zlacker

Like the Europeans, Biden miscalculated that income via Nordstream would be crucial to Russia. Nobody would have predicted that the Russians are so crazy to cut off Europe on their own in an attempt to force them (Germany in particular) into submission. Alas that didn't work as European customers saved on Gas and shouldered the increase in cost.

>>oezi+(OP)
Prima facie, in the context of Hersh's story, it sounds a lot like there's a plan to blow up the pipeline, doesn't it?

I'm anticipating there are more plausible explanations of what his words "We will bring an end to it" might refer to, and was hoping replies might provide them.

>>ttctci+d1
Bringing an end to it can just imply calling chancellor Scholz and making it clear to close the pipelines. Germany could have stopped receiving Gas if they were pressured to.

>>ttctci+d1
It does, but there is a good argument that it was in Russia's strategic interest to blow up the pipeline and blame it on NATO. 'Burning your boats' exists as a catchphrase because it is a real historic strategy to impose force cohesion. In the context of gas supplies, it shuts down internal political dissent about whether the military object outweighs the economic object.

I don't have a firm opinion on who destroyed the pipeline; there are valid strategic arguments for doing so on both sides, and the ambiguity over who did it is the geopolitical equivalent of a smoke bomb.