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Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

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Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#841

Post by csomar »

xyzzyz wrote: post #105
ainar-g wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely Russia has no interest in sabotaging the pipelines that give them leverage over Europe. Apart from a false-flag operation by Putin to have a casus belli to start a war with NATO? Normally, that would be suicide. But Putin has already proven that he, to put it diplomatically, does not see the world the way most sane people see it.

Ukraine invasion showed that Russia really doesn’t need much in a way of excuse to start a war. I don’t understand why people talk about “casus beli” as if life today was Europa Universalis game. When power want to start a war, they do.

You can make up a "casus beli" in EU4.

Putin made up a "casus beli" before going into the special-operation. He made a speech how this territory belongs to the Russia empire.

So life is not really that different from EU4.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#842

Post by jiggawatts »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #717
jiggawatts wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your links are highly disingenuous. Russia supported armed separatists and started a low-grade war against Ukraine in 2014. Their aims have always been clear: control Crimea and seize control of a land bridge to it. They never hid these intentions, and you'd have to purposefully ignore this realpolitik in order to lay the blame at Ukraine's feet. Are Ukrainians all saints, souls pure as the driven snow? Clearly not.…

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#843

Post by shswkna »

kibwen wrote: post #778
SanjayMehta wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia could have just turned off the tap. The sabotage ensures Europe can't back off from the US sanctions now. Wrecks Germany's economy, thereby eliminating a rival. VW et al are already talking about moving production to the US. And Biden promised to take care of NS 2 back in February itself. https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8

This is tinfoil-haberdashery. No, Biden did not authorize a clandestine attack on Russian infrastructure just to boost the US auto industry, nor did he subtly broadcast his nefarious intent months ago as part of some game to throw red meat to the conspiratorialists, Q-style. The US would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by engaging in such an action, and has absolutely no impetus to since it already curren…

I beg to differ. To at least consider that the sabotage is in US interest, is sound logic.

Of course there are many factors at play and a lot we don’t know.

The arguments in your post carry a hint of denial in them. Read other posts that outline the benefits to the US position after the sabotage, and consider them without bias. Not saying its the only explanation- but the case is worth considering.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#844

Post by petre »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #414
vintermann wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting possibility I hadn't thought of. Can a faction really blow up an undersea pipeline in three places at once, though?

If that fraction is FSB management, why not? Rumor is, there is enormous pressure on Putin to cede power to Patrushev son. This may be part if a plan to force him into quitting

Patrushev is worse than Putin. It was possibly him who talked Putin into starting this war.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#845

Post by mjfl »

hackerlight wrote: post #824
mjfl wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of the warning don't make sense. Why destroy billions of dollars, 10 years of construction, and hundreds of miles of Russian investment for a warning? That's stupid, and Putin isn't stupid, at all. Dogshit take.

Putin isn't stupid, and yet he invaded Ukraine? Yes he is a fairly smart man but he's capable of recklessness and miscalculation. Also, there's two assumptions here. First that they've destroyed the whole project. What's your source on the repair costs in order to justify that position? Another assumption you've made is that NS2 isn't a sunk cost for Russia. That's an unjustified assumption given the recent consequen…

Correct, he isn't stupid and he invaded Ukraine and you should be more weary about it.

> Also, there's two assumptions here. First that they've destroyed the whole project. What's your source on the repair costs in order to justify that position?

If you search around this thread, the pipeline has an internal coating that cannot be exposed to water and no valve system to isolate and replace parts of the pipe for repairs. I'm just going off that information. But even if it can be repaired it's still very costly, and stupid to do potentially massive damage to your own infrastructure for an unspecified/unspoken 'warning' that people may not even pick up on. I'm certainly not picking up on it. That's a very inefficient messaging system.

> Another assumption you've made is that NS2 isn't a sunk cost for Russia. That's an unjustified assumption given the recent consequences of Russia's energy war on Europe.

It wasn't a sunk cost. It was a nearly operational pipeline that would have delivered extremely cheap natural gas to germany's many factories, way cheaper than other source. Europe is desperate for energy and will be desperate for energy after the war. This is why it's such a great bargaining chip, and why there's a great incentive for the US to destroy it, so they can take away that bargaining chip.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#846

Post by csomar »

margarina72 wrote: post #763

Gas was providing Russia a strong leverage in its relationship with Europe. This leverage is now gone. It will only make the whole region more unstable, more dependent on other international powers. Friendly backstabbing from your allies is not something unheard of. This winter people will die of cold, because somebody needed to make a point and get everyone on board. Politics can be harsh sometime, but you cannot ma…

Are they really your allies? The US has blocked flights from Europe during the coronavirus for a long time. At some point, it was possible to go from North Africa, through Turkey to the USA. But people from Europe could not do that; and that's after the coronavirus pandemic was worse in the US.

I think people are delusional if they think the US is Europe best ally. It's not. And they (the US) clearly see Europe as a threat to their rule-based world order.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#847

Post by labster »

csomar wrote: post #831
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like on any crime scene, who profits from the crime? Well, a few things first: 1- NS1 along NS2 are (were) shutdown and clearly these were not going to re-open, not before the end of the war - not politically acceptable for Putin, even less for Germany 2- The war is going to last for many more months (best case scenario) or a year or two or ... No matter how long it will really last, Europe, after having survived Win…

It's interesting you wrote a very long response and yet you presented no concrete arguments that the US could be behind this. We can agree that most EU countries will not support such an incident. The only two countries who have the technical capability and the political reasons are the USA and Russia. Both are evil and ready to blow the world for their own gains. > why would they take the risk to destroy the pipelin…

That’s because there are no reasons for the US to do it. Europe is staying aligned just fine right now. Germans think Russia is an unreliable business partner, and don’t want to deal with them again. Germany is already expanding LNG port capacity to buy more North American gas. It would be a tremendous risk to be discovered; Denmark could trigger Article 5 against the United States. The US needs to show strength in Asia, not that it’s entangled in European affairs. It’s all too much malarkey for Dark Brandon to tolerate.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#848

Post by leke »

kstenerud wrote: post #90

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. The Polish prime minister immediately called "sabotage" and fingered Russia, while everyone else is still saying "it could be sabotage but we need to investigate first". Russia wants the taps capable of being turned ON at their discretion, not permanently broken. This hurts their bargaining position in a big way because they've just lost their biggest source of lev…

So the "One who smelt it, dealt it" argument.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#849

Post by leke »

kstenerud wrote: post #90

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Poland. The Polish prime minister immediately called "sabotage" and fingered Russia, while everyone else is still saying "it could be sabotage but we need to investigate first". Russia wants the taps capable of being turned ON at their discretion, not permanently broken. This hurts their bargaining position in a big way because they've just lost their biggest source of lev…

> It could be argued that since Europe has already decided to never turn on Nordstream again...

If true, I don't understand why Poland would even need to do this. I'm going to go with Russia for reasons yet unknown because it's something only a shitty country like Russia would do.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#850

Post by leke »

wongarsu wrote: post #20
jefftk wrote: post #3

More details: Although neither was in operation, both pipelines [Nordstream 1 and 2] still contained gas under pressure. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the leaks were caused by sabotage, while his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said it was “hard to imagine” they were a “coincidence”. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/27/sweden-issues-warni...

Sabotage makes sense, but by whom? Surely Russia has no interest in sabotaging the pipelines that give them leverage over Europe. Without the pipelines, the whole "you lift the sanctions, we deliver natural gas" game is gone. Even if unlikely to happen, it would have been an important psychological and political factor over the winter. Meanwhile European powers don't seem to have an incentive. They would benefit from…

> Surely Russia has no interest in sabotaging the pipelines that give them leverage over Europe. Without the pipelines, the whole "you lift the sanctions, we deliver natural gas" game is gone. Even if unlikely to happen, it would have been an important psychological and political factor over the winter.

Could be a simple matter of burning bridges. Or something we haven't thought of yet, but will probably figure out in the next week or so.

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