Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's frankly absurd. The notion that NS2 would enter operation is absurd. NS2 has been dead in the water for months, and the prospect of entering service have been dubious for some time before the Russians invaded Ukraine.
Washington had a very clear policy of never letting NS2 enter production (remember that ominous Biden quip before the war? [1]), which, by the way, is the opposite of absurd: Germany is a major consumer of natural gas and Russia is a major nearby supplier. NS2 is natural in a world without geopolitical drama. "NS2 shouldn't exist" is a narrative manufactured in Washington (and delivered to Germany by Baerbock), that…
As I understand it, most of the gas that would be delivered via NS2 would be the gas that wouldn't be delivered through Belarus/Ukraine (depriving them of transit revenue and providing more options for Russia to employ gas politics on its western flank). It rather seems to me that, far from being natural in a world without geopolitical drama, much of its purpose is actually to enable geopolitical drama.
And, of course, the main thrust of the argumentation against NS2 was that it was causing Germany to pursue an economic dependency on Russia that was unwise, given Russia's already-demonstrated penchant for using that economic dependency as a lever in global affairs. NS2 died when Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the lack of wisdom in pursuing economic dependency on Russia (compounded by Russia withholding gas flows to make Europe came back begging to Mother Russia).