1. The US is already selling gas to Europe and there was no sign that would change. Europe has already committed to disinvesting from Russian energy. The pipelines were dead already. The US and others had already captured the market. Increasing the usage of Russian energy again during a bloody war against a neighbouring country would be political suicide for any European country I can think of. Maybe this is not obvious to Americans, and maybe this explains the obsessions with American intervention here - Americans always think their country is behind everything good or bad in the world, which in my mind explains a bit of the “Russia attacked due to NATO” delusional narrative. If anything happened in the world, US must be behind it, military industrial complex blah blah blah.
2. Like other posters here have already mentioned the consensus hunch (and that’s all we have - a hunch) for now is this was a warning to internal competitors in Russian internal politics. This was a way to burn the ships and end any idea that Russia will come back to the West. We are in unrestricted warfare against Russia. If you look into Russian propagandists online, they are 100% behind the idea that America did it to deindustrialise Europe, increase dependency, etc. I regularly follow the rule that whatever Russian propagandists say is higher in likelihood to be false, something which has been demonstrated again and again with - MH270 flight, invasion of Crimea, the killing of Boris Nemtsov, the Skripal poisoning, the invasion of Ukraine, now the usage of Iranian drones (Russia denies ever using them as they rain upon Kyiv).
3. Like others have said, there are other operational pipelines. Thinking the problem with Russia selling Europe energy is “pipelines” is the definition of missing the forest for the trees. Assume we are at war with Russia and that they are a full blown revisionist militarist state in the Nazi tradition and everything will make more sense. Stop making stuff up and start dealing with reality - we are in a state of direct economic and information warfare with Russia, and in a proxy hot conflict where we hope to annihilate their armed forces. They are acting accordingly.
Effectively the world is at war against a new form of fascist/hypernationalist superpower and you guys are arguing about who blew up a pipeline that the fascists would use to feed energy to their now sworn enemies.
Stop guessing. It was the fascists.
Purely statistically speaking (without considering any details), that's definitely what one should bet on [1] before other information is recieved. If someone didn't know any of the specific facts, it's obvious that their intuition is honed correctly if that's their default. That doesn't mean it was the US, but without further knowledge (which most people don't have because who has the time for that), it's a very good default setting considering actual world history.
1. https://github.com/binka/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md
edit: nice stealth edit. the original comment was just "what would the motive be?" which imo is a perfectly fine question to ask. the "conspiratorial" line has me wondering though: what would a non conspiratorial theory be?
Instead, they put two holes in one of them, and a hole in each of the two Nord Stream 1 pipes.
Lest anyone forget, Nord Stream 1 is the pipeline which Russia had been throttling and shutting off and on for months, before finally stating that it wouldn't be reopened until sanctions are lifted - which is obviously not going to happen anytime soon - while Nord Stream 2 is the brand new pipeline which Germany declined to authorize for use following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As pointed out by Putin, that leaves Nord Stream 2 ready to start sending sweet, sweet Russian gas to Germany as soon as they say so.
Incidentally, the attacks were carried out just in time for the inauguration of the Baltic Pipe from Norway to Poland and close to its southward bend off Bornholm, in the Danish EEZ, AND half a kilometer from the SwePol cable between Sweden and Poland, in the Swedish EEZ.
I guess besides aiding Putin's stick-and-carrot gas policy in Germany, the US also wanted to send a really strong message to Ukraine-supporting Poland and NATO-hopeful Sweden.
That's pure bollocks because the pipelines through Poland/Belarus and Austria/Hungary/Ukraine still exist and work. They were able to handle the entire European gas supply before Germany decided to build NordStream to reduce the leverage of these transit countries.
I wouldn’t say its an unrealistic POV though, Ukraine and Poland would likely block gas if the alternative was letting Russia win the war.
that stupid smirk on his face really makes it look like he's eager to blow it up
Also to shift European dependence away from Russian gas and on to American LNG.
That might stretch to 4 if you ration.
America would like Europe to build more LNG terminals to accomodate its growing gas surplus but first investors will want to feel confident that that tap wont be switched on again soon coz LNG wont ever be able to compete with a pipeline.
Ask the British and French what sort of ally the US was during the Suez Crisis.
Since people don't seem to get it: Europe will now be an energy subsidiary of the US. When the next US president says that they need to contribute 4% of GDP to Nato it will come with the promise of an unpleasant winter if they don't.
The Suez Crisis is when the British, French, and Israeli governments conspired behind the back of the US to invade Egypt and install a puppet regime. With the goal of stealing their oil supply.
Pretty much the same thing Putin just attempted in Ukraine.
It's to Eisenhower's credit that he didn't back their immoral attack. And one of the big wins for the morality of US foreign policy in the 20th century.
And control of the Suez Canal...
That may be true of some people in his administration but I don't think that was Eisenhower's view.
Oh wait, you're seriously using a moral argument about the cold war. Let me laugh harder.
FYI "provoked" is the exact word used by many to rationalize Putin's invasion of Ukraine. One could just as easily say Nasser was provoked to his actions by decades of foreign domination and exploitation.
This stuff is complex but at the end of day those three countries were clearly wrong to invade a sovereign country.
There was no gas flowing through the pipeline anyway.
Ukraine is already winning the war.
European states are already looking to buy gas from anywhere but Russia
And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US. If any evidence ever surfaces, the US may lose the trust of most of its allies. I don't see why taking this risk would be justified.
Yes, because Russia is temporarily sanctioned. The moment the sanctions are lifted, Russia will still have the cheapest prices due to proximity and infrastructure. And Europe, of course, would resume buying from Russia, although they will try to secure better backup solutions in case of a future incident.
Blowing up the pipeline makes sure that gas flow will take a considerable time to resume. This gives leverage to alternative suppliers to negotiate for long-term deals with EU. With long-term deals in place, it will take several years for Russia to regain its dominant position in the European energy market.
> And finally, there is a huge risk involved for the US.
What risk? The Baltic Sea is controlled by NATO. It's fairly easy for the US to find or create a window of opportunity to carry the operation.
The risk is, if the US ever gets caught, then we'd significantly burn our relationships with our European allies. How is sabotaging our geopolitical position in exchange for oil companies making some extra bucks worthwhile?
Exactly: if.
> we'd significantly burn our relationships with our European allies
But let's say that the US is caught red-handed. I doubt the consequences will be anywhere close to dire for them. See what happened when CIA was revealed to be spying on chancellor Merkel (hint: nothing). As this action will not be directly against any EU nation, significant reactions are very unlikely.
At least a few EU countries would probably align with the US, vetoing/dampening any centralized reaction from the EU. I am aware of at least one EU leader that wouldn't mind undermining EU in exchange for an invitation to the USA and a photo-op with the POTUS.
Some countries will be secretly mad, yes. But they won't have the option to stay mad for long. At the end of the day, US would even find their geopolitical position reinforced because of the fragmentation inside the EU.
What would be that moment, though? When they pause killing? When they decide to start peace talks? Frankly, I find it hard to imagine everyone* gets back to business as usual after everything that happened. Maybe if Russians themselves killed Putin and at least apologized it would be a good starting point to consider talking about potential lifting of sanctions.
* except Hungary