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I didn't read Hersh's essay, I did read this and found it logical. BUT independently from these two writeups, the thing that doesn't make any sense is the idea

I didn't read Hersh's essay, I did read this and found it logical. BUT independently from these two writeups, the thing that doesn't make any sense is the idea that Russian would blow up their own pipeline. It is an asset they fully control. The idea that they damaged their own asset "to show the world they are serious" or whatever is about as likely as "to threaten Alice, Bob shot off his own foot." Is it possible? I guess so... but it doesn't make sense as the go-to explanation.

ceejayoz 4y ago
“We couldn’t have done it” seems like a good way to sow discord among the Western allies. There’s also the theory that it gets Gazprom out of contract violation penalties.
- xyzelement 4y ago
  I hadn't heard of that, interesting. But curious, (1) are the penalties greater than the cost of the pipeline + all foregone future revenue? (2) Do they care? Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it, couldn't really get worse in the moment, can it?
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    The cost of the pipeline was likely a sunk cost before it actually got sunk. Even intact, there’d be little chance of it being activated anytime soon. Penalties can be taken out of Gazprom holdings abroad. There’s already discussion of giving sanctioned seized Russian assets to Ukraine.
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      So I still fail to see the logic. If Russian assets are being seized anyway, what's the benefit to Russia to destroying the physical pipeline they control and could choose to use in the future?
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        The value of an unusable pipeline is zero. Worse than zero, if you have to maintain it. Gazprom wasn’t fully sanctioned at the time, and seized assets can be returned later. Penalties would eat into that. And again, sowing discord by accusing someone else probably is worth something.
  - mint2 4y ago
    “Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it” So they’re at war with their only potential customers. Sounds like the pipeline has zero commercially value to Russia since it’s unlikely anyone would buy the gas. So there’s no monetary concern to stop Russia doing whatever with it.
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      Pipeline has zero current commercial value. It has potential non zero future commercial value. And there's no benefit to destroying it. Why would they have?
      - mint2 4y ago
        A. Yes there’s a slight chance that it has future commercial value decades in the future, but it seems unlikely. B. Can you read Putin’s mind? Actually Invading Ukraine was a fantastically ill-thought endeavor, but that happened. Was Putin grossly misinformed and out of touch reality or what? But now Putin/Russia won’t do anything that certain hackernews commenters don’t think would make sense? That is an interesting take. Also Why are commenters still saying there is no potential benefit to Russia destroying it? It’s already been pointed out that there are multiple ways it could help Russia. It’s pretty easy to come up with multiple speculative ways destroying it had chances of providing more value over the next decade than doing maintenance on an unusable pipeline. Just look at how some accuse the USA of doing it while being unable to conceive that Russia could have done it. if Russia did it then that’s exactly what they wanted. Unfortunately that accusation is reserved mostly to internet pundits so that’s been a flop for Russia. Everything is speculation at the moment. Which means whoever did it at least succeeded fantastically in that regards.
pohl 4y ago
“They” in your 2nd paragraph is probably making it hard to reason out. You’re imagining Russia to be a nation with somewhat rational self interest, right? It isn’t. Russia today is Vladimir Putin serving Vladimir Putin’s interests. He is desperately trying not to be ousted after having stepped on his own dick in Ukraine. Destroying his own asset could have been motivated by wanting to reduce the value of what a would-be challenger might gain control of should they try to depose him.
- xyzelement 4y ago
  I am curious: how do you know this, and is this logical? IE, how do you know what Putin is doing and how he's thinking? What give you that insight? And - even assuming you do, does this make sense? Who is the "would be challenger" who would say "well, damn. I am going to oust Putin and take over the world's largest country, but ... nah, not gonna bother without Nordstream"?
  - pohl 4y ago
    You’re right. Clairvoyance is the only way one could possibly infer anything. My bad.
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      I am asking why you think what you think. Doesn't sound like there's a reason?
    - jjtheblunt 4y ago
      Not true. You could be Putin in which case you would know.
- kornhole 4y ago
  I hear he has a 70-80% approval rating in his country. They have a czarist tradition, and he fits it.
mullingitover 4y ago
> It is an asset they fully control. The idea that they damaged their own asset "to show the world they are serious" or whatever is about as likely as "to threaten Alice, Bob shot off his own foot." Is it possible? I guess so... but it doesn't make sense as the go-to explanation. I thought the Russia's problem was that they'd already withheld delivery of gas they were contractually obligated to deliver, and this gives them a cover. i.e. "Bob had a contract with Alice to deliver her a truckload of gold, but didn't deliver it, and swore never to deliver it. Later Bob's truck mysteriously blew up and now Bob is saying he's freed from his contract."
- jrsj 4y ago
  This just isn’t nearly as compelling as the U.S. wanting to blow it up to prevent Germany from even having the option of using it.
  - mullingitover 4y ago
    Germany already didn't have the option though - Russia had already halted delivery. That wasn't Germany's call.
mandevil 4y ago
As I've argued before, the issue here is that invading Ukraine doesn't really make any sense from the Russian perspective. They've lost so much money in trade, their army is shattered, their soft-power is in shambles, and they've pissed off even the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine that used to view them as friends. This is why there was a lot of dissension in the West over a year ago about whether the Russians would invade- people who looked at the actual Russian actions kept saying 'it looks like they are getting ready to invade' but people who focused on whether it was a good idea or not kept saying that it would be a terrible idea to invade, and gain them nothing, so they weren't going to do it. So given that Kremlin decision-making clearly does not seem like it is well thought-through, I'm very wary of this particular argument. Of course their decision-making might not make sense. Not that this proves their guilt, of course. As one analyst I saw put it, all of the stories for who planted the bombs seem weak, but one of them necessarily has to be true.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  > the issue here is that invading Ukraine doesn't really make any sense from the Russian perspective. It makes perfect sense for Russia to invade, what are you talking about? In one sense its the death throws of a dying nation, in the other its logical national protection of a vital resource - energy. A few questions for you: - Did you know in 2012 lots of oil and gas was found under Crimea and Donbas? And that US company Shell was preparing to extract it? - Did you know about the vicious fighting at Stalingrad in WW2 and why the fighting was so vicious? - Have you heard of "the Volgograd Gap"? - Have you heard of South Ossetia (and the one next to it, starts with a) and why there was a proxy conflict with the USA in the 2000's there? The Volgograd gap is the bit of land between Ukraine and the Caspian Sea. All of Moscows energy flows through there. The city used to be called Stalingrad. It also allows Russia access to its separatist regions in its neighbour Georgia. Those separatist regions put Russia within striking distance of a) the major Georgian port and b) the Georgian capital Tblisi. Guess who tried to join NATO in the 2000s? Georgia. Zelenskyys second in command is a great geopolitican and he knew this invasion was coming because he knew it was inevitable. There is multiple interviews with him saying as much, and also that they pooh-pooh'd the idea of a Russian invasion to buy time. He knew part of Russias plan was to scare the Ukrainian populace eastward, frustrating the Ukrainians armies effort to reach the front, hence they had to keep even their citizens in the dark to have a fighting chance. There are other reasons that make this make sense, such as the fact that Russia is facing a demographic crisis thanks to communism gutting it, the Minsk accords being broken, and some other stuff. I recommend you watch docos and info pieces from the following people to avoid making such silly remarks again: - RealLifeLore - Whatifalthist - CaspianReport - Good Times Bad Times - S2 Underground None of this makes what Russia did and is doing OK by any means, but it explains why they did it.
steponlego 4y ago
[flagged]
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  They stopped it from coming online months before the explosions. It was decertified in Feb 2022, and NordStream 2 AG went bankrupt a week later. Sanctions are a way of stopping things.
  - steponlego 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      I’m sure it will be as exciting as that time Colin Powell held up the little vial of fake anthrax there.
      - steponlego 4y ago
        Yeah DOD has a long, long track record of lying to everybody's face, then pretending it didn't harm what was left of their reputation. Remember the incubator babies, the yellow cake, etc? LOL
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        All true. Odd to have a blind spot on Russia lying in similar fashion, though.
    - EdwardDiego 4y ago
      Huh, you're on a first name basis with the President? Or is that just a rhetorical device?
      - steponlego 4y ago
aga98mtl 4y ago
Russia could have done it in a “burn the ships, no way out but forward” type of move. Putin might have been worried by a coup attempt by a faction that wished to restore gas deliveries. There is a lot of very rich and very unhappy oligarchs in Russia. That being said, it’s almost certainly done by NATO as a punishment to Germany for having gone against everyone else who told them these pipelines were a dangerous tool of russian influence/blackmail.
- hndamien 4y ago
  Dangerous for American hegemony.
jakeinspace 4y ago
One of the more interesting and on some level plausible hypotheses I remember reading at the time of the sabotage was that it was a purely political move for Putin, to remove the possibility of a quick return to their previous status as Europe’s gas provider, in order to dissuade those around him from a coup. Destroying the pipelines removed a major carrot (hundreds of billions of euros per year in exports).
thephyber 4y ago
Doesn’t matter. This isn’t a Boolean data type. There are more possible explanations/actors than Russia or USA. And it’s possible that the USA did it even if Hearsh’s article is factually flawed and if his source lied. I’m not convinced if Hearsh’s narrative is true or not.

ceejayoz 4y ago

“We couldn’t have done it” seems like a good way to sow discord among the Western allies. There’s also the theory that it gets Gazprom out of contract violation penalties.

xyzelement 4y ago
I hadn't heard of that, interesting. But curious, (1) are the penalties greater than the cost of the pipeline + all foregone future revenue? (2) Do they care? Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it, couldn't really get worse in the moment, can it?
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  The cost of the pipeline was likely a sunk cost before it actually got sunk. Even intact, there’d be little chance of it being activated anytime soon. Penalties can be taken out of Gazprom holdings abroad. There’s already discussion of giving sanctioned seized Russian assets to Ukraine.
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    So I still fail to see the logic. If Russian assets are being seized anyway, what's the benefit to Russia to destroying the physical pipeline they control and could choose to use in the future?
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      The value of an unusable pipeline is zero. Worse than zero, if you have to maintain it. Gazprom wasn’t fully sanctioned at the time, and seized assets can be returned later. Penalties would eat into that. And again, sowing discord by accusing someone else probably is worth something.
- mint2 4y ago
  “Whoever could possibly try to "penalize" Russia for contract violation, is currently already pretty much engaged in a hot war with it” So they’re at war with their only potential customers. Sounds like the pipeline has zero commercially value to Russia since it’s unlikely anyone would buy the gas. So there’s no monetary concern to stop Russia doing whatever with it.
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    Pipeline has zero current commercial value. It has potential non zero future commercial value. And there's no benefit to destroying it. Why would they have?
    - mint2 4y ago
      A. Yes there’s a slight chance that it has future commercial value decades in the future, but it seems unlikely. B. Can you read Putin’s mind? Actually Invading Ukraine was a fantastically ill-thought endeavor, but that happened. Was Putin grossly misinformed and out of touch reality or what? But now Putin/Russia won’t do anything that certain hackernews commenters don’t think would make sense? That is an interesting take. Also Why are commenters still saying there is no potential benefit to Russia destroying it? It’s already been pointed out that there are multiple ways it could help Russia. It’s pretty easy to come up with multiple speculative ways destroying it had chances of providing more value over the next decade than doing maintenance on an unusable pipeline. Just look at how some accuse the USA of doing it while being unable to conceive that Russia could have done it. if Russia did it then that’s exactly what they wanted. Unfortunately that accusation is reserved mostly to internet pundits so that’s been a flop for Russia. Everything is speculation at the moment. Which means whoever did it at least succeeded fantastically in that regards.

pohl 4y ago

“They” in your 2nd paragraph is probably making it hard to reason out. You’re imagining Russia to be a nation with somewhat rational self interest, right? It isn’t. Russia today is Vladimir Putin serving Vladimir Putin’s interests. He is desperately trying not to be ousted after having stepped on his own dick in Ukraine. Destroying his own asset could have been motivated by wanting to reduce the value of what a would-be challenger might gain control of should they try to depose him.

xyzelement 4y ago
I am curious: how do you know this, and is this logical? IE, how do you know what Putin is doing and how he's thinking? What give you that insight? And - even assuming you do, does this make sense? Who is the "would be challenger" who would say "well, damn. I am going to oust Putin and take over the world's largest country, but ... nah, not gonna bother without Nordstream"?
- pohl 4y ago
  You’re right. Clairvoyance is the only way one could possibly infer anything. My bad.
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    I am asking why you think what you think. Doesn't sound like there's a reason?
  - jjtheblunt 4y ago
    Not true. You could be Putin in which case you would know.
kornhole 4y ago
I hear he has a 70-80% approval rating in his country. They have a czarist tradition, and he fits it.

mullingitover 4y ago

> It is an asset they fully control. The idea that they damaged their own asset "to show the world they are serious" or whatever is about as likely as "to threaten Alice, Bob shot off his own foot." Is it possible? I guess so... but it doesn't make sense as the go-to explanation. I thought the Russia's problem was that they'd already withheld delivery of gas they were contractually obligated to deliver, and this gives them a cover. i.e. "Bob had a contract with Alice to deliver her a truckload of gold, but didn't deliver it, and swore never to deliver it. Later Bob's truck mysteriously blew up and now Bob is saying he's freed from his contract."

jrsj 4y ago
This just isn’t nearly as compelling as the U.S. wanting to blow it up to prevent Germany from even having the option of using it.
- mullingitover 4y ago
  Germany already didn't have the option though - Russia had already halted delivery. That wasn't Germany's call.

mandevil 4y ago

As I've argued before, the issue here is that invading Ukraine doesn't really make any sense from the Russian perspective. They've lost so much money in trade, their army is shattered, their soft-power is in shambles, and they've pissed off even the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine that used to view them as friends. This is why there was a lot of dissension in the West over a year ago about whether the Russians would invade- people who looked at the actual Russian actions kept saying 'it looks like they are getting ready to invade' but people who focused on whether it was a good idea or not kept saying that it would be a terrible idea to invade, and gain them nothing, so they weren't going to do it. So given that Kremlin decision-making clearly does not seem like it is well thought-through, I'm very wary of this particular argument. Of course their decision-making might not make sense. Not that this proves their guilt, of course. As one analyst I saw put it, all of the stories for who planted the bombs seem weak, but one of them necessarily has to be true.

mikrotikker 4y ago
> the issue here is that invading Ukraine doesn't really make any sense from the Russian perspective. It makes perfect sense for Russia to invade, what are you talking about? In one sense its the death throws of a dying nation, in the other its logical national protection of a vital resource - energy. A few questions for you: - Did you know in 2012 lots of oil and gas was found under Crimea and Donbas? And that US company Shell was preparing to extract it? - Did you know about the vicious fighting at Stalingrad in WW2 and why the fighting was so vicious? - Have you heard of "the Volgograd Gap"? - Have you heard of South Ossetia (and the one next to it, starts with a) and why there was a proxy conflict with the USA in the 2000's there? The Volgograd gap is the bit of land between Ukraine and the Caspian Sea. All of Moscows energy flows through there. The city used to be called Stalingrad. It also allows Russia access to its separatist regions in its neighbour Georgia. Those separatist regions put Russia within striking distance of a) the major Georgian port and b) the Georgian capital Tblisi. Guess who tried to join NATO in the 2000s? Georgia. Zelenskyys second in command is a great geopolitican and he knew this invasion was coming because he knew it was inevitable. There is multiple interviews with him saying as much, and also that they pooh-pooh'd the idea of a Russian invasion to buy time. He knew part of Russias plan was to scare the Ukrainian populace eastward, frustrating the Ukrainians armies effort to reach the front, hence they had to keep even their citizens in the dark to have a fighting chance. There are other reasons that make this make sense, such as the fact that Russia is facing a demographic crisis thanks to communism gutting it, the Minsk accords being broken, and some other stuff. I recommend you watch docos and info pieces from the following people to avoid making such silly remarks again: - RealLifeLore - Whatifalthist - CaspianReport - Good Times Bad Times - S2 Underground None of this makes what Russia did and is doing OK by any means, but it explains why they did it.

steponlego 4y ago

[flagged]

ceejayoz 4y ago
They stopped it from coming online months before the explosions. It was decertified in Feb 2022, and NordStream 2 AG went bankrupt a week later. Sanctions are a way of stopping things.
- steponlego 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    I’m sure it will be as exciting as that time Colin Powell held up the little vial of fake anthrax there.
    - steponlego 4y ago
      Yeah DOD has a long, long track record of lying to everybody's face, then pretending it didn't harm what was left of their reputation. Remember the incubator babies, the yellow cake, etc? LOL
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        All true. Odd to have a blind spot on Russia lying in similar fashion, though.
  - EdwardDiego 4y ago
    Huh, you're on a first name basis with the President? Or is that just a rhetorical device?
    - steponlego 4y ago

aga98mtl 4y ago

Russia could have done it in a “burn the ships, no way out but forward” type of move. Putin might have been worried by a coup attempt by a faction that wished to restore gas deliveries. There is a lot of very rich and very unhappy oligarchs in Russia. That being said, it’s almost certainly done by NATO as a punishment to Germany for having gone against everyone else who told them these pipelines were a dangerous tool of russian influence/blackmail.

hndamien 4y ago
Dangerous for American hegemony.

jakeinspace 4y ago

One of the more interesting and on some level plausible hypotheses I remember reading at the time of the sabotage was that it was a purely political move for Putin, to remove the possibility of a quick return to their previous status as Europe’s gas provider, in order to dissuade those around him from a coup. Destroying the pipelines removed a major carrot (hundreds of billions of euros per year in exports).

thephyber 4y ago

Doesn’t matter. This isn’t a Boolean data type. There are more possible explanations/actors than Russia or USA. And it’s possible that the USA did it even if Hearsh’s article is factually flawed and if his source lied. I’m not convinced if Hearsh’s narrative is true or not.