Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

forsvaret.dk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

951–960 of 1001 posts

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#951

Post by MichaelCollins »

kibwen wrote: post #938
MichaelCollins wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, Biden did not What's with the authoritative tone? You have no clue what American submarines have been up to, and if you did know, you'd be breaking the law by telling us anything about it. And it's absurd to pretend that the premise of submarines doing clandestine illegal stuff underwater is an outlandish "Q-style" 'conspiracy'.

Can you point to the commenter here who does know what any nation's subs have been up to, and isn't pulling stuff out of their ass to satisfy their geopolitical soap opera fantasies? What's "absurd" is pretending that a nation state would either need or even want to use submarines for an operation like this; reports indicate that these pipelines are at a depth of 80m, which is well within the depths that professional…

It has nothing to do with the depth. Surface ship diver tenders work great if you don't mind everybody seeing what you're doing. For something like this, it would be stupid.

> In practice there's not a single state on Earth that benefits from the temporary disabling of this unused pipeline,

Severing this tie between Germany and Russia benefits America. If you don't understand this then you haven't been paying attention. Furthermore, doing it in a way that takes the blame off the German government is beneficial to the German government. The German people will be uncomfortable in the short term, but in the long run severing this link between their country and Russia will be good in the long run for them and the rest of NATO.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#952

Post by MichaelCollins »

foverzar wrote: post #892
ajross wrote: post #851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is Putin direct interest destroy a source of income and leverage to the country!?!? The logic isn't unreasonable. Nordstream is very clearly NOT a source of income, currently. But it could be, if Putin were deposed. Now the Russian gas interests are stuck with Putin, they don't win anything (in the near term) via a coup. Add to that that clandestine adventurism like this is very much Putin's MO and not the USA'…

> Add to that that clandestine adventurism like this is very much Putin's MO and not the USA's Clandestine adventurism is not the USA's, really??? > we Oh, that explains it. Cuz "we" are always the good guys!

He's only wrong about the first half of that.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#953

Post by toss1 »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #689
toss1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a motivation to kill the pipelines now, to increase gas prices now, as NS1 & NS2 are NOT the only paths to get gas to the EU. Since they are already down for "maintenance" (and we actually know some maintenance is needed), it would be a good tactical move to kill the possibility of NS1 & NS2 delivering gas, increase focus on the crisis now, and hope that this scares the EU into stopping supporting Ukraine.…

> and hope that this scares the EU into stopping supporting Ukraine This absolutely doesn’t make sense. If the pipeline is gone, EU does not have any incentive to settle with Russia. Like, “whatever”, no pipe, we send tanks to Ukraine because you have nothing to offer to us anymore.

another key hint:

The gas is apparently still flowing out of the pipes at pressure - this can happen only if Russia is still pumping, for which the only purpose would be to spend money to create an environmental disaster - another distraction/disruption.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#954

Post by zoomablemind »

For very long decades USSR maintained reputation of a reliable supplier of gas and oil. Russia "inherited" this status after the breakup. However, the first gas war against Ukraine in 2009 already showed that the russian political leadership was ready to trade that status over for the geopolitical gains by using gas supply as a tool of war against Ukraine, against Europe.

It worked then to some extent. Sure, why should russia stop? What works should be used again, right?

Here it is, now russia is playing the gas supply card again. However, at this time it is clear that by its hostile and deliberate actions russia further damaged its reliable supplier reputation on the European market.

Does russia want to give up its influence on that market? Of course, not. It again needs a way to maintain the political pressure yet shift the blame for the reputation damage.

Thus, blowing up already non-functioning pipelines serves these purposes. By painting this incident as a mystery, russia will suggest that the supply disruption was beyond its control and not a deliberate choice. Force majeure. Just as it has been making up "technical" reasons for reducing then shuttering the flow via NS-1. Dishonest and obvious, but can still be claimed in court. If anything, the recent arbitrage vs Ukraine's Naftogaz demonstrated such approach in action.

Additionally, now only the Ukrainian pipeline still remains however vulnerable. This allows russia to advance the blackmailing should there be more hardships during the winter.

Whichever the real reasons are, one thing is fully proven is that russia has consistently used the energy supply as weapons and thus cannot be considered as a reliable and trustworthy member of the market. Whichever country to agree to deal with it will have to bear the longterm consequences of any adverse outcomes on its own (Hungary?).

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#956

Post by greyhair »

actionfromafar wrote: post #948
foverzar wrote: post #935

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the risks of blowback should it be caught would make it too risky It's the same risk for every suspect, so it's not really a counterpoint.

Russia has already been caught lying about serious things without fazing their believers one bit.

Russia, as in Russia? Or Russia as in Putin?

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#957

Post by MichaelCollins »

jcranmer wrote: post #243
ShivShankaran wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> The Siberian pipeline was also sabotaged by the US https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage I'm skeptical of that claim. It is sourced entirely from an autobiography, and there's no corroborating evidence of the explosion from any other source. > Russia has been pressuring Germany to re-open NordStrom 2 for weeks now. Maybe, but Germany hasn't been close to yielding to that pressure.

> Maybe, but Germany hasn't been close to yielding to that pressure.

It doesn't have to be close to yielding, or even particularly likely to be close in the future. Planning and accounting for unlikely contingencies is prudent.

Suppose analysts calculated a mere 5% chance Germany considers yielding to pressure this winter. Why take that risk? Blow up the pipe and bring that risk down to 0%.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#958

Post by emkemp »

foverzar wrote: post #935
fmajid wrote: post #898

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the ridiculous number of oligarchs getting defenestrated of late, it doesn’t seem Putin has lost his ability to cow them. The USA would be entirely right not to trust Germany, but the risks of blowback should it be caught would make it too risky, and Biden doesn’t strike me as a gambler, unlike some. Ukraine would be a good potential suspect but probably doesn’t have the capability. China could also be, turning…

> but the risks of blowback should it be caught would make it too risky It's the same risk for every suspect, so it's not really a counterpoint.

But the risk aversion of each suspect is not the same.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#959

Post by kfajdsl »

bradgessler wrote: post #310

Does anybody know what this means in terms of bringing the pipeline back online? I'm assuming it's filling with seawater, which seems like it would cause all sorts of problems between the salt and debris. Is it a matter of repairing the breaches, removing the water, cleaning the pipeline out, and pressurizing it or is this pipeline effectively destroyed?

For now, I think the gas escaping is preventing water from rushing in.

Re: Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea

#960

Post by thenthenthen »

PartyOperator wrote: post #483
percevalve wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading that the Norway-Poland pipeline just happened to open today... Sounds like a loud a clear message to me, along the lines of "Gas pipeline seems to be very fragile around here, let's just hope nothing happens to yours". If you add factions into the mix, I would say that this might be what makes the most sense. https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/27/baltic-pipe-norway-polan...

There's also the fact that it just shakes things up a bit. Russia isn't benefiting from the pipeline now. Leaving it intact leaves long-term opportunities and risks that strategic actors with time on their side can turn against Russia (or against Putin in particular). Blowing a hole in the pipeline creates confusion, disruption and opportunities today. For what? Unclear, but Putin seems to thrive on short-term crises…

I think all parties involved could potentially benefit from the confusion surrounding this pipeline.
Post reply on HN