It just doesn’t make any sense at all for someone else, it’s either weird, overly convoluted, risky or impossible based on lack of necessary equipment… this isn’t something you can just do a lone wolf terrorist attack against, it’s armoured agains ship anchors, sunk into the seabed, and deep underwater, you can’t just bomb it with some home made depth charges from a fishing boat… which is why this whole thing is so damn weird.
Didn't he also sign up to build a new pipeline into China?
Looks like China stands to win from all this, if Russia can't send the gas anywhere China can dictate the price they will pay.
Nope.
If you think about this on a geopolitical scale, China has every interest in wanting their Northern border with Russia secure, and to advance the Chinese Belt & Road initiative, and collaborate on non-USD currency trading, and other things that make them both sanctions resistant. China also wants Russian Technology where they still hold leadership positions.
Most importantly, China wants Taiwan back.
The global balance of power may shift in China's favor if the best fabs in the world are suddenly Chinese, and they can sanction the US, limiting their access to chips.
These supply chain issues would be a great tool during wartime.
US politicians have finally woken up to the risk of being dependent on China for strategically important semiconductors, hence the support for measures like the CHIPS Act. The window for China to be able to credibly threaten us with sanctions is rapidly closing.
https://usafacts.org/articles/whats-in-the-recently-passed-c...
For China to secure its northern border they need Russia as a buffer zone; they don’t need it strong.
As for technology - Russia has two, nuclear and military. China already got everything nuclear they wanted, and Russian military tech is, as we could all see, rather worthless.
Your speculations are interesting. But the above adds nothing.
There’s nothing magical about having been in the KGB and one can’t determine one’s aptitude for ‘sneakiness’ from same. It’s just silly. Putin has been in power for 20+ years. There’s no need to draw conclusions about his character from his KGB days when you have such a rich history since then.
As an analogy, I remember when folks said Reagan was a great communicator because he had been an actor. Hogwash. He had been a politician far longer than an actor, served as the governor of California, leadership roles in the party and unions, etc. That is, his skill in communication while President was fostered from these experiences and not some ancient movie acting he did.
It's a mindbender, but he's also a former KGB officer and may have bombed his own people to justify the 2nd Chechen war[1]. He can only succeed in Ukraine if he divides Ukraine's western allies. What other tools does he have?
[1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/614/transcript