You don't need to remind people that they stopped the gas deliveries, that's obvious. They control the flow of gas, closing the tap means no gas. No need whatsoever to blow up the pipelines for that reason, period

And apartment blocks don't generate hundreds of billions in revenue, or do they. Because that's what we're talking about. Now if I'm gonna dig I'll find tons and tons of articles that talk about the need to cut off Putin's source of income --> Energy, gas, oil, coal exports.

It's clear as day that Russia benefits from these exports and the West is going nuts because Russia is still making bank because of the sharp rise in energy costs.

There's no way Russia benefits from blowing up the pipelines, the only somewhat plausible reason is that they're making a statement that Russia has had enough of dealing with EU and there will be no more gas deliveries ever.

But then again it would be dumb because they're the ones in control of the gas flow.

Bolded: so does the West. For every $1 billion in missed revenue from gas and oil sales, Russia inflicts something like $3-10 billion in economic damage on the West. Which is why they decided to close the gas tap to begin with...

The argument isn't that Russia expected to gain more control over the gas flows by blowing up their own pipeline, the argument is that they demonstrated their capability to blow up any kind of undersea pipeline. The implicit but fairly obvious threat is that they could also blow up our pipelines in the same fashion if we don't back off - and then, Europe would yet still run into the dreaded gas shortages which force rationing and all that.

Of course the protests were small and from a certain type of person. It's not cold yet. The point is that in August there were no protests for it, In September there were some, and in October? January?

As to the industrial situation being "overblown", unlike protests this is much more measurable. Every day the market press has more stories about falling European production. Not planned production cuts or warnings, but already happening cuts. Aluminum and zinc production were down 50% by the end of July. At least a dozen blast furnaces have closed.

This is already a month old: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-04/energy-crisis-europe-s-aluminum-smelters-are-struggling-to-survive


Aren't you European? You should be much less blaise about this sort of stuff. You seem to think that you can go through one hard winter and be fine, but that's not how this works. When you take a big metals plants offline, it costs tens of millions of dollars to start them back up again. Once a plant is shut down, the decision to start it back up has to be made very conservatively, with reasonably strong assurances of profitability for at least a few years of operation. Europe will still be experiencing gas shortages in 2023, so this basically ensures that plants closing now will be closed until at least the spring of 2024, and that's assuming a concerted effort to rapidly construct LNGH liquefaction plants and terminals in countries across the Atlantic. To be blunt, none of the countries that have LNG have anywhere near appropriate industrial policy to pull that off. America, Canada and others may want to sell you overpriced gas, but they aren't politically capable of a Stalinist 2-year plan to construct the necessary infrastructure.

NS1/2 were the only way out of this.

But whatever, you have your vague beliefs about things working out, I have facts stating European industrial output was already collapsing when it was still summertime that you just hand-wave away.

Time will teach you a lesson, here. America deindustrialized Europe when it popped those pipelines.

Certain industries like aluminium and steel prodcution are extremely energy-hungry; their whole profitability depends on the availability of cheap energy. These industries had been moving out of Europe and toward places like China or India for decades and played a smaller and smaller role in the overall scheme of Europe's economy. These particular industries were probably on their way to extinction in Europe anyway in the medium-term because of increasingly ambitious climate legislation. Also, Russia's industrial output is collapsing at least as rapidly due to the Western sanctions, so it's not like Europe is getting crushed while everything is fine and dandy in Russia.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 1 2022 03:24pm

Yeah right they blow up pipelines that cost tens of billions combined to construct and can provide hundreds of billions in revenue, because they wanna show off that they can blow em up.

And it's not a special capability. The Baltic sea is shallow. I've read several articles stating the pipelines are @ 50-75 meters deep and within reach of divers.

Don't you find it weird that the Baltic pipeline from Norway to Poland was operational on the 27th and the Nord stream got blown?
I mean now Europe can or maybe survive on

1. Norway Poland Baltic pipe.
2. Ukraine Pipe
3. US Shale gas

This will provide energy capability to Europe in some way or another , furthermore if USA and friends sabotage the pipelines Russia will lose a essential bargaining chip with EU thus the war can continue.

Now you're just saying things that you think are probably true and support your argument without actually checking.

Europe had a small dip in steel production with the 2008 crash, but it regained almost all of that and production has been largely steady for decades.

Stainless production for the last decade:

Flat and long steel for the past few years, with projections that are now busted due to America literally bombing your infrastructure:

I don't really see the need to argue with someone who just makes things up cause they sound good. What do you get out of it? Do you believe you are manifesting reality by speaking things into being?

Global steel production as well as Europe's GDP have both risen sharply over the past decades. Europe's production holding steady would imply that Europe's share of the global steel market, as well as the importance of steel within the larger European economy, have both been declining, just like I said.




Except that it hasn't actually held steady.

Your chart misses the 2010-2012 dip and conceals the longer-term downward trend in European steel production since 2010.

https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/steel-production



An outdated projection for one specific category of steel ("long steel") is not a viable counter-argument.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 1 2022 04:16pm

The Baltic Pipe actually tracks very closely to the places where the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up. The island of Bornholm is a chokepoint in the region.



Nord Stream 2 never went into operation and was politically dead. That's tens of billions of sunk cost for Putin. Nord Stream 1 easily recouped its costs, and wasn't providing "hundreds of billions" of revenue anymore - due to Russia's decision to close the gas tap. Also note that Russia did not cut itself off from the ability to resume gas trade with Europe, there are still massive pipeline capacities left.

It's not about the sheer capability to blow up a pipeline, it's about the capability to do it without leaving sufficient evidence to trigger a NATO entry into this war.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 1 2022 04:26pm

You said steel and mineral production was "going extinct" in Europe.

I correct you and show it holding steady for decades.

You respond with graphs also showing it staying the same for decades.

This is pointless. In a few years Airbus will be declaring bankruptcy and you'll be maintaining it had nothing to do with any of this.


They run through Poland and Ukraine, lmao.

Honestly, Euros deserve what's coming. Glad I don't live there.