https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r... ("Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets" (2004))
- "At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it."
- "In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes."
Possibly the first software supply-chain attack in history? Before the term even existed.
"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion."
Also:
"When the pipeline exploded, Reed writes, the first reports caused concern in the U.S. military and at the White House. "NORAD feared a missile liftoff from a place where no rockets were known to be based," he said, referring to North American Air Defense Command. "Or perhaps it was the detonation of a small nuclear device." However, satellites did not pick up any telltale signs of a nuclear explosion.
"Before these conflicting indicators could turn into an international crisis," he added, "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry."
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-will-rid-me-of-thi...
Why blow it up when the German governing parties and the largest opposition party don’t want to move ahead with Nord Stream 2 anyway?
Currently (and during the last decades) politics in Germany have been very stable and predictable.
US sees this conflict dragging out throughout the winter. They cannot afford to have EU nation states go back to Russian Gas.
I don't understand why wouldn't they want to perform this sabotage against their open enemies? Even openly?
I'm wondering why this didn't happen sooner.
They could sabotage their own if they really wanted to, or just switch it off.
The obvious answer here is going to be the correct one: it was Russia. Specifically Putin: Russia can be rebuilt on gas to Europe if it ceases the invasion, but Putin specifically won't survive such an event.
Ensuring his potential successor can't "make a deal with the West" is exactly his sort of thinking. With a side benefit of people asking questions like this right now (I mean, this is catastrophic for him long run, but so is the entire war so it's also on brand with his incompetence).
In that current favorable climate for anyone whose political goal it is that Germany does not rely on Russian gas I see no strategic value at all in sabotaging Nord Stream 1 or 2.
You don’t need to blow up Nord Stream 2 if the position of the German government and the largest opposition party is to not move forward with Nord Stream 2 anyway. That would only seem to unnecessarily complicate things (and sabotage can only ever really delay things, better to actually also have the political will align with your own).
https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8?t=95