It's reasonable to believe that if the USA has done this, the political destabilization that could occur from people realizing that America had engaged in an unprovoked act of war directly against supposed "allies", knowing full well the consequences might conceivably be people freezing to death and/or rolling blackouts that destroy their economy, would be far more important. If you want to see the rise of explicitly anti-American politicians in Europe then that would be an excellent way to do it.

Look at it this way - how do you think Biden would react if Germany mined a US LNG port?

Also, you're aware that the current situation threatens supply in the UK too, right?

Nobody is going to freeze - even before war Russia was at most about 30% of gas imports; now it’s much less (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...), and those two pipelines were unused anyway. The only risk is the raising gas prices will make the industry less competitive over the winter - but it’s small fries compared to COVID.

What it does is fixing a major strategic problem of Germany being blackmailed by Russia - a problem which endangered entire Europe. It also makes it impossible for Russia to route gas around Ukraine - which differently to EU countries could then freeze.

What about the environmental damage?

Well, it's bad.

Whatever US president a says to reporters doesn't change the fact that US government doesn't care much about pollution when it comes to national security.

- https://earth.org/us-military-pollution/

- https://www.ewg.org/research/decades-department-defense-knew...

Do we know how much damage it is causing? I mean, I’m assuming Russians are no longer pumping the gas; what’s the volume of that pipe?