Quote (Goomshill @ 28 Sep 2022 11:18)
We do know, however, that the US was openly threatening to do this multiple times. Joe Biden went on camera and said something to the effect of 'we could blow up the nord stream 2' in masked language. So did victoria nuland. And karine jean-pierre deflected on our responsibility. And we clearly have the technical capabilities and the likely balance of being able to detect Russian attacks if they actually occurred.
In the absence of any other evidence, the weight of evidence is probably on the side of it being a US operation
Quote (JohnnyMcCoy @ 28 Sep 2022 11:45)
sleepy joe literally said there "would be no more nordstream 2", if russia invaded and confirmed along the lines of "we can do it" when a journalist asked for specifics, well.....
that pipeline was probably the last bargaining chip for russia to push germany into the negotiation camp, now there is no way back really
I think you're really overinterpreting Biden's statement from that press conference. First, he most likely alluded to the possibility of the US really applying the screws on Germany in secret backroom talks if they don't fall in line regarding Nord Stream 2. Second, he was being unspecific on purpose. There was clear dissent between two major allies on the issues back when this press conference took place, and the reporters were drilling into it. Biden had a motive to publicly downplay this dissent without giving details, so he went for a generic "we can end it if necessary". What Biden said was basically the equivalent of Trump saying "it's gonna be YUGE, believe me".
Additionally, I think you're underestimating how much risk such an operation carries for the U.S. in the unlikely case that they get caught. The war is going much better from their perspective than from the perspective of their Western European allies. They might stand to gain if Ukraine refuses to concede Donbass and sign a peace treaty this winter, while Western Europe would benefit from this war ending as soon as possible. At the moment, both the U.S. and the EU have convergents interests in stopping Russia's offense asap and bringing Ukraine into as strong a position as possible before peace talks - but once the peace talks begin, interests will diverge again. They need the Western European publics to stand firm to achieve their geopolitical goals.
All of this would go right out of the window if the U.S. was caught blowing up the pipeline. Likewise, European willingness to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine after the war would imho take a big hit. And last but not least, it would prompt a ton of people to embrace the Russian narrative that the U.S. had deliberately pushed Europe into this war because they want to divide Europe and Russia out of selfish motives.
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and what a coincidence that poland got their pipeline to norway that provides them with gas without depending on germany, however we depend on their transit now after our direct pipelines got blown up
There are also two pipelines directly connecting Norwegian gas fields to Germany:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europipe_Ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europipe_IISo as long as Russia isn't sending gas to Europe, Germany and Poland are in a similar position right now. Except that Poland's Baltic Pipe is much more accessible for Russian sabotage operations.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 28 2022 10:34am