Really? You think Germany would declare war on the US?
Russia owns the pipelines. The U.S. would be risking war with Russia by blowing them up.
You know the USA sends sophisticated military weapons and training to Ukraine including actual HIMARS used to blow up a Russian barrack and kill 400 Russians?
But you think the USA blowing up an inactive pipeline might be the thing that provokes a war and therefore the USA would never do it?
I’m genuinely curious where the gymnastic is? I am asking in good faith. What is Russia’s interest in sabotaging it? They can’t sell gas to fund their war machine. What’s the US interest? Now Europe must buy LNG from our fantastic gas companies. US exports of LNG are at an all time high price. Europe is pissed off at our rival. Not to mention our commander in chief threatened to blow it up, why? Everything here says…
You need to stop thinking like a rational capitalist. It's a common problem for westerners to try to look at Russia from this angle. It makes the cost of energy go up in Europe and the US, which exacerbates the existing problem of monetary inflation caused by the recent pandemic. It was meant as punishment for the West's support of Ukraine to increase civil discontent with the existing pro-Ukraine western governments…
Now here are the gymnastics not found in a “rational capitalist” explanation of the events.
Can you name a single other instance in history where a country at war significantly damaged its ability to raise money for the war to “send a message”? What exactly is the message? The US didn’t think Russia had a submersible and some C4 and now they do?
That they could destroy other pipelines like those coming from Norway.
Russia sabotaging OTHER countries makes a lot of sense. Russia sabotaging itself on the other hand…
While the Seymour Hersh story seems unbelievable to me, so does the initial explanation that was being thrown around, that Russia did this as sabotage, e.g., https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/28/nord-stream-... . The utter stupidity of that idea is along the sames lines as rhetoric, also present in OP, that Russia "weaponized" its gas pipelines. (To use that language, nearly anything can be a "weapon.") I'…
One of the pipelines is still undamaged. Why would the US be this sloppy?
Why wouldn't be sloppy? Remember the Afghanistan pull out? The US is capable of screw ups. Unless of course people were falling down from planes and busses with kids and women were droned tactically?
What about the methane? How would it interact with the ship if it was directly atop the leak?
Sure: when a large amount of gas is released to bubble up, the average density of the gas/water mix can be too low for the maximum displacement of a ship passing above to carry it's weight. Ship drops beneath the surface until it hits pure water or a mix close enough, and most ships aren't built to recover from that.
Or, the ship breaks its keel because the front and back are supported, but the middle loses buoyancy.
Because it makes no sense, blowing up NS would achieve nothing the EU was already cutting itself off Russian gas and oil. This operation has no upsides and the downsides are so big that this is probably the only time where the meme of the guy being thrown out of the window for suggesting something in a meeting is actually appropriate… If there was even a whiff of credible evidence that the US was behind it it would’v…
> the EU was already cutting itself off Russian gas and oil Which in practice only meant gorging on it and storing like crazy, while initiating years-long process of establishing alternative routes (x10 priced LNG obviously doesn't count) > If there was even a whiff of credible evidence that the US was behind it it would’ve set back US-EU relations by decades if not more and if there was actual undeniable proof it co…
> Which in practice only meant gorging on it and storing like crazy, while initiating years-long process of establishing alternative routes (x10 priced LNG obviously doesn't count)
Given what camp Stoltenberg ended up in, and his family origins, this is highly plausible.
His family origins? You mean being the son of a politician who was staunchly against the vietnam war? To the point that he was honoured by the Vietnamese post war? https://vietnamnet.vn/en/ex-foreign-minister-of-norway-honou... The same Jens Stoltenberg who was against and protested the american war against Iraq from the beginning? As a Norwegian I have never voted for Jens Stoltenberg or his party, I am slightly mor…
I'll agree that it does lack hard evidence, but it presents very important and relevant context about the groups that Jens was associated with at the time, and what became of those groups and him. What are the chances that some young person would change teams so suddenly and extremely? It's common for teenagers to pass through a rebellious phase, but the timing (of the reversion to daddy's team) here seems too abrupt, and the quick passage to the exact opposite position seems suspicious. The Patreon post also discusses how many other figures in that circle became double agents, which is highly relevant.