Nord Stream Pipeline Video

[HalcyonDaze]

True, you haven't, but you are completely closed to the idea that there might be someone else involved in this except the Russians. Yes, looking at the USA. After all, it's the POTUS and other high ranking officials that said NS2 would be stopped by any means necessary.

You claimed that it is almost impossible to hide ship/airplane, yet you had absolutely no problem with accepting it was Russian Navy that did it.
So, I would like to know what is it that makes you so opposed to the idea that oh, so, holly USA/western allies are involved in this, unless it is perceived moral high gopund, which you said it is not?

To address the point you keep bringing up, reports shortly after the explosions placed Russian Navy surface and submarine assets near the pipleines in the days and weeks prior. That would not be considered unusual; it is international waters and the main Baltic Fleet base is maybe 10 hours away at cruising speed. The "dark" ships with AIS turned off were separate sighting reports and have not been identified.

History is a hobby of mine, and also since the folks at the IRS appropriate a chunk of my pay towards military and foreign policy I feel it kind of behooves me to brush up on those subjects a bit. The former teaches that countries that do dumb, rash things and don't build alliances tend to pay for it eventually in one way or another and ones that can play to their strong suits tend to prosper. Frankly, I would think after the last 20+years of misadventures the Russians would have looked at the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq (or their own Afghan experience) and made a mental note that trying to control countries where the civilian populace does not like you is a bad idea and will hobble your country for decades, but here we are.

Your position and that of some others on the thread is that a) Russia owns the pipelines, therefore b) Russia would not have destroyed the pipelines. That's building an argument on an assumption. What I'm starting off from is that the most critical advantage the US has in Europe is NATO as a unified alliance; it's something they've used for massive leverage over the past year. If anything, they've been relatively cautious about using that leverage - e.g., air defense systems and tanks have just gone on the table and they're still publicly balking about giving Ukraine anything that can actually hit inside Russia. Bans on Russian energy imports are being phased in pretty slowly to keep everyone onboard. Any evidence showing the US and a couple other nations went behind the rest of the alliance's back to sabotage civilian energy infrastructure - particularly Germany, which is the largest European economy in NATO and has done some heavy financial lifting to both aid Ukraine and wean itself off Russian gas before the Nord Stream blasts - would make an absolute mess. I don't see that risk being worth the payoff of ... killing a pipeline project that was already shut down? Padding US gas industry profits (in an election season when the president's political opposition was hammering him over high energy prices)? Blaming a country that was already an international pariah and being slowly strangled with sanctions? If the US did do it, it was an extremely stupid and high-risk move for no appreciable gain.

On the other hand, Russia has thrown itself into a war of choice where defeat is not going to look good for the man in charge; it's not going well and their opponent has an increasing array of weapons, intelligence assets, training, and financial support coming from the most powerful military alliance on the planet. Cutting that support would be the top national priority; against that shuttered gas pipelines are a cheap sacrifice, a spike in gas prices helps the struggling economy, and if Germany takes the bait they could salvage one out of the four pipelines as a revenue stream. That's my rationale; one side has little to gain and a lot to lose, and the other has little to lose and much to gain.

 

[CT-Rich]

To address the point you keep bringing up, reports shortly after the explosions placed Russian Navy surface and submarine assets near the pipleines in the days and weeks prior. That would not be considered unusual; it is international waters and the main Baltic Fleet base is maybe 10 hours away at cruising speed. The "dark" ships with AIS turned off were separate sighting reports and have not been identified.

History is a hobby of mine, and also since the folks at the IRS appropriate a chunk of my pay towards military and foreign policy I feel it kind of behooves me to brush up on those subjects a bit. The former teaches that countries that do dumb, rash things and don't build alliances tend to pay for it eventually in one way or another and ones that can play to their strong suits tend to prosper. Frankly, I would think after the last 20+years of misadventures the Russians would have looked at the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq (or their own Afghan experience) and made a mental note that trying to control countries where the civilian populace does not like you is a bad idea and will hobble your country for decades, but here we are.

Your position and that of some others on the thread is that a) Russia owns the pipelines, therefore b) Russia would not have destroyed the pipelines. That's building an argument on an assumption. What I'm starting off from is that the most critical advantage the US has in Europe is NATO as a unified alliance; it's something they've used for massive leverage over the past year. If anything, they've been relatively cautious about using that leverage - e.g., air defense systems and tanks have just gone on the table and they're still publicly balking about giving Ukraine anything that can actually hit inside Russia. Bans on Russian energy imports are being phased in pretty slowly to keep everyone onboard. Any evidence showing the US and a couple other nations went behind the rest of the alliance's back to sabotage civilian energy infrastructure - particularly Germany, which is the largest European economy in NATO and has done some heavy financial lifting to both aid Ukraine and wean itself off Russian gas before the Nord Stream blasts - would make an absolute mess. I don't see that risk being worth the payoff of ... killing a pipeline project that was already shut down? Padding US gas industry profits (in an election season when the president's political opposition was hammering him over high energy prices)? Blaming a country that was already an international pariah and being slowly strangled with sanctions? If the US did do it, it was an extremely stupid and high-risk move for no appreciable gain.

On the other hand, Russia has thrown itself into a war of choice where defeat is not going to look good for the man in charge; it's not going well and their opponent has an increasing array of weapons, intelligence assets, training, and financial support coming from the most powerful military alliance on the planet. Cutting that support would be the top national priority; against that shuttered gas pipelines are a cheap sacrifice, a spike in gas prices helps the struggling economy, and if Germany takes the bait they could salvage one out of the four pipelines as a revenue stream. That's my rationale; one side has little to gain and a lot to lose, and the other has little to lose and much to gain.

The Germans lucked out with a mild winter. If it had been a really bad one, the Russians might have gotten more out of it. Putin has thrown away his best troops, his best armor and equipment, I can’t imagine an old school, spy would hesitate to throw away a billion of infrastructure if it kept his ass alive.

 

[admikar]

Your position and that of some others on the thread is that a) Russia owns the pipelines, therefore b) Russia would not have destroyed the pipelines. That's building an argument on an assumption. What I'm starting off from is that the most critical advantage the US has in Europe is NATO as a unified alliance; it's something they've used for massive leverage over the past year. If anything, they've been relatively cautious about using that leverage - e.g., air defense systems and tanks have just gone on the table and they're still publicly balking about giving Ukraine anything that can actually hit inside Russia. Bans on Russian energy imports are being phased in pretty slowly to keep everyone onboard. Any evidence showing the US and a couple other nations went behind the rest of the alliance's back to sabotage civilian energy infrastructure - particularly Germany, which is the largest European economy in NATO and has done some heavy financial lifting to both aid Ukraine and wean itself off Russian gas before the Nord Stream blasts - would make an absolute mess. I don't see that risk being worth the payoff of ... killing a pipeline project that was already shut down? Padding US gas industry profits (in an election season when the president's political opposition was hammering him over high energy prices)? Blaming a country that was already an international pariah and being slowly strangled with sanctions? If the US did do it, it was an extremely stupid and high-risk move for no appreciable gain.

You mean allies that were spied on on highest levels? Or whose companies had sanctions leveraged against them for working on NS2?
You being history buff is great, but you tend to be somewhat picky about what you study.
Difference between you and me is that I am totally open to the idea that Russians did it. History taught us that Russians are not above doing some nasty things. And I am totally open to the idea that USA/West did it for the same reasons. You are not.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

You mean allies that were spied on on highest levels? Or whose companies had sanctions leveraged against them for working on NS2?
You being history buff is great, but you tend to be somewhat picky about what you study.
Difference between you and me is that I am totally open to the idea that Russians did it. History taught us that Russians are not above doing some nasty things. And I am totally open to the idea that USA/West did it for the same reasons. You are not.

Again, you bring up "morality" rather than "risk-reward."

 

[scubaozy]

Again, you bring up "morality" rather than "risk-reward."

I think you are not listening; turn-off the valve, same reward for no risk for the Russians.. US government did not trust to Germans to keep lifting heavy financial burdon of the war and sticking with the plan. Most of the Germans at the beginning of the war thought gas would continue to flow despite the conflict. Noone knew how long Ukraine would hold out, so there was expectation to resume to some level of normality once Ukraine lost the war. Without all bridges blown, Germans would never have committed not to use Russian gas in the future. US has highest reward on this in any possible scenario. Their friend has a cheap gas addiction that requires going cold turkey. Why not help them ;-).

 

[tarponchik]

To address the point you keep bringing up, reports shortly after the explosions placed Russian Navy surface and submarine assets near the pipleines in the days and weeks prior. That would not be considered unusual; it is international waters and the main Baltic Fleet base is maybe 10 hours away at cruising speed. The "dark" ships with AIS turned off were separate sighting reports and have not been identified.

History is a hobby of mine, and also since the folks at the IRS appropriate a chunk of my pay towards military and foreign policy I feel it kind of behooves me to brush up on those subjects a bit. The former teaches that countries that do dumb, rash things and don't build alliances tend to pay for it eventually in one way or another and ones that can play to their strong suits tend to prosper. Frankly, I would think after the last 20+years of misadventures the Russians would have looked at the US occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq (or their own Afghan experience) and made a mental note that trying to control countries where the civilian populace does not like you is a bad idea and will hobble your country for decades, but here we are.

Your position and that of some others on the thread is that a) Russia owns the pipelines, therefore b) Russia would not have destroyed the pipelines. That's building an argument on an assumption. What I'm starting off from is that the most critical advantage the US has in Europe is NATO as a unified alliance; it's something they've used for massive leverage over the past year. If anything, they've been relatively cautious about using that leverage - e.g., air defense systems and tanks have just gone on the table and they're still publicly balking about giving Ukraine anything that can actually hit inside Russia. Bans on Russian energy imports are being phased in pretty slowly to keep everyone onboard. Any evidence showing the US and a couple other nations went behind the rest of the alliance's back to sabotage civilian energy infrastructure - particularly Germany, which is the largest European economy in NATO and has done some heavy financial lifting to both aid Ukraine and wean itself off Russian gas before the Nord Stream blasts - would make an absolute mess. I don't see that risk being worth the payoff of ... killing a pipeline project that was already shut down? Padding US gas industry profits (in an election season when the president's political opposition was hammering him over high energy prices)? Blaming a country that was already an international pariah and being slowly strangled with sanctions? If the US did do it, it was an extremely stupid and high-risk move for no appreciable gain.

On the other hand, Russia has thrown itself into a war of choice where defeat is not going to look good for the man in charge; it's not going well and their opponent has an increasing array of weapons, intelligence assets, training, and financial support coming from the most powerful military alliance on the planet. Cutting that support would be the top national priority; against that shuttered gas pipelines are a cheap sacrifice, a spike in gas prices helps the struggling economy, and if Germany takes the bait they could salvage one out of the four pipelines as a revenue stream. That's my rationale; one side has little to gain and a lot to lose, and the other has little to lose and much to gain.

Jees, you do not even know that IRS only collects your money but it's the Congress who appropriates it? And history is your hobby, right You seem to be a victim of propaganda that kept telling you over 20 years or so that all Ukrainians want into EU and NATO, that Viktor Yanukovich was "Putin's puppet" and so on. However, the truth is that the majority of the population in the East of Ukraine sees Russia as a friend and NATO as a foe. So Putin's job in keeping what he takes will be easy. But his goal is not to grab the land as such. His goal is to destroy the anti-Russian proxy that the USA has turned Ukraine into. And, although not w/o some blunders, he is successful in this so far.

As for the NS sabotage, with so many people involved the details won't be a secret for too long. I expect a couple of mysterious deaths in attempts of cover up (Karl-Peter Griesemann was only the 1st one) , but this won't help. As Jack Burden used to say, For nothing is lost, nothing is ever lost. There is always the clue, the canceled check, the smear of lipstick, the footprint in the canna bed, the condom on the park path, the twitch in the old wound, the baby shoes dipped in bronze, the taint in the blood stream.’

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Jees, you do not even know that IRS only collects your money but it's the Congress who appropriates it? And history is your hobby, right You seem to be a victim of propaganda that kept telling you over 20 years or so that all Ukrainians want into EU and NATO, that Viktor Yanukovich was "Putin's puppet" and so on. However, the truth is that the majority of the population in the East of Ukraine sees Russia as a friend and NATO as a foe. So Putin's job in keeping what he takes will be easy. But his goal is not to grab the land as such. His goal is to destroy the anti-Russian proxy that the USA has turned Ukraine into. And, although not w/o some blunders, he is successful in this so far.


As for the NS sabotage, with so many people involved the details won't be a secret for too long. I expect a couple of mysterious deaths in attempts of cover up (Karl-Peter Griesemann was only the 1st one) , but this won't help. As Jack Burden used to say, For nothing is lost, nothing is ever lost. There is always the clue, the canceled check, the smear of lipstick, the footprint in the canna bed, the condom on the park path, the twitch in the old wound, the baby shoes dipped in bronze, the taint in the blood stream.’

I'm just going to leave that one on display for the viewing public. Also, nice work bringing up a German industrialist who died 23 days before the pipeline explosions and whose company had no involvement in Nord Stream's construction or maintenance (he had also been retired since 2015). Pretty crap job of OpSec if he knew anything.

Back to the topic, I found this Oxford Institute for Energy Studies piece from August 2022 to be an informative summary of the state of Russian gas exports to Europe:

https://a9w7k6q9.stackpathcdn.com/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Insight-120-The-Impact-of-Nord-Stream-on-Russian-Gas-flows-in-Europe.pdf

If flows via Nord Stream remain constrained at the current level, or even halt entirely, in winter 2022/2023, the notion of ‘solidarity’ expressed in EU plans to manage winter gas flows could be tested. On the one hand, it may be difficult for Germany to continue re-exporting gas to Poland and Czechia. On the other hand, Germany will rely on ‘solidarity’ from neighbours if Nord Stream halts entirely. There are currently plans for three Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs) to be launched in Germany by either the end of 2022 or beginning of 2023, with another two FSRUs to be launched by the end of 2023.55 However, the three FSRUs that could become operational in midwinter 2022/2023 may only have a combined capacity equivalent to the 30 MMcm/d that Germany is currently receiving via Nord Stream. Therefore, if Russian flows were curtailed, Germany would rely on the solidarity of importing LNG via the Netherlands, while also providing solidarity by continuing re-exports.

In short, the Russians were in fact "turning off the taps," but it was not having the coercive effect they wanted:

In this context, both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the European Commission have already set out plans to prepare for a complete cessation of Russian gas flows to Europe. In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on 3 March, the IEA published a 10-Point Plan to reduce EU dependence on Russian gas, while on 8 March, the European Commission published a communication entitled ‘Joint European Action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy’, which set out plans to reduce dependence on Russian gas imports. More recently, on 18 July, the IEA set out five steps to prepare for a Russian cut-off, stating: ‘Europe is now forced to operate in a constant state of uncertainty over Russian gas supplies, and we can’t rule out a complete cut-off’. Finally, on 26 July, the Council of the European Union agreed a plan to institute voluntary targets of reducing gas demand in every EU member state by 15 per cent during winter 2022/2023, compared to the average of the previous five winters. In an emergency situation, the European Commission may propose activating a ‘Union Alert’. If the Council of the EU approves the proposal and so triggers the ‘Union Alert’, then the coordinated gas demand reduction becomes mandatory.

History note, the American Confederacy tried something in the same vein in 1861-1862 with "Cotton Diplomacy" by stopping cotton exports to Europe - the hope being that Britain and/or France would enter the American Civil War or at least use their superior navies to break the Union blockade of Southern ports. Likewise, it didn't work - both countries decided they'd rather take some economic pain by sourcing cotton elsewhere.

Cotton diplomacy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[tarponchik]

I'm just going to leave that one on display for the viewing public. Also, nice work bringing up a German industrialist who died 23 days before the pipeline explosions and whose company had no involvement in Nord Stream's construction or maintenance (he had also been retired since 2015). Pretty crap job of OpSec if he knew anything.

Back to the topic, I found this Oxford Institute for Energy Studies piece from August 2022 to be an informative summary of the state of Russian gas exports to Europe:

https://a9w7k6q9.stackpathcdn.com/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Insight-120-The-Impact-of-Nord-Stream-on-Russian-Gas-flows-in-Europe.pdf

If flows via Nord Stream remain constrained at the current level, or even halt entirely, in winter 2022/2023, the notion of ‘solidarity’ expressed in EU plans to manage winter gas flows could be tested. On the one hand, it may be difficult for Germany to continue re-exporting gas to Poland and Czechia. On the other hand, Germany will rely on ‘solidarity’ from neighbours if Nord Stream halts entirely. There are currently plans for three Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs) to be launched in Germany by either the end of 2022 or beginning of 2023, with another two FSRUs to be launched by the end of 2023.55 However, the three FSRUs that could become operational in midwinter 2022/2023 may only have a combined capacity equivalent to the 30 MMcm/d that Germany is currently receiving via Nord Stream. Therefore, if Russian flows were curtailed, Germany would rely on the solidarity of importing LNG via the Netherlands, while also providing solidarity by continuing re-exports.

In short, the Russians were in fact "turning off the taps," but it was not having the coercive effect they wanted:

In this context, both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the European Commission have already set out plans to prepare for a complete cessation of Russian gas flows to Europe. In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on 3 March, the IEA published a 10-Point Plan to reduce EU dependence on Russian gas, while on 8 March, the European Commission published a communication entitled ‘Joint European Action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy’, which set out plans to reduce dependence on Russian gas imports. More recently, on 18 July, the IEA set out five steps to prepare for a Russian cut-off, stating: ‘Europe is now forced to operate in a constant state of uncertainty over Russian gas supplies, and we can’t rule out a complete cut-off’. Finally, on 26 July, the Council of the European Union agreed a plan to institute voluntary targets of reducing gas demand in every EU member state by 15 per cent during winter 2022/2023, compared to the average of the previous five winters. In an emergency situation, the European Commission may propose activating a ‘Union Alert’. If the Council of the EU approves the proposal and so triggers the ‘Union Alert’, then the coordinated gas demand reduction becomes mandatory.

History note, the American Confederacy tried something in the same vein in 1861-1862 with "Cotton Diplomacy" by stopping cotton exports to Europe - the hope being that Britain and/or France would enter the American Civil War or at least use their superior navies to break the Union blockade of Southern ports. Likewise, it didn't work - both countries decided they'd rather take some economic pain by sourcing cotton elsewhere.

Cotton diplomacy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yeah, the Europeans and their plans. If you've watched "Trolls", maybe you remember the moment when one character asks another if he has a plan. After listening to his reply, she concludes, "This is not a plan! This is a wish list". Here we go over the same story. Europeans could not even calculate how much energy they may get from wind turbines and solar power in time due, when they rushed to phase out nuclear and coal power plants too soon, so they ran into energy crisis even when buying Russian gas full scale. Now they are back to coal, scaling up coal production, and Tunba Gretberg got herself arrested while protesting expansion of a coal mine that required demolishing several windmill generators. So not only did they sacrifice their green dreams, but their plans lie on the whispering wind. The European voters are as clueless as their leaders: "We do not care about NS, we have the new pipeline from Norway to Poland!" To this I could only reply, that this new pipeline from Norway to Poland will deliver only 1/5 of NS1 when it runs full capacity, not to mention NS2. So with cheap Russian gas nicht zugestellt, Germany as a manufacturing powerhouse of EU ist kaput. I even do not feel sorry for them, they dug their own grave.
Your example with cotton is interesting but it's not correct to use it here because, unlike cotton, LNG will always be more expensive than pipeline gas. And, BTW, in 2022 the USA were not the only country that doubled LNG exports to EU. Russia doubled its exports of LNG to EU too because...Russian LNG is not under sanctions! Go figure.

I'll just get some popcorn and wait, what the outcome of Hersh's allegations will be. They are too serious to be ignored, I think, so if Congress decides to scalp Joe Biden all they have to do is to start hearings and call some guys from the executive branch to testify. And one can't lie under oath, right? So when Willie Burns and the rest of them start talking on the Hill, we'll get back to this discussion and I'll listen to what you'll have to say. However, if they do not do anything and decide just to sit Joe's term out, Joe Biden (and by association, the US) will look weak. He looked strong before Hersh's report, because everyone knew he was the guy who had the guts to blow up Putin's pipelines and get away with it. But Hersh's report changed it. Now Joe Biden looks like the guy who blew up Putin's pipelines but has no guts to admit he did it.

PS: The conspiracy theory goes that Griesemann could have seen some suspicious activity and his plane was shot down.

 

[Papyone]

You could blow up a pipe from the inside.

Transferring a charge via a pig in a pressurized pipeline at 170 to 200 bars over 600 km away seems quite unrealistic.

Why:

1° the time transfer would have taken at least 16 Hours.

2° there are a variety of types of pigs used today, but they have all the same working principle, that to say that they are pushed into the pipeline thanks to the pressure they receive at their back. This means that while they are moving in the pipe the gas in front of the pipe is then progressively compressed, which means that if we don’t want to have an overpressure, the other side (Germany for what concerns this incident) must have a release valve and for sure they would have noticed the overpressure.

3° every type of explosives has a static compressive strength or in other words a critical density, i.e. a density from which it will no longer be possible to detonate the charge.

The critical density can vary from 1.5 to several tens of bars depending on the composition and type of explosive. But I’m not sure (an explosives maker could maybe tell us more) that there are explosives able to resist to a static compression of 170 to 200 bars.

 

[Papyone]

Placing explosives bulk charges at 80 m deep can give rise to some problems if you have to do it from the surface, but certainly not if you’re diving from a divers lock out vehicle and for info, the Russians have (also) such small divers lock out vehicles since 1974.