Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but you're not seeing the distinction because you're expanding the definition of NIMBY beyond what it means (a person who objects to developments done near them).
You used a fine phrase there, "red tape", which describes all the bureaucracy over and above localised objections to national infrastructure. NIMBYs can certainly use the red tape to hold you up, but there's also NIMBY-free red tape that holds you up anyway.
[Aside: If you want a word for "globalised" NIMBYs, those are BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything), the sorts of people who weaponise the environmental impact assessment. Some examples are https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-doesnt-america-build-thi... and https://www.palladiummag.com/2022/06/09/why-america-cant-bui... -- it seems especially galling that "environmentalists" don't want a train line that could replace 100% of air travel between LA and SF, because it might affect their specific piece of the environment, meaning that the planes just keep on flying, dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, warming the planet, and contributing to the increasingly severe weather that leads to massive destruction of their nearby environment via wildfires and such]
Under "politics" I'd include NIMBYs and red tape... and also political will. The project was proposed in 2015 and didn't really start until 2020. That's politics -- convincing the appropriate people in power that they can and should do something, and commit to funding the project, assigning the appropriate governmental bodies to begin work on it, and in this case engage the companies responsible for electricity transmission and get them to work on it too. Only then do they start planning the route, applying for planning permission, compulsory purchase, holding consultations, hearing objections, etc.
Getting the project going took 5 years, it could have been 0 years if the political will was there.