Washington had a very clear policy of never letting NS2 enter production (remember that ominous Biden quip before the war? [1]), which, by the way, is the opposite of absurd: Germany is a major consumer of natural gas and Russia is a major nearby supplier. NS2 is natural in a world without geopolitical drama.

"NS2 shouldn't exist" is a narrative manufactured in Washington (and delivered to Germany by Baerbock), that goes against basic economics and the interests of both Germans and Russians.

[1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/biden-says-nord-stream-2-won...

> NS2 is natural in a world without geopolitical drama.

As I understand it, most of the gas that would be delivered via NS2 would be the gas that wouldn't be delivered through Belarus/Ukraine (depriving them of transit revenue and providing more options for Russia to employ gas politics on its western flank). It rather seems to me that, far from being natural in a world without geopolitical drama, much of its purpose is actually to enable geopolitical drama.

And, of course, the main thrust of the argumentation against NS2 was that it was causing Germany to pursue an economic dependency on Russia that was unwise, given Russia's already-demonstrated penchant for using that economic dependency as a lever in global affairs. NS2 died when Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the lack of wisdom in pursuing economic dependency on Russia (compounded by Russia withholding gas flows to make Europe came back begging to Mother Russia).

>depriving them of transit revenue

So should Russia be obliged to pay for transit and provide gas to Ukraine? Why wouldn't Ukraine pursue gas supplies from other sources? It had at least 8 years for that, but all the time was spent on opposing NS2.

"that was unwise" is a simplification, not a proper explanation. Russia is a cheap resource supplier, so it was beneficial for European countries to leverage it for their economy to be more competitive with US at least.

Saudi Arabia has its own bunch of issues with democracy (there is none, imagine), human rights (surprise), a war with neighbouring Yemen (sounds familiar?), but for some magical reason no one cares and alienates Saudi Arabia, and everyone is very forgetful and blind about their issues and doesn't interfere.

People's thoughts are literally tunnelled.

The key difference is that Saudi Arabia has not acquired new territory for itself. In the post-colonial era, there are very strong norms against countries annexing parts of each other, with Russia's actions in Ukraine being pretty much the first to happen since the 60s. If the Saudis had initiated the war in Yemen by pointing to some old border dispute and directly annexing the port of Aden, people would be much more angry with them.

For comparison, consider Iraq's attempt to annex Kuwait in the 90s. The world absolutely considered it a five-alarm fire, with the West immediately planning for war and even China and the Soviet Union authorizing a retaliatory blockade. Most people genuinely and strongly feel that the return of territorial conquest as a common practice would be a disaster for the world.

NS1 was in operation years before even the 2014 events in Ukraine.

Notice how I referred to NS2 and not NS1.

They use the same route. Your assertion that NS2 is somehow out-of-place and can only be explained by Russian "gas politics" is contradicted by the precedent set by NS1.

Where is the contradiction? NS1 has limited capacity that was not sufficient to allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian gas pipelines, NS2 would increases the capacity of this route.

It was Washington that waived sanctions in 2021 to allow NS2. It is only on Russian mobilization that the policy changed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57180674

It's not absurd if NS1 were damaged. Even if Germany didn't want the extra capacity that NS2 brings, it's an obvious backup if NS1 were to fail. Anyone wanting to cut off the option of Russia supplying gas to Germany this winter would have to hit both.