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