Nord Stream Pipeline 1 and 2 Explosion

[Northener]

Trump's style was bombastic, and many "alt right" personalities are self-styled "edge lords," but I am not the one or the other. In fact, I am arguing for a return to limits and a focus on restoring the internal health of the US, in particular, rebuilding its industrial capacity, de-financializing its economy, promoting the traditional family and small towns. and restoring its identity as a country founded and built by European stock. Reverse the leftist purges of the military, dismantle the FBI and CIA, and withdraw from all bases outside the Western Hemisphere. Focus on ourselves and our own destiny, and let the rest of the world have theirs. That is the very definition of modesty. And it's consistent with the old Republican Party of Robert Taft, before it was corrupted by the temptations of empire.

Of course to get from here to there will require radical measures, so perhaps that's what you mean by not modest? In which case you likely prefer the "modesty" of conservatism precisely because it is so ineffectual, i.e., a conservatism that conserves nothing.

You first sentence is exactly what I mean! I mean the Trump Tower and Mar-A-Lago all that plastic fantastic, foil gold, marble...But ok that is bombastic indeed.

What I mean is Bannon, we need "disruption", "you need some killers" that is not modest, not gradual that is right wing Jacobinism:

[Malaparte]

The reaction to the sabotage of three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in four places on Monday, September 26, has focused on speculations about who did it and whether NATO will make a serious attempt to discover the answer. Yet instead of panic, there has been a great sigh of diplomatic relief, even calm. Disabling these pipelines ends the uncertainty and worries on the part of US/NATO diplomats that nearly reached a crisis proportion the previous week, when large demonstrations took place in Germany calling for the sanctions to end and to commission Nord Stream 2 to resolve the energy shortage.
The German public was coming to understand what it will mean if their steel companies, fertilizer companies, glass companies and toilet-paper companies were shutting down. These companies were forecasting that they would have to go out of business entirely – or shift operations to the United States – if Germany did not withdraw from the trade and currency sanctions against Russia and permit Russian gas and oil imports to resume, and presumably to fall back from their astronomical eight to tenfold price increase.
Yet State Department hawk Victoria Nuland already had stated in January that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward” if Russia responded to the accelerating Ukrainian military attacks on the Russian-speaking eastern oblasts. President Biden backed up U.S. insistence on February 7, promising that “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it. … I promise you, we will be able to do it.”
Most observers simply assumed that these statements reflected the obvious fact that German politicians were fully in the US/NATO pocket. Germany’s politicians held fast turbines refusing to authorize Nord Stream 2, and Canada soon seized the Siemens dynamos needed to send gas through Nord Stream 1. That seemed to settle matters until German industry – and a rising number of voters – finally began to calculate just what blocking Russian gas would mean for Germany’s industrial firms, and hence domestic employment.
Germany’s willingness to self-impose an economic depression was wavering – although not its politicians or the EU bureaucracy. If policymakers were to put German business interests and living standards first, NATO’s common sanctions and New Cold War front would be broken. Italy and France might follow suit. That prospect made it urgent to take the anti-Russian sanctions out of the hands of democratic politics.
Despite being an act of violence, sabotaging the pipelines has restored calm to US/NATO diplomatic relations. There is no more uncertainty about whether Europe may break away from U.S. diplomacy by restoring mutual trade and investment with Russia. The threat of Europe breaking away from the US/NATO trade and financial sanctions against Russia has been solved, seemingly for the foreseeable future. Russia has announced that the gas pressure is falling in three of the four pipelines, and the infusion of salt water will irreversibly corrode the pipes.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022...t-germany.html

It’s already widely believed that the explosions were the doing of a state actor. On top of that, the area of the attack was heavily monitored by both Sweden and Denmark, and the Baltic generally is also well surveilled…by NATO members. And as many have pointed out, on top of Russia having at best limited opportunity, it lacks apparent motive.

The former diplomat M. K. Bhadrakumar pointed out yesterday:

The German security services are of the opinion that only a state actor could have damaged the undersea pipeline, suggesting “divers or a mini-submarine” could have installed mines or explosives on the pipeline. When asked to comment, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was non-committal saying “these are initial reports (of sabotage) and we haven’t confirmed them yet. But if it is confirmed, that’s clearly in no one’s interest.”…
Principally, Russia loses whatever leverage it has over German policies at a juncture when a grave economic crisis looms ahead and there is growing demand to review Berlin’s decision against the commissioning of Nord Stream 2. Last week, large demonstrations took place in Germany calling for the commissioning of Nord Stream 2 to resolve energy shortage.
As for the German leadership, it too no longer has an option to bite the bullet and seek resumption of Russian gas supplies (except by begging Poland and Ukraine to cooperate in the reopening of the Yamal and Druzhba pipelines.) On the other hand, Chancellor Scholz’s trip to the Gulf region (Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar) last weekend seeking more oil supplies failed to produce the results he had hoped for….
From another perspective, the Nord Stream pipelines have been disabled at a defining moment in the Ukraine conflict when a lull is expected through the fall until December. Conceivably, this presents a small window of opportunity for dialogue with Moscow. There are rumours that Scholz’s Gulf tour also aimed at seeking help from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who has excellent relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin….
Therefore, whoever struck Nord Stream struck had a perfect sense of timing. This dastardly act is state-sponsored and it only highlights that there are powerful forces in the West who want the conflict to prolong and will go the whole hog, no matter what it takes, to smother any incipient stirrings that aspire for ceasefire and dialogue.

Global Times, the English-language official organ for China, in a plausibly deniable manner, pointed a finger at the US:

The anonymous expert said that Russia has no reason to destroy the infrastructure and throw away its own bargaining chips in managing the energy crisis, and that basic logic suggests that whoever benefits most from the current situation is most likely to have carried out, or at least maneuvered, the sabotage.
If the US is behind it, Washington could bind Europe, particularly Germany, closer to confront Russia, and American energy giants could earn enormous amounts as Europe’s alternative source of gas purchases, the expert said.

. . . But if this view were to become conventional wisdom, it would lead to great alarm and distrust towards the US. It would mean, as Michael Hudson argued early on, that the US was willing to inflict severe and lasting economic damage on an important ally and harm the health and welfare of its citizens. This would be an appalling betrayal as well as compelling evidence of the lengths to which the US was willing to go to try to keep its status as the global hegemon. Alexander Mercouris was not exaggerating to depict this scenario as “nihilistic” But he also pointed out that unlike past US Administrations, it was not inconceivable for Team Biden, which has been exceptionally belligerent and reckless.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022...russia-do.html

[Jovialis]

Ok in general sense I associate conservative (in some kind of Burkean sense) with modesty, with gradual chance. Not opposed to change, conservative is not reactionary....May be it's more an attitude of prudentia.
Radical populist are fare from modest. And they have certain revolutionary tendencies too. Trump and the Trumpets are in no sense prudent (nit in content, not in style), just like the Trump nephew's in Europe.
With regard to schools, may kids went and go explicit to a public school with children of a different background, higher educated parents, lower educated parents, different religions. I want that they experience that there is more in the world than higher educated people.

I have no problem with allowing children going to school and interacting with people from different backgrounds. But teaching children about anal sex and group sex, etc is disgusting and horrible. If people want to believe in Marxist economic theory, fine. But these lunatics trying to poison the youth is unacceptable. Ironically the real life communists murdered homosexuals.

[Northener]

Trump's style was bombastic, and many "alt right" personalities are self-styled "edge lords," but I am not the one or the other. In fact, I am arguing for a return to limits and a focus on restoring the internal health of the US, in particular, rebuilding its industrial capacity, de-financializing its economy, promoting the traditional family and small towns. and restoring its identity as a country founded and built by European stock. Reverse the leftist purges of the military, dismantle the FBI and CIA, and withdraw from all bases outside the Western Hemisphere. Focus on ourselves and our own destiny, and let the rest of the world have theirs. That is the very definition of modesty. And it's consistent with the old Republican Party of Robert Taft, before it was corrupted by the temptations of empire.

Of course to get from here to there will require radical measures, so perhaps that's what you mean by not modest? In which case you likely prefer the "modesty" of conservatism precisely because it is so ineffectual, i.e., a conservatism that conserves nothing.

In some sense you almost look like a Quaker-or Amish- to me and I have the respect for a kind or rural autarky.

Nevertheless I'm not the guy going to the countryside, big garden, self baking etc etc. I'm to urbanized for that I guess. And on a global scale I don't think ypu could arrange this all. But the US and Canada have probably space enough.

[Northener]

I have no problem with allowing children going to school and interacting with people from different backgrounds. But teaching children about anal sex and group sex, etc is disgusting and horrible. If people want to believe in Marxist economic theory, fine. But these lunatics trying to poison the youth is unacceptable. Ironically the real life communists murdered homosexuals.

Bourgeois bohème doesn't mean communism Jovialis.

And I'm pretty for individual freedom, live and let live. Everyone has it's own worth, even if they make choices I don't share.

I know stories of children in orthodox Protestant schools who are gay but are not allowed to express it because otherwise it is hell and damnation.

Or those who refuse the evolution theory....

[Jovialis]

Frankly, I have grown very tired of Trump and all of his drama and legal mess. I hope he doesn't run in 2024.


I would prefer someone like Ron DeSantis to take the nomination.


He has a Law degree from Harvard, and he was a Naval officer. He is also very well liked in the state he governs.


In the end Trump is just some rich kid... DeSantis is discipline, intelligent and accomplished.


We need people who are serious, not just in it for vanity.

[Jovialis]

Bourgeois bohème doesn't mean communism Jovialis.

And I'm pretty for individual freedom, live and let live. Everyone has it's own worth, even if they make choices I don't share.

I know stories of children in orthodox Protestant schools who are gay but are not allowed to express it because otherwise it is hell and damnation.

Or those who refuse the evolution theory....

I have no problem with gay people, we are actually friends with a gay couple. They're nice people. But I do have a problem with schools making it mandatory to teach children about homosexuality, transgenderism, etc. This is not a subject that should be discussed in elementary school.

If that is the way public school goes, like I said, I will put my children in Catholic school. That is my choice, and individual freedom to raise my child in the way that I see fit.

[Jovialis]

Ok in general sense I associate conservative (in some kind of Burkean sense) with modesty, with gradual chance. Not opposed to change, conservative is not reactionary....May be it's more an attitude of prudentia.

Radical populist are fare from modest. And they have certain revolutionary tendencies too. Trump and the Trust are in no sense prudent (not in content, not in style), just like the Trump nephew's in Europe.

With regard to schools, my kids went and go explicit to a public school with children of a different background, higher educated parents, lower educated parents, different religions. I want that they experience that there is more in the world than higher educated people.

This country would benefit from a more "reactionary" administration, because the left-wing has become so radical, they want to teach children about anal sex. WTF is that? I think if most democrats weren't zombies, and actually thought about what is going on, they would be appalled as well. Most people have an IQ of 90-100, they cannot think for themselves, let alone govern themselves.

People should have to pass an IQ test to have the right to vote... I'm only half-kidding about that. Because if it was feasible to pass that law, I would totally go for it.

[Malaparte]

In some sense you almost look like a Quaker-or Amish- to me and I have the respect for a kind or rural autarky.

Nevertheless I'm not the guy going to the countryside, big garden, self baking etc etc. I'm to urbanized for that I guess. And on a global scale I don't think ypu could arrange this all. But the US and Canada have probably space enough.

I too admire the Quakers and the Amish. However, if you look at what I said upthread, I said that a continent-spanning country such as the USA should aspire to autarky, whereas Europe would need to have substantial trade relations with Russia, and so a self-contained north Eurasian economic sphere stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostock, but excluding China & India. And just as in medieval times, trade in rare minerals and certain luxury goods would be the exception to this policy-ideal.

[Malaparte]

Frankly, I have grown very tired of Trump and all of his drama and legal mess. I hope he doesn't run in 2024.


I would prefer someone like Ron DeSantis to take the nomination.


He has a Law degree from Harvard, and he was a Naval officer. He is also very well liked in the state he governs.


In the end Trump is just some rich kid... DeSantis is discipline, intelligent and accomplished.


We need people who are serious, not just in it for vanity.

I prefer DeSantis over Trump as well, for a host of reasons, not the least of which is his youth. Though I would not want to make a hard-and-fast rule excluding the elderly from office, we suffer from a surfeit of geriocracy.

[Jovialis]

I prefer DeSantis over Trump as well, for a host of reasons, not the least of which is his youth. Though I would not want to make a hard-and-fast rule excluding the elderly from office, we suffer from a surfeit of geriocracy.

Despite the devastation, which is in the hands of mother nature; He is a good and responsible leader, who made early preparations for Hurricane Ian.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/1...e-ian-00059893

[Malaparte]

Excerpts on autarky

The first step towards a viable economy for any state is self-sufficiency. The old watchword, "export or die," should be replaced by the more realistic maxim, "export and die." If a state cannot manage to get along without depending on foreign products for its bar subsistence, then its citizens will never really taste the freedom and the self-reliance that make for a fully rounded human personality.

Economics should be the science of effectively adapting the environment to the needs of varying population groups in varying geographical and climatic settings

Economic self-sufficiency puts an end to the age-old game in which the country with the lower wage scales and production costs takes over (steals) a large share of the domestic market of the less competitive country. (Properly ruled) states with high wage scales and high operating costs would not have to erect high tariff walls or come up with large subsidies to protect their industry and agriculture. A high priority on self-sufficiency and tight controls on both exports and imports would be enough to safeguard the home economy.

Autarky, defined in the dictionary as "a policy of establishing a self-sufficient and independent state economy," is a suspect term in the globalists' lexicon. It should be an honored word in our vocabulary. Economic independence leads to a well-rounded state and a well-rounded citizenry.

State self-sufficiency brings with it an important boost in personal self-sufficiency. A state whose economic existence is narrowly based on the export of one or two raw materials is likely to have a narrow-minded, one-dimensional population and government.

No state should be forced, induced or chivied into adopting another state's economic system, just as no state should be forced, induced or chivied into adopting another state's architecture or music. The word "force," as used here, is meant to include day-and-night media bombardment."

Robots are fine in production lines. They save workers from becoming robots. If labor is reduced to one simple repetitious task or to one computerized operation, in which every step of production from financing and procurement to manufacturing and sales is accomplished by zapping a few keys on a keyboard, then people will have little left to do. Human intelligence is already on the decline . . . . It may well hit rock bottom if men and women run further and further away from challenges. The brain of Cro-Magnon man was bigger on average than ours because he had to exercise more brainpower to survive"

The primary job of economics in a (properly ruled state) would not be to increase living standards, but to increase human standards. Citizens will not be encouraged to specialize until they first become Jacks and Jills of Many Trades . . . . If work becomes less efficient when undertaken by workers who are somewhat proficient at perhaps a dozen tasks, but expert at none, then so be it. Work should be attuned to the worker, not the reverse. The loss of manufacturing efficiency would be more than compensated for by the gain in physical and mental well-being of the workers

Lower costs should not be the grand design of an economic system. Different countries have different wage scales. To lose an entire industry, as happened when Japanese-made TV sets became the overwhelming choice of Americans, may have resulted in lower-cost and higher-quality products, but it was not a free ride. The market turnaround drove more American workers into lower-paying service jobs, thereby lowering living standards and assuring a less skilled work force in the future.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with paying more for a product if the higher price is beneficial to society at large. Despite the bleak warnings of the free traders, if a trade war keeps a substantial number of people, one's own people, from losing jobs, then the war should be fought. Trade wars enable people to develop their own talents and resources--at a price, of course, and generally at a higher price. But the alternative may be the dispersal of the country's production facilities and production skills to countries with lower wage scales. Should a Western worker be forced out of a good job at a microchip manufacturing plant and be compelled to find employment in a fast-food eatery because Korean computer firms pay their one-fifth of what his American counterpart takes home?

Assume that a $75 foreign watch is slightly better than a $100 one made in the United States. If people are willing to put their fellow citizens out of work to save $25 on a watch, their country, sooner or later, will lose much of its export trade to foreign nations that offer lower prices, not just for watches, but for hundreds of other products. Eventually this drain will seriously threaten any country's economic health.

Free trade in its worse aspects multiplies inequalities and deprives citizens of country A of the opportunity of being employed in industries manufacturing a product that has become a monopoly of country B, which has a much lower wage scale and which may even have copied or stolen the product from Country A. People thrown out of work in country A are not casualties of trade war; they are casualties of trade peace.

International trade, say the economic textbooks, is the process by which goods are provided by one country to another country, which is deficient in such goods. In return, the providing country is supplied with goods that it is lacking or, if not goods, then money representing the value of such goods. Ideally, the value of what is exported annually should surpass or equal the value of what is imported annually.

But this is not the way international trade works. Many nations purchase much more than they sell. Some of them eventually welsh on huge debts accumulated by years of irresponsible buying on credit. Sooner or later, the exporting countries will be compelled to swallow all or part of their losses

A favorable trade balance means that raw materials or manufactured goods have been shipped out of a country at a greater rate than comparable amounts of raw materials and goods have been imported. A net loss of resources is inadequate compensation for a net gain in currency. Economists will say that paper money can be easily transformed into goods, automobiles or supersonic bombers. It can, when the country printing the banknotes is presumed to be solvent. In times of high inflation and economic distress, when paper money loses all or most of its value, people are forced to sell their valuables for currency, whose buying power is declining at the rate of 50% a day.

Protectionism, we have been warned, brings retaliation. However, even an outright trade war has its advantages. Countries will be less denuded of their natural resources. Some workers will lose jobs, others will get new jobs, as the domestic market is forced to expand. Employment will decline in the export business, but it will only be a one time dislocation. Henceforth, the economy will be focused on the domestic market, which will enjoy a new degree of stability as it frees itself from the wild currency gyrations and prices fluctuations in the world market.

The most dubious kind of trade is that which involves such irreplaceable and unrenewable resources as energy fuels and minerals. The greater the amount of food produced, the greater the use of pesticides and the greater the exhaustion of the soil. The sale of agricultural products to foreign states is a financial gravy train for agribusiness, but not necessarily for the small farmer who can't compete with food-growing conglomerates. When the soil becomes depleted and overworked, prices will soar in supermarkets

Trade policy should not be based on short-term profits, but on its long-term effects on the living standards and security of the country in question.

Though it may be hard to sell the idea to those who have been spoiled by a surfeit of material goods and work-saving devices, the lack of a few creature comforts would actually raise the spiritual and intellectual level of a state when and if its citizens are forced to diversify their economy and rely more on their own talents and resources and less on foreign products

[Malaparte]

Excellent analysis of the Nordstream attacks by Ron Unz ==

Europe is facing its worst energy crisis in generations, with numerous factories shutting down and severe hardship expected during the approaching winter. Heavily-industrialized Germany has been especially hard hit, with more than half of all small- and mid-sized businesses fearful that they might be forced to close, an economic catastrophe of Great Depression proportions. The only near-term hope of salvation had been an end to the self-destructive energy sanctions these countries had imposed upon Russia, which would have allowed plentiful and cheap Russian natural gas to resume flowing through the Russian-owned Nord Stream pipelines.
Although the European governments remained firmly opposed to that solution, many ordinary Europeans felt differently, and in recent days large public demonstrations in Germany and the Czech Republic had demanded that the sanctions be lifted. There was widespread speculation that such popular protests would eventually carry the day, if not immediately then once winter hardship became too severe. The outcome would be a negotiated end to the Ukraine war along the general lines suggested by Russia, resulting in a strategic defeat for America and NATO.
Then on September 26th, this geopolitical landscape was upended as a series of large explosions severely damaged the huge Russian pipelines, putting them out of commission indefinitely, probably even permanently. With the pipelines no longer operational, Europe would have to make due with the limited supply of American gas that can be shipped by tanker, at a cost many times greater. The massive explosive attacks on the undersea pipelines—rather euphemistically characterized as “sabotage” in the media headlines—had occurred near the coastal waters of Denmark and Sweden, in an area of the Baltic heavily monitored and patrolled by NATO warships.

Given these simple, undeniable facts, the likely suspects were rather obvious, but they still remained almost completely unmentionable in the Western media coverage. Instead, the Washington Post, hometown newspaper of the American government, ran an article with the headline “European leaders blame Russian ‘sabotage’ after Nord Stream explosions,” quoting a long list of anonymous government sources making that nonsensical claim, which was widely echoed across most Western media outlets. Our political elites apparently assumed that their tight media control will ensure that their ignorant citizenry could be made to believe—or at least pretend to believe—almost anything, even that the Russians had destroyed their own pipelines.
But public media statements do not necessarily reflect private beliefs. Prominent Neocon journalist Anne Applebaum had spent years on the Editorial Board of the Washington Post and her husband is Radek Sikorski, Poland’s former Foreign and Defense Minister and someone with the strongest possible ties to the America’s political and national security establishment. Twitter allows individuals to casually blurt out statements that they may later regret, and the day after the pipeline explosions he issued a series of Tweets celebrating the attacks, including one showing a photo of the resulting destruction with the telling caption “Thank You, USA.” That last Tweet soon went super-viral with some 13,500 Retweets and 44,200 Likes, leading him to quickly delete it.


Given the near-unanimous media drumbeat that the Russians had destroyed their own multi-billion-dollar pipelines, presumably because of their evil insanity, it’s quite possible that a majority, perhaps even a large majority of our citizens will blandly accept that story, just as they have so many other, equally ridiculous concoctions of the past. But I would think that nearly all our elites who are paying any attention to the issue strongly suspect or even flatly assume that elements of the American government played a central role in the attacks, though almost none of them would publicly admit such a thing.

One of the tiny handful of brave exceptions to this enforced silence and perhaps the only such individual with a large media platform was Tucker Carlson, and a couple of days after the attack, he broadcast a segment on the topic to his audience of millions. He noted that although it might seem unimaginable that the American government would commit such an act of international terrorism as illegally destroying pipelines so important to Europe’s industrial economy, perhaps that might be what actually happened.

Among other things, he showed clips of both President Joe Biden and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland explicitly threatening to eliminate the Nord Stream pipelines if a Russia-Ukraine broke out.
And immediately following the attacks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned that the bombing would greatly benefit American interests, offering our country “tremendous strategic opportunity for the years to come.”


Despite his past public statements, I tend to doubt that Biden himself had played any role in the decision-making process, or that he was even personally informed of the planned attack. He is merely a figurehead, an elderly non-entity who generally says whatever he is told to say, but he has also become notorious for making public statements that his horrified subordinates must immediately “clarify” and that would have been an obvious risk in this situation. So to the extent that our President is even aware that Europe’s largest energy pipelines were attacked and severely damaged, it’s quite possible that he is in that small minority of high-ranking individuals who has no idea of who may have been responsible or even blames it on the Russians, because his handlers have told him so.
The vacuum left by an almost entirely dishonest or timorous media has been filled by a handful of courageous independent bloggers, with Moon of Alabama and John Helmer probably providing some of the best early analysis of what had probably happened:

• The War On Germany Just Entered Its Hot Phase
  Moon of Alabama • September 27, 2022 • 1,200 Words
• The Bornholm Blow-Up Repeats the Bornholm Bash—Poland Attacks Germany and Blames Russia
  John Helmer • Dances With Bears • September 27, 2022 • 1,900 Words
• Whodunnit? – Facts Related to The Sabotage Attack On The Nord Stream Pipelines
  Moon of Alabama • September 28, 2022 • 2,600 Words

The particular details of the attacks have relatively little importance and the early speculation has gone in several directions. The theory advanced by Helmer, a longtime American correspondent based in Moscow, is that the actual operation was carried out by Polish forces with America’s intelligence and technical support. This seems quite plausible since Poland has been fiercely hostile to Russia and the Russian pipelines, which would annually cost the country many hundreds of millions of dollars in lost future pipeline transit fees. The Poles had made every possible effort to block the Nord Stream project and Poland’s nearby coast would provide an ideal staging ground for the attack. Moreover, by an astonishing coincidence, the attack occurred exactly as Poland had opened a much smaller pipeline, allowing it to supply its own energy needs from Norway, completely independent of Nord Stream.
But whether or not the operation was carried out by Polish proxies or even Ukrainians, those local allies are totally dependent upon our goodwill for their survival, and it is inconceivable that they would have taken this momentous step without the approval and supervision of powerful elements of the American national security establishment, so debating who actually planted the explosives is merely a red herring.
Despite the lack of any hard evidence, the likelihood that America played a central role in the attacks seems a near-certainty. Means, motive, and opportunity all point so strongly in a single direction that I doubt that there are too many rational, intelligent individuals who sincerely believe otherwise, although for obvious reasons they may mouth deceptive evasions or choose to keep silent. Yet virtually no one in the major media is willing to recognize this obvious reality . . . .




Let us step back and place this incident in its proper historical context, recognizing the astonishing recklessness. We are not currently at war with Russia let alone Germany, and a $20 billion energy project important to both those countries has been wrecked, with a potentially devastating impact upon the European economy. Not only is this probably the greatest peacetime military attack upon civilian infrastructure in world history, but if we exclude the 9/11 attacks—officially ascribed to a non-state terrorist organization—nothing even remotely comparable comes to mind.
Consider the obvious possibility of retaliation. Russia possesses a very powerful and sophisticated military with excellent special forces, and the West’s own energy infrastructure is woefully vulnerable and unprotected. Moreover, our heavily financialized economy might collapse like a house of cards if it were struck a tiny blow in the right location, with Tucker Carlson noting that if Russia merely cut the transatlantic fiber-optic cables connecting financial markets in the US and Europe, Wall Street would suffer gigantic losses.
But I think the greatest risk our country faces is an automatic consequence of our attacks on Europe’s critical energy infrastructure even absent any significant Russian reprisals.
If Germany and the rest of Europe undergo an economic collapse, the American economy can hardly avoid severe damage as well, but I think the more important impact will be upon the longer-term geopolitical alignment of that continent. Europeans will suffer greatly this winter and despite the solid wall of media propaganda, more and more of them may begin to recognize the architect of their distress.
For nearly three generations, our NATO allies have constituted a crucial element of America’s global military and economic power, and if they see their repayment as being a treacherous, criminal attack with devastating consequences, they may eventually decide to shift their allegiance in a different direction. The hashtag #Kriegserklaerung---“declaration of war”—was recently trending for several days on Twitter, with numerous Germans saying that America had declared war against their country. Overwhelming control over electronic and social media represents a powerful brain-washing tool, but at some point its effectiveness may be overwhelmed by miserable reality. The old Soviet Union never inflicted such deliberate suffering upon its Warsaw Pact vassals and that alliance collapsed in 1989, so if some of the more dismal economic predictions for Europe are realized, I wonder if NATO will long survive.
From a broader perspective, industrialized Germany and resource-rich Russia are natural trading partners, and as Mike Whitney so presciently argued back in February, much of America’s recent European strategy has been aimed at blocking their growing economic ties. Our destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines may have temporarily prevented any immediate German defection, but the bitterness we will have earned may be even more significant in the future. If Germany shifted its political ties eastward, America’s power in Europe would be shattered, and German voters do have a say in such matters, especially if they begin to suffer Depression-like conditions in the next few months.
The establishment of a full-fledged Russian-German alliance would completely reshape the geopolitics of Eurasia, but I suspect that our ignorant government leaders would dismiss such a possibility as an absurd fantasy given what they imagine is the deep traditional hostility between those two populations. However, as I explained a few years ago, this is completely incorrect, being based upon an extremely skewed misreading of European history:

In my unjustified arrogance, I also sometimes relished a sense of seeing obvious things that magazine or newspaper journalists got so completely wrong, mistakes which often slipped into historical narratives as well. For example, discussions of the titanic 20th century military struggles between Germany and Russia quite often made casual references to the traditional hostility between those two great peoples, who for centuries had stood as bitter rivals, representing the eternal struggle of Slav against Teuton for dominion over Eastern Europe.
Although the bloodstained history of the two world wars made that notion seem obvious, it was factually mistaken. Prior to 1914, those two nationalities had not fought against each other for the previous 150 years, and even the Seven Years’ War of the mid-18th century had involved a Russian alliance with Germanic Austria against Germanic Prussia, hardly amounting to a conflict along civilizational lines. Russians and Germans had been staunch allies during the endless Napoleonic wars and closely cooperated during the Metternich and Bismarck eras that followed, while even as late as 1904, Germany had supported Russia in its unsuccessful war against Japan. During the 1920s, Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia had a period of close military cooperation, the Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 marked the beginning of the Second World War, and throughout the long Cold War, the USSR had no more loyal a satellite than East Germany. Perhaps two dozen years of hostility over the last three centuries, with good relations or even outright alliance during most of the remainder, hardly suggested that Russians and Germans were hereditary enemies.
Moreover, during much of that period, Russia’s ruling elite had had a considerable Germanic tinge. Russia’s legendary Catherine the Great had been a German princess by birth, and over the centuries so many Russian rulers had taken German wives that the later Czars of the Romanov dynasty were usually more German than Russian. Russia itself had a substantial but heavily assimilated German population, which was very well represented in elite political circles, with German names being quite common among government ministers and sometimes found among important military commanders. Even a top leader of the Decembrist revolt of the early 19th century had had German ancestry but was a zealous Russian-nationalist in his ideology.

If the looming economic calamity does eventually shift Germany to a Russian alliance, the American attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines will be remembered as the blow that altered the entire trajectory of global politics.

To this point, most readers will probably be nodding their heads at the factual observations I have made even if they doubt some of the suggested possible consequences. Perhaps America’s destruction of Europe’s energy pipelines and the resulting economic devastation of Germany will lead to a permanent rupture in the Western alliance, or perhaps not; the future is difficult to predict.
But although there is not a single shred of hard evidence indicating American involvement, the circumstantial case is so overwhelmingly strong that no sensible person can come to any other conclusion. Whether or not we acted through local proxies, our government was clearly responsible for the destruction of Europe’s most important energy infrastructure, an act of absolutely colossal criminality and recklessness, which may have enormously negative consequences for our own national interests. Virtually all Western mainstream media outlets and many alternative ones may scrupulously avoid this reality and paid propagandists may energetically dispute it, but it remains the obvious truth.

[Northener]

I too admire the Quakers and the Amish. However, if you look at what I said upthread, I said that a continent-spanning country such as the USA should aspire to autarky, whereas Europe would need to have substantial trade relations with Russia, and so a self-contained north Eurasian economic sphere stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostock, but excluding China & India. And just as in medieval times, trade in rare minerals and certain luxury goods would be the exception to this policy-ideal.

As long as Russia has a despotic regime I don't see the urge to be dependent on Russia for certain things. We have done with gas. And look what we have got. There are lessons to be learned.

[Silesian]

As long as Russia has a despotic regime I don't see the urge to be dependent on Russia for certain things. We have done with gas.

A rather Eurocentric view. What about other countries not in Europe that depend oil/natural gas, fertilizer, wheat to help their economies function and feed their people?

And look what we have got. There are lessons to be learned.

We will see how solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars, work this winter.

[Northener]

A rather Eurocentric view. What about other countries not in Europe that depend oil/natural gas, fertilizer, wheat to help their economies function and feed their people? We will see how solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars, work this winter.

Yes it is and it's a desire not to depend on a country with a despotic regime, because then the Europeans are getting blackmailed.

[Silesian]

Yes it is and it's a desire not to depend on a country with a despotic regime, because then the Europeans are getting blackmailed.

What is perceived as despotic for some might be viewed as progressive equality to others like when Germany was starved for resources (exception coal)and they were forced to pay reparations (treaty of Versailles) to people who confiscated North America from indigenous people. Russia lost a lot of people and infrastructure. Don't they have a right like Poland and Greece to ask for monetary compensation?

[Northener]

What is perceived as despotic for some might be viewed as progressive equality to others like when Germany was starved for resources (exception coal)and they were forced to pay reparations (treaty of Versailles) to people who confiscated North America from indigenous people. Russia lost a lot of people and infrastructure. Don't they have a right like Poland and Greece to ask for monetary compensation?

I guess there is no excuse for despotism. And also there is a right to defend against despotism.

Are the Europeans obligated to pay money for the implosions of SU communism?.....frankly I don't think so.

[Silesian]

Invaded or at war with the, Rus, Mongols, French(Napoleon), and WW1 Kaiser Germans, is part of Russian history(paying a little more for gas and negotiating is a small price to pay IMO). Maybe if more help would have been given to the landless serfs to begin with, or to the Whites in (Alexander Kolchak)---- WW2 atrocities, SU, would not have happened.

[Northener]

Invaded or at war with the, Rus, Mongols, French(Napoleon), and WW1 Kaiser Germans, is part of Russian history(paying a little more for gas and negotiating is a small price to pay IMO). Maybe if more help would have been given to the landless serfs to begin with, or to the Whites in (Alexander Kolchak)---- WW2 atrocities, SU, would not have happened.

Tell me what I as a Dutch have to do with Kaiser Wilhelm? So I have to pay the price because some kind of Prussian did bad things 100 years ago....Imo you are a little off road my friend.

[Silesian]

Tell me what I as a Dutch have to do with Kaiser Wilhelm? So I have to pay the price because some kind od Prussian did bad things 100 years ago....Imo you are a little off road my friend.

So you are really Dutch Eurocentric.You really don't care about native people in Canada or US having their land stolen and children taken away from their families, or Iraqi civilians that had to die in war looking for weapons of mass destruction. Makes sense kinda of like jedem das Seine, Euro-Dutch style.