It absolutely does. Blowing up the pipeline took away Russias ability to hold the EU hostage with the energy card.

The pipeline was already not operational. What are you missing? If you think the US had a profit motive (which it seems you are saying this), NATO is much much more profitable than gas which will be diversified over time. So why would they risk the entire NATO alliance for this? Again, the theory makes no sense.

I didn’t say a thing about US profit motive. I was very clear: Russia can’t blackmail the EU with energy if they don’t have a way to deliver it. Why would they want to lose that leverage (and their billions in investment)?

And EU industry very much depends on low cost gas (chemical manufacturing, vehicle and other industrial manufacturing, greenhouse heating, etc). There’s report after report of vital industrial facilities shuttering due to high gas prices.

> I was very clear: Russia can’t blackmail the EU with energy if they don’t have a way to deliver it

Only three of the four nord stream pipelines were destroyed. Either the US screwed up or forgot about the fourth one... Whatever the case, Russia still had leverage.

That's for me the main point. The fourth pipeline. There are a lot of actors who would want to destroy the first three pipelines, but I need have a reason why the fourth one wasn't destroyed.

This is _highly_ speculative and take it with a grain of salt:

- There were rumours of the Russian forces using chemical weapons in Mariupol... A couple of days later the flagship moskva goes boom.

- Nord stream blows up... A couple of days later the kerch bridge goes boom.

> Russia can’t blackmail the EU with energy if they don’t have a way to deliver it. Why would they want to lose that leverage (and their billions in investment)?

Because the pipeline was already off. The second pipeline was not operational. They already had no leverage.

> And EU industry very much depends on low cost gas (chemical manufacturing, vehicle and other industrial manufacturing, greenhouse heating, etc). There’s report after report of vital industrial facilities shuttering due to high gas.

So, your theory is that the US not only endangered the entire NATO alliance, but also sought to weaken NATO members? Again, how does that make any sense? You also fail to mention that gas prices currently are actually pretty low relative to before this event occurred and Europe never ran out of gas.

> Because the pipeline was already off.

There is a substantial difference between the pipeline being off and the pipeline being off the table.

Gas prices are low due to American LNG imports. The US have fought entire wars for profit motives and are certainly willing to weaken any country for it, NATO or not.

There's a huge difference between "off" and "destroyed".

You are missing the very, very obvious fact that NS could have become operational at any point. Taking it out physically means that it's impossible without lengthy and costly repairs. The profit motive is there - diversification (if possible) takes time. Companies can and do take advantage of that.

it prevents the pipeline from being turned back on.

what's the benefit to russia if russia did it?

I'm not making a claim that Russia did it, but they would have -more- to gain than the US would have to lose if the US were found to have actually done it...given it would upend and basically destroy NATO and completely isolate the US from its own allies. Hence the theory doesn't hold water.

NATO is america's show. america would never be shown to have done it-- even if they were, they wouldn't.