LNG.
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  I hear this a lot, but my understanding is that shipping LNG across oceans is very inefficient and would require far more terminals to receive LNG than exist. My impression is it's not even close to a 1:1 substitution.
  - pydry 4y ago
    Nowhere near. Right now that's more of a Germany problem than a USA problem though. America would like Europe to build more LNG terminals to accomodate its growing gas surplus but first investors will want to feel confident that that tap wont be switched on again soon coz LNG wont ever be able to compete with a pipeline.
- fabian2k 4y ago
  The gas storage is >95% full and it looks like households are reducing their gas usage significantly so far. So the outlook for this winter is not too bad. Unless something really big happens that changes this the situation is nowhere even close to being bad enough to cause any change in Germany's policy regarding Russia and Ukraine.
  - pydry 4y ago
    95% full is enough to last two months in an averagely bad winter. That might stretch to 4 if you ration.
WatchDog 4y ago
Biden publicly stated that he will shut down the nord stream if Russia attacked Ukraine[0], so he’s sticking to his word. [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbEoZXhCrM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FVbEoZXhCrM
- smegsicle 4y ago
  whether the US was involved or not, i hope people are starting to see what a dangerous idiot he is to have in power that stupid smirk on his face really makes it look like he's eager to blow it up
  - rasz 4y ago
    especially compared to completely rational stable genius in the Kremlin, right?
    - smegsicle 4y ago
      what?
    - Gud 4y ago
      No one’s arguing that Russia is a rational actor. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable if you had a commander in chief in the US who didn’t appear half senile?

kranke155 4y ago

colpabar 4y ago
Could you elaborate? We're not all as smart as you :) edit to add the now-dead comment I was replying to so people can still see it (and hopefully forgive my snark): "Completely insane hot take but sure."
- kranke155 4y ago
  Just read informed commentary instead of conspiracy theories? 1. The US is already selling gas to Europe and there was no sign that would change. Europe has already committed to disinvesting from Russian energy. The pipelines were dead already. The US and others had already captured the market. Increasing the usage of Russian energy again during a bloody war against a neighbouring country would be political suicide for any European country I can think of. Maybe this is not obvious to Americans, and maybe this explains the obsessions with American intervention here - Americans always think their country is behind everything good or bad in the world, which in my mind explains a bit of the “Russia attacked due to NATO” delusional narrative. If anything happened in the world, US must be behind it, military industrial complex blah blah blah. 2. Like other posters here have already mentioned the consensus hunch (and that’s all we have - a hunch) for now is this was a warning to internal competitors in Russian internal politics. This was a way to burn the ships and end any idea that Russia will come back to the West. We are in unrestricted warfare against Russia. 3. If you look into Russian propagandists online, they are 100% behind the idea that America did it to deindustrialise Europe, increase dependency, etc. I regularly follow the rule that whatever Russian propagandists say is higher in likelihood to be false, something which has been demonstrated again and again with - MH270 flight, invasion of Crimea, the killing of Boris Nemtsov, the Skripal poisoning, the invasion of Ukraine, now the usage of Iranian drones (Russia denies ever using them as they rain upon Kyiv). I could go on and on. 4. Like others have said, there are other operational pipelines. Thinking the problem with Russia selling Europe energy is “pipelines” is the definition of missing the forest for the trees. Assume we are at war with Russia and that they are a full blown revisionist militarist state in the Nazi tradition and everything will make more sense. Stop making stuff up and start dealing with reality - we are in a state of direct economic and information warfare with Russia, and in a proxy hot conflict where we hope to annihilate their armed forces. They are acting accordingly, and in order to prevent a “detente” later on after perhaps a change in leadership, the core rulers of Russia decided to blow up remaining economic bridges. Effectively the world is at war against a new form of fascist/hypernationalist superpower and you guys are arguing about who blew up a pipeline that the fascists would use to feed energy to their now sworn enemies. Stop guessing. It was the fascists.

Deganta 4y ago

But why would the US destroy NordStream? There was no gas flowing through the pipeline anyway. Ukraine is already winning the war. European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US. If any evidence ever surfaces, the US may lose the trust of most of its allies. I don't see why taking this risk would be justified.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Though possible, the damage to the US if found responsible would be unfathomable. I can't imagine Joe approving that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kcplate 4y ago
  It’s a little hard to deny you did something when you said publicly you were going to do it… https://youtu.be/k8YC7UQVmis https://youtu.be/k8YC7UQVmis
m000 4y ago
> European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia Yes, because Russia is temporarily sanctioned. The moment the sanctions are lifted, Russia will still have the cheapest prices due to proximity and infrastructure. And Europe, of course, would resume buying from Russia, although they will try to secure better backup solutions in case of a future incident. Blowing up the pipeline makes sure that gas flow will take a considerable time to resume. This gives leverage to alternative suppliers to negotiate for long-term deals with EU. With long-term deals in place, it will take several years for Russia to regain its dominant position in the European energy market. > And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US. What risk? The Baltic Sea is controlled by NATO. It's fairly easy for the US to find or create a window of opportunity to carry the operation.
- mcphage 4y ago