While I was on vacation, “somebody” appears to have sabotaged both of the Nord Stream pipelines running under the Baltic Sea. Or was it actually sabotage? Nobody seems to be entirely sure at the moment, but the accusations are flying in a fast and furious fashion. Most of the potential suspects, including some Baltic states, NATO allies, Ukraine, and Russia itself were initially somewhat curiously silent on the subject. But once the finger-pointing began in earnest, all of those countries showed up on the list. Yesterday, while Vladimir Putin was announcing his bogus annexation of some Ukrainian territory, he seemingly implied that the United States was to blame, though he more generically declared that “Anglo-Saxons in the West” were responsible for this “act of terrorism.” (NBC News)
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the West of sabotaging Russia-built gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany, a charge that has been vehemently denied by the United States and its allies.
Nordic nations said the undersea blasts that damaged the pipelines this week and have led to huge methane leaks involved several hundred pounds of explosives.
The claim by Putin came ahead of an emergency meeting Friday at the U.N. Security Council in New York on the attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and as Norwegian researchers published a map projecting that a huge plume of methane released by damaged pipelines will travel over large swaths of the Nordic region.
I wanted to tackle this question today in two pieces. First of all, was it really an act of sabotage or some sort of industrial accident as some cooler heads have suggested? The coincidental line failure theory looks incredibly weak for a number of reasons. First of all, you can say what you will about Russia’s corrupt kleptocracy and its many failings, but PJSC Gazprom has a very solid reputation in the industry. Nord Stream 1 had been running for the better part of a decade without any notable incidents. And Nord Stream 2 was only just coming online at the time after passing multiple required inspections. It would be one hell of a coincidence for both of them to suddenly suffer catastrophic failures, particularly in this particular historical junction.
Add to that the fact that at least four explosions under the water of sufficient magnitude to set off seismometers in the area were detected right before the lines failed. Russian ships and submarines were spotted in the area prior to the explosions, but there is no evidence yet that they had anything to do with it, whether they were engaging someone else, or if it was just another coincidence. This just doesn’t have the feel of an industrial accident.
So if it was deliberate, who did it? NATO concluded on Thursday that it was “most likely” sabotage committed by “some state actor,” but they’re not hanging the blame on anyone yet. Most everyone in the west seems to be leaning toward Russia, perhaps as a way to increase energy demand and thereby profits, but that idea requires some significant assumptions and demands answers to obvious questions. Why would Putin blow up his own pipelines when he could simply shut them off? He’s given up a significant avenue of potential leverage over eastern Europe. As long as he was able to turn the flow of gas back on, he might have extracted some concessions from his customers. Now they have no reason to even consider any demands coming from Moscow, at least in terms of energy supplies.
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But if not Russia, then who? Tucker Carlson suggested almost immediately that it might have been the United States. That might not be as crazy as it sounds at first glance, particularly when you consider that Joe Biden promised to “end” Nord Stream 2 if Russia invaded Ukraine back in January. But it would also be a very extreme move to make, as well as a difficult mission to conduct without leaving fingerprints.
Here’s another interesting data point to toss onto the pile. Gas started flowing through a new pipeline from Norway and Denmark the day after the Nord Stream pipelines went down. Was someone involved with that project trying to eliminate some of the competition? Yes, that sounds pretty crazy also, but pretty much every possibility we’re looking at sounds crazy at this point. And yet, we are living in some seriously crazy times.
Joel Mathis at Real Clear Markets has some thoughts on who is to blame.
“The short answer is: We don’t know, and we won’t know for some time,” Emma Ashford, a columnist at Foreign Policy, said in a Twitter thread that lays out a number of possibilities. But there is a ton of speculation.
On Fox News, Tucker Carlson made the case that the United States did it, and that it might prompt retaliatory attacks from Russia. (Pro-Putin Russian TV commenters loved that.) A Russian official said the attack “looks like an act of terrorism, possibly on a state level,” and suggested the United States might be the beneficiary. Poland and Ukraine blamed Russia, the Times reports, while others suspect “Ukraine or one of the Baltic states, which have long opposed the pipelines, might have had an interest in seeing them disabled.” Meanwhile, European security officials say Russian Navy ships were spotted in the area shortly before the pipelines started to leak. What is clear is that nobody — whether or not they’re responsible for the sabotage — wants to take the blame.
Even after someone gets some better cameras mounted on submersible drones down there, we might not learn much immediately. If there was any sort of intentional detonation, that much will likely be obvious. But who would have had the capability to pull it off? The pipelines are only roughly 300 feet down, well within the range of some affordable (for a state actor) drones that could probably carry explosives. But unless these hypothetical drones were blown up in the process and are still down there, we likely won’t get much in the way of physical evidence to examine. And if anyone was going to claim responsibility, doesn’t it seem as if they would have done so by now?
I’m not going to rule out Russia entirely at this point because some of us have been referring to Putin as “Mad Vlad” for a reason. He may simply not be a rational actor anymore. And that’s one of the most worrisome ideas to contemplate considering how many nukes the Madman of Moscow has at his disposal. Could Ukraine have done it? I’m not even sure they have the capability or the time at this point since they are a little busy with the war raging in the eastern part of the country. Could Putin actually be correct? Could it have been a state actor from the NATO alliance? Could it have been the United States? I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever find out.
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