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Biden stated last year: "If Russia invades [Ukraine] there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." [1] This was a clear threat, clear as

Biden stated last year: "If Russia invades [Ukraine] there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it." [1] This was a clear threat, clear as day, that the US could destroy Nordstream. It should surprise nobody that the US was involved. Since Nordstream was destroyed amidst public pressure from US energy companies who wanted to takeover the European energy market, the US has become the world's leading exporter of liquid natural gas, Europeans are paying record natural gas prices, and US energy companies are reporting record profits. Again, the relationship between these things should surprise nobody. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/bidens-big-nord-stream-2-pledge-provides-major-test-after-unfulfilled-promises/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/bidens-bi...

arisAlexis 4y ago
actually gas prices in Europe are lower than just before the invasion and in any case the provider of Nord Stream is blackmailing with nukes. Finally, threatening does not lead to proof. Maybe yes, maybe not.
coffeebeqn 4y ago
It’s not out of the realm of possibility but that statement is hardly an admission of future sabotage. I would imagine the US has more tools than deep sea bombing to convince their allies. Very high risk operation
- slantedview 4y ago
  Sure, a threat is not an admission of guilt. But I think most people were unaware of this statement, and how aggressive the US' posture towards the pipeline was, which is important context for this article.
  - coffeebeqn 4y ago
    They must have not been paying attention. Trump was very vocal against it and was laughed at by the genius German technocrats. The Obama admin was also against it
    - miguelazo 4y ago
      More likely they were listening, but continued to pursue the path that was in Germany’s national interest. German voters do not care about helping maintain US hegemony; they care about economic stability and energy security. It will be interesting to see what happens in German domestic politics as more evidence emerges that its supposed ally carried out industrial sabotage against it. The rest of Europe’s voters will also take note.
- vintermann 4y ago
  I believe the US often takes stupid risks, despite having better options. This is not an indictment of the US, it's just an assessment based on my own and other's extensive experiences with large, hierarchical organizations.
- VagueMag 4y ago
  > Very high risk operation I'm not sure what would make it so high risk. The truth could easily be castigated and maligned as "conspiracy theory," a dismissal that most people in the Western countries will readily accept. The only people with the resources to investigate and find hard evidence would either be in on it (Western/NATO allies) or easily written off as pushing lies and propaganda (the Russians).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
welterde 4y ago
Why destroy NS1 then and not NS2 (NS1 and NS2 both have two pipes and only one of the two NS2 pipes were destroyed)? And why destroy it at this exact time when Russia was already coming up with less and less plausible excuses to halt deliveries via NS1 (both NS1 pipes were destroyed)? Why not wait with the nuclear option until there were even signs that NS2 would come online (Germany had already halted the certification process for NS2 shortly before the invasion).. NS2 was already dead.
- vintermann 4y ago
  The article implicitly suggests that the goal was indeed to sabotage both pipelines fully. It doesn't say it outright, but if the hastily re-programmed explosives were triggered by a sonar buoy after three months in sea water as the article says, then it would not be surprising at all if some of them failed to go off. Precisely that the article implicitly gives very plausible answers to good questions like yours, is why I think it's credible.
  - welterde 4y ago
    Neither the mechanism nor the reasoning in the article sound plausible to me (nor the involvement of Norway..). NS1 was already shutdown by Russia within weeks of the supposed time of installation of the explosives, after which there was no more point to explode them and it would make more sense to silently remove them again. NS2 was already dead in the water since couple days before the invasion. In addition the bad-trigger scenario would imply that the explosives and triggering mechanism remained in place on the remaining pipe, which would require the US to rush there to remove them or trigger the missing one to avoid terrible diplomatic consequences if the unexploded device were to be discovered.
    - vintermann 4y ago
      First, the whole point of these pipes from Russia's side, and the concern about them from the US, was that they could be used as leverage to keep EU from supporting Ukraine. So there was absolutely a "point" in blowing them up even though they were turned off. The point being, when they're blown up, they can't be turned on, thus Russia has no leverage anymore. Second, those terrible diplomatic consequences probably happened, behind the scenes (and weren't that terrible, because no one really wants to denounce the US in the middle of the Ukraine war). I'll remind you that both Sweden and Denmark claimed nothing other than sabotage could be concluded, and closed down their investigations and classified the heck out of the details. Feel free to make freedom of information requests to them, so that you can get those "national security interest" refusals. Odds are that the US didn't directly admit anything to them, but strongly suggested they shouldn't look too closely or be too specific in their statements, and that those states were quick to comply. And probably cleaned up well enough that there was nothing left for the Russians to find, in the case that they should run their own investigation (although, Russia can't run a real investigation to save their ass, they're too used to have their conclusions dictated to them, so I wouldn't worry if I was the USG).
bandyaboot 4y ago
> This was a clear threat, clear as day, that the US could destroy Nordstream [2]. It should surprise nobody that the US was involved. Or you could take a breath and realize that Nordstream 2 was not yet complete. It was an ongoing, non-operational project. In that context, “bringing it to an end” could easily mean not completing it. In fact, that’s the far more reasonable interpretation—-the literal physical destruction interpretation is only made by someone who wants to believe that.
- tazjin 4y ago
  At the time the physical construction had been completed.
  - bandyaboot 4y ago
    It was not in operation. The project had not been completed.
    - miguelazo 4y ago
      It was completed in every sense of the word. It was merely awaiting approval/certification. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-russia-germany-0d211c6138bb1b4ca57adeba9ca44341 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-ru...
      - bandyaboot 4y ago
        It was not completed in the most important sense for this discussion—it was not operational. The project could still be ended short of completion without blowing it up.
        miguelazo 4y ago
        Most people would find it very hard to believe that Germany would allow such a valuable investment to sit unused for any significant amount of time. Other European countries also had significant investment in Nordstream AG. The Germans were merely placating the Americans while a a diplomatic solution was being sought for Ukraine. The Americans undermined the proposed solutions at every turn while they baited Russia to invade per the RAND report game plan and then decided to remove the pipeline from the bargaining table entirely.

arisAlexis 4y ago

actually gas prices in Europe are lower than just before the invasion and in any case the provider of Nord Stream is blackmailing with nukes. Finally, threatening does not lead to proof. Maybe yes, maybe not.

coffeebeqn 4y ago

It’s not out of the realm of possibility but that statement is hardly an admission of future sabotage. I would imagine the US has more tools than deep sea bombing to convince their allies. Very high risk operation

slantedview 4y ago
Sure, a threat is not an admission of guilt. But I think most people were unaware of this statement, and how aggressive the US' posture towards the pipeline was, which is important context for this article.
- coffeebeqn 4y ago
  They must have not been paying attention. Trump was very vocal against it and was laughed at by the genius German technocrats. The Obama admin was also against it
  - miguelazo 4y ago
    More likely they were listening, but continued to pursue the path that was in Germany’s national interest. German voters do not care about helping maintain US hegemony; they care about economic stability and energy security. It will be interesting to see what happens in German domestic politics as more evidence emerges that its supposed ally carried out industrial sabotage against it. The rest of Europe’s voters will also take note.
vintermann 4y ago
I believe the US often takes stupid risks, despite having better options. This is not an indictment of the US, it's just an assessment based on my own and other's extensive experiences with large, hierarchical organizations.
VagueMag 4y ago
> Very high risk operation I'm not sure what would make it so high risk. The truth could easily be castigated and maligned as "conspiracy theory," a dismissal that most people in the Western countries will readily accept. The only people with the resources to investigate and find hard evidence would either be in on it (Western/NATO allies) or easily written off as pushing lies and propaganda (the Russians).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

welterde 4y ago

Why destroy NS1 then and not NS2 (NS1 and NS2 both have two pipes and only one of the two NS2 pipes were destroyed)? And why destroy it at this exact time when Russia was already coming up with less and less plausible excuses to halt deliveries via NS1 (both NS1 pipes were destroyed)? Why not wait with the nuclear option until there were even signs that NS2 would come online (Germany had already halted the certification process for NS2 shortly before the invasion).. NS2 was already dead.

vintermann 4y ago
The article implicitly suggests that the goal was indeed to sabotage both pipelines fully. It doesn't say it outright, but if the hastily re-programmed explosives were triggered by a sonar buoy after three months in sea water as the article says, then it would not be surprising at all if some of them failed to go off. Precisely that the article implicitly gives very plausible answers to good questions like yours, is why I think it's credible.
- welterde 4y ago
  Neither the mechanism nor the reasoning in the article sound plausible to me (nor the involvement of Norway..). NS1 was already shutdown by Russia within weeks of the supposed time of installation of the explosives, after which there was no more point to explode them and it would make more sense to silently remove them again. NS2 was already dead in the water since couple days before the invasion. In addition the bad-trigger scenario would imply that the explosives and triggering mechanism remained in place on the remaining pipe, which would require the US to rush there to remove them or trigger the missing one to avoid terrible diplomatic consequences if the unexploded device were to be discovered.
  - vintermann 4y ago
    First, the whole point of these pipes from Russia's side, and the concern about them from the US, was that they could be used as leverage to keep EU from supporting Ukraine. So there was absolutely a "point" in blowing them up even though they were turned off. The point being, when they're blown up, they can't be turned on, thus Russia has no leverage anymore. Second, those terrible diplomatic consequences probably happened, behind the scenes (and weren't that terrible, because no one really wants to denounce the US in the middle of the Ukraine war). I'll remind you that both Sweden and Denmark claimed nothing other than sabotage could be concluded, and closed down their investigations and classified the heck out of the details. Feel free to make freedom of information requests to them, so that you can get those "national security interest" refusals. Odds are that the US didn't directly admit anything to them, but strongly suggested they shouldn't look too closely or be too specific in their statements, and that those states were quick to comply. And probably cleaned up well enough that there was nothing left for the Russians to find, in the case that they should run their own investigation (although, Russia can't run a real investigation to save their ass, they're too used to have their conclusions dictated to them, so I wouldn't worry if I was the USG).

bandyaboot 4y ago

> This was a clear threat, clear as day, that the US could destroy Nordstream [2]. It should surprise nobody that the US was involved. Or you could take a breath and realize that Nordstream 2 was not yet complete. It was an ongoing, non-operational project. In that context, “bringing it to an end” could easily mean not completing it. In fact, that’s the far more reasonable interpretation—-the literal physical destruction interpretation is only made by someone who wants to believe that.

tazjin 4y ago
At the time the physical construction had been completed.
- bandyaboot 4y ago
  It was not in operation. The project had not been completed.
  - miguelazo 4y ago
    It was completed in every sense of the word. It was merely awaiting approval/certification. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-russia-germany-0d211c6138bb1b4ca57adeba9ca44341 https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-ru...
    - bandyaboot 4y ago
      It was not completed in the most important sense for this discussion—it was not operational. The project could still be ended short of completion without blowing it up.
      - miguelazo 4y ago
        Most people would find it very hard to believe that Germany would allow such a valuable investment to sit unused for any significant amount of time. Other European countries also had significant investment in Nordstream AG. The Germans were merely placating the Americans while a a diplomatic solution was being sought for Ukraine. The Americans undermined the proposed solutions at every turn while they baited Russia to invade per the RAND report game plan and then decided to remove the pipeline from the bargaining table entirely.