Back To Nordstream

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, stretching under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany has been in the works for over a decade. Construction began in 2011 and was completed in 2021, although—for political reasons—the pipeline has never gone online. The political reasons involved the US fear that Germany would become dependent on affordable Russian pipeline gas and would gradually align itself more closely with Russian in geopolitical matters. Over the years of the pipeline’s construction the US did its best to obstruct the project, utilizing sanctions that targeted participants in the project. At various times the US, led by Neocon foreign policy officials such as Victoria Nuland, have threatened and/or outright stated that the US would never allow the pipeline to go online. This has been the consistent US policy position across multiple administrations as well as the bipartisan consensus in Congress. Ted Cruz, for example, was particularly active in attempting to pass legislation mandating new sanctions in 2021. US threats culminated in February, 2022, when, in

a February joint press conference of United States President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, during which Biden stated, "If Russia invades ... then there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."

When questioned about how this threat could be made good, Zhou responded (as memory serves): “Trust me, we can do it.”

The sticking point in all this, as Europeans are now painfully aware, is the small matter of finding alternative sources of energy. It has always been clear that expensive US trans-Atlantic shipments of LNG could never replace affordable Russian pipeline gas, as this map of the Russian pipeline connections to Europe illustrates:

The threat was made good on September 26, 2022, with the help of European allies—prominently including the UK, but likely also involving Poland, Denmark, and Sweden. Powerful underwater explosions ruptured the pipeline in several places.

Pro forma accusations were made, in desultory fashion, that Russia had sabotaged its own pipeline, but no strong denials of Western involvement. Sweden did conduct an investigation—excluding Russia from participation—and confirmed, in October, that the damage was caused by “gross sabotage”. More recently, on December 21, the WaPo obliquely confirmed what was apparent to anyone with an IQ above room temperature:

No evidence Russia is behind Nord Stream blasts – WaPo

Several unnamed European officials have privately acknowledged doubts over whether Russia is to blame for the destruction of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, according to the Washington Post. The two gas conduits crossing the Baltic Sea were ruptured by several powerful explosions in late September.

In a piece published Wednesday, the paper quoted an anonymous European official as saying, “there is no evidence at this point that Russia was behind the sabotage.” The article said that assessment was shared by 23 diplomatic and intelligence personnel from nine European nations, whom the Post interviewed in recent weeks.

So, 23 diplomats from 9 European nations agreed that there was no evidence to back up pro forma US “blame-Russia” allegations that Russia blew up its own pipeline. But none of them would go public. I think I get it.

George Szamuely @GeorgeSzamuely

The dog that didn't bark in the night: The Western governments' and media's strange lack of interest in finding out who blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

In the meantime, Russia is rubbing salt in the wounds of the European public as winter deepens and energy costs rise as a direct result of the US’s failed sanctions war against Russia. Russia is offering to repair the pipeline, but at the same time they’re making it clear that they know who was to blame for the terrorist act—this is Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman:

most definitely not the FSB @defnotfsb

Zakharova: Russia won't allow the West to sweep what happened with Nord Stream under the rug. It was a crime and terrorist act.

Tom Luongo, in the course of a long post—The Russian Regime Change Trap—adds some interesting speculation, in light of Angela Merkel’s repeated public assertions recently that the Minsk Accords of 2014 which were supposed to be a path to peace in Ukraine, were in fact a ruse. The collective West never intended that Ukraine would abide by the agreements. The idea was to pull the wool over Putin’s eyes and buy time for Ukraine to prepare for war with Russia.

The connection to the Nord Stream sabotage is that Merkel, a Davos operative through and through, was the person who induced Putin (a Germano-phile from his KGB days) to enter into the pipeline deal in the first place. Luongo speculates that the whole purpose of Nord Stream was to bleed Russia of billions of dollars, with no more intention of following through on the pipeline than there were intentions of insisting that Ukraine follow the Minsk agreements. War by other means.

Luongo sums the situation with what I take to be a reference to Russia’s very public plans to drastically expand its military—planning for a long war with the West—as well as the all but formal alliance now between Russia and China:

When viewed through that lens it makes the current situation even more dangerous and more tenuous than ever. Because that leaves you realizing the depth to how angry the Russians are, and how committed they are to the war.

This means their best strategic play is trapping the West in a Ukrainian meat grinder economically, politically, and militarily of its own devising.

Well, Putin is a judo blackbelt, isn’t he?

Luongo, for his part, also claims that the real leaders in the war on Russia are the Davos crowd, and especially the UK contingent—he cites a Brit who is now at the Hudson Institute in that regard:

If you are confused about what it is these people really believe about where the future of Russia is headed, this recent article at the Hudson Institute – about as normie Neocon an institution as you can get — should clear things up.

This article isn’t an opinion piece about potential goals or to be read as a wish-list of crazy people. It is a fervently held set of beliefs that stem from their view of demographic analysis of Russia and their mission to stamp out the remains of the Soviet Union.

This is an ideological fight for the neocons. Ending Russia is their religion.

It is why they are so easy to manipulate. It makes them the perfect useful idiots in Davos’ larger game.

And I will add that the linked article is truly an eye opening glimpse into a very bizarre world. But a very dangerous one.

Luongo goes on to make some additional interesting points, however, riffing off this notion that Putin was played for a sucker at Minsk. Luongo is skeptical of that notion, whatever Putin’s Germano-phile proclivities may be. Instead, Luongo suggests that Russia, too, benefited by the West’s delaying tactics [slightly edited]. Putin, too, needed time to prepare for the coming Western assault on Russia, and we see now that he used his time well. He unified his domestic political base, but he also—with the help of his world class foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, strengthened his international base of support. Again, to the chagrin of the Neocons, we’re seeing the result of these wise preparations for what Putin knew was coming:

[Russia] faced lesser sanctions [in 2014] but had a bigger monetary problem than they did in 2022, because in 2014 Russia wasn’t prepared for all-out economic warfare.  Putin [had] warned his SEO giants like Gazprom and Rosneft to pay down their dollar-denominated debt and diversify their payment structure. 

They didn’t and it nearly cost Russia everything.

Putin, with Xi’s help, bailed them out.  But, as always, it’s pretty obvious he got something in return, more loyalty from them.

...  It’s naïve … to think that Putin—who called the west “Not Agreement Capable” in 2015—believed that Minsk was ever going to be implemented, or that the UK wouldn’t cross every red line.

While Minsk bought Ukraine time to arm itself, it bought Putin time to build the weapons and systems needed to stop it, while proving to the world that the West was preparing for war on them as well as Russia.

The strategy he employed in dealing with Gazprom and Rosneft in 2015 to secure the domestic allies he’d need today was also used to curate the friends he’d need internationally.

In their arrogance the collective West underestimated Putin, despite his many statements that showed he knew what they were up to.

Putin’s strategy has always been allow [the collective West’s] strategy of aggressive military and economic strangulation to develop and use diplomacy and honest brokering to accumulate allies around the world for that moment when the West decided to strike in Ukraine.

The US ruling elite, by contrast, considered diplomacy to be beneath them.

Luongo finishes with an interesting point on Russia’s psychological resilience. He doesn’t refer to World War II but, instead, to another Time of Troubles in more recent Russian history:

The West believes the humiliations that they have inflicted on Putin will force him from office.

But today’s Russia seems to be, as Alex Mercouris put it in a recent video, “Embarrassment-proof.”

…

The drone strikes inside Russia are part of these humiliations. But, I think … the neocons, [are] assessing the political damage to Putin as if he were an American politician.

…

We are the ones whose psyches are fragile.  They are the ones who have gone through the fire (the 1990s) and survived.  

...  

Russia is a country trying to rise, or at least not be swallowed up by attrition. It is not a colonial power trying to stave off the inevitable dissolution.  Time is its ally here.  

Lastly, I want to draw attention to a recent article by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR, a former Indian diplomat with three decades of experience in the USSR and its periphery (including Afghanistan and Iran).

Ukraine war tolls death knell for NATO

Bhadrakumar begins by drawing attention to an important admission that Zhou made in his pre-Christmas press conference, regarding the faltering Western alliance:

“I’ve spent several hundred hours face-to-face with our European allies and the heads of state of those countries, and making the case as to why it was overwhelmingly in their interest that they continue to support Ukraine… They understand it fully, but they’re not looking to go to war with Russia. They’re not looking for a third World War.”

Biden realised at that point that “I probably already said too much” and abruptly ended the press conference.

Yeah. Trying to convince Europeans that it’s in their interest to go to war with Russia? How does that compute? Well, no sympathy for the Euros here—they went along with it, just as Americans go along with the BS on the domestic front, and have for decades. Yes, time is definitely on Russia’s side.

Bhadrakumar then goes on to make a point that few Americans would spontaneously recall:

Every now and then President Putin revisits the fundamental theme that the US consistently aimed to weaken and dismember Russia. As recently as last Wednesday, Putin invoked the Chechen war in the 1990s — “the use of international terrorists in the Caucasus, to finish off Russia and to split the Russian Federation… They [US] claimed to condemn al-Qaeda and other criminals, yet they considered using them on the territory of Russia as acceptable and provided all kinds of assistance to them, including material, information, political and any other support, notably military support, to encourage them to continue fighting against Russia.”

Putin has a phenomenal memory and would have been alluding to Biden’s careful choice of William Burns as his CIA chief. Burns was Moscow Embassy’s point person for Chechnya in the 1990s! Putin has now ordered a nation-wide campaign to root out the vast tentacles that the US intelligence planted on Russian soil for internal subversion. Carnegie, once headed by Burns, has since shut down its Moscow office, and the Russian staff fled to the West!

Wow! I knew how Putin felt about the Chechnya war, which he prosecuted to a successful conclusion, although at great cost. But … the personal element!

I’m going to close with a lengthy quote from Bhadrakumar’s trenchant conclusion. It’s well worth thinking over, as we head into the new year:

The neocons had expected a “win-win” in Ukraine: Russian defeat and a disgraceful end to Putin presidency; a weakened Russia, as in the 1990s, groping for a new start; consolidation of western unity under a triumphant America; a massive boost in the upcoming struggle with China for supremacy in the world order; and a New American Century under the “rules-based world order”. 

But instead, this is turning out to be a classic Zugzwang in  the endgame — to borrow from German chess literature — where the US is under obligation to make a move on Ukraine but whichever move it makes will only worsen its geopolitical position. 

Biden has understood that Russia cannot be defeated in Ukraine; nor are Russian people in any mood for an insurrection. Putin’s popularity is soaring high, as Russian objectives in Ukraine are being steadily realised. Thus, Biden is getting a vague sense, perhaps, that Russia isn’t exactly seeing things in Ukraine as a binary of victory and defeat, but is gearing up for the long haul to sort out NATO once and for all. 

The transformation of Belarus as a “nuclear-capable” state carries a profound message from Moscow to Brussels and Washington. Biden cannot miss it. (See my blog NATO nuclear compass rendered unavailing, Indian Punchline, Dec. 21, 2022

Logically, the option open to the US at this point would be to disengage. But that becomes an abject admission of defeat and will mean the death knell for the NATO, and Washington’s transatlantic leadership goes kaput. And, worse still, major west European powers — Germany, France and Italy — may start looking for a modus vivendi with Russia. Above all, how can NATO possibly survive without an “enemy”?

Clearly, neither the US nor its allies are in a position to fight a continental war. But even if they are, what about the emerging scenario in the Asia-Pacific, where the “no limits” partnership between China and Russia has added an intriguing layer in the geopolitics?

The neocons in the Beltway have bitten more than what they could chew. Their last card will be to push for a direct US military intervention in the Ukraine war under the banner of a “coalition of the willing.”