World War III seems to be lurking around the corner, but I’m not talking about Moscow’s
threats of nuclear attacks. Even though that option seems to be thrown around, it is likely
President Putin’s last card, which he probably and hopefully won’t be playing at all. And why
would he, when he holds a trump card that could possibly give Russia its way overdue victory.
It is no secret that what has kept Russia from achieving its goal of “liberating Russians”
from Ukraine’s current “fascist regime”, those were in BIG air quotes, of course,
is the military and intelligence support provided to Ukraine by the US and other
NATO allies. But what if Russia could somehow weaken the western alliance,
especially if Moscow held a wild card that could deteriorate the support of Western allies for
Ukraine? Well, that wild card is sitting underwater ...
but it’s Not What You Think!
Who did this, and why? I’m of course talking about the Nord Stream pipelines, 1 and 2.
Because on September 26, 2022 somebody sabotaged the pipelines which run under the Baltic sea and
transport natural gas from Russia to Germany, causing massive volumes of gas to be released.
Of course there are many speculations, anything from accusing Ukraine’s government, to pointing
fingers at Putin’s own opposition within Russia. But let’s face it, we all know who did it.
But given the circumstances, many are looking at the US and Russia as the most
likely suspects. Now before heading over to the comments section, let me unpack the
arguments on both sides, because some of them are quite interesting, yet not quite obvious.
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Let’s start with the United States. Because for decades, the US government has been openly
resisting Europe’s energy reliance on Russian natural gas. The administrations of both
Presidents Obama and President Trump have clearly expressed their opposition to the pipeline, to the
extent that in December of 2019, the US introduced sanctions, forcing pipe-laying vessels by Swiss
company, Allseas, to stop working on the project, which led to many months of delay. In addition,
the US has become a major exporter of natural gas and aims to sell it to European customers.
This alone could be regarded as good motive to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines. But it’s
not like the US officials have openly advocated that they will put an end to the Nord Stream project …
[President Biden] "There will be ... There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2."
"We will bring an end to it."
Then shortly after the Nord Stream explosions, Radek Sikorski, a former Minister of Defense
and Foreign Minister of Poland tweeted this.
Of course the tweet has been deleted since.
With these pipelines out of commission for years, if not for good, cheap Russian
natural gas will not be rivaling the United States’s sales of LNG to Europe.
In addition, that same night that the Nord Stream pipelines blew up, a US Navy P-8A Poseidon
reconnaissance aircraft was near the area of explosion. According to the flight data recorded,
the airplane took off from Iceland, circled for an hour over land in Poland, then came as close as 15
miles to the reported leak site, circled once and flew towards the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad,
which is a frequent focus for surveillance. Based on the flight data, the airplane was near the leak
site about 2 hours after the explosion happened. A U.S. Navy spokesman told Reuters, that the
Poseidon aircraft had conducted a routine Baltic Sea maritime reconnaissance flight, unrelated
to the leaks from the Nord Stream pipelines.”
Putting aside US government’s potential motives
and means for executing this attack, it seems illogical, or as Russia called it “stupid”,
for Moscow to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines. And it does seem to be stupid. After all,
these pipelines, which collectively cost about 25 billion dollars to build, are owned and operated
by Nord Stream AG, whose majority shareholder is Gazprom, a Russian state-owned company.
These pipelines could have been turned off and on again as needed, as a leverage point for
Russia to control the energy supply in Europe. A destroyed pipeline gives Russia no leverage.
All these points seem to suggest that the US government is the biggest beneficiary
of the recent attacks, especially that there seems to be no good reason for
Russia to have shot itself in the foot by destroying its own pipelines. Except for,
there is a lot that president Putin could have gained, not just by taking out these pipelines,
but by signaling that he is willing to go ... all in.
Before the Ukraine war, the EU depended on Russia to deliver 45% of its natural gas
that was used for energy and heating. But on Feb 22nd, 2022, 2 days before Russia invaded Ukraine,
Germany halted the Nord Stream 2 gas project as the Ukraine crisis was unraveling. Essentially,
Nord Stream 2 never went live. Germany and other countries in the EU announced that
they are weaning themselves off Russian fossil fuel supplies. The European institutes that had
partially funded the Nord Stream 2 project, wrote off all their loans, suggesting that they would
never recoup their investments. So even though Nord Stream 2 was ready and pressurized with
Russian natural gas, Europe was not counting on this supply route anymore, and the pipelines were
doomed to lose their value in the coming years. The project was a sunk cost. The US government
would not have really gained much by destroying a pipeline that wasn’t a threat to them anymore.
Nord Stream 1, on the other hand, was operational,
although Russia gradually reduced its supply during the summer and ultimately
stopped operating at the beginning of September 2022, citing technical issues.
If the US was behind this incident, their timing didn’t make much sense. It’s just
simple Prospect Theory. You’d be less likely to take risks when things are going well for
you. On the other hand, if you are about to lose, you are much more likely to take risks,
in the hopes that the tables would turn in your favor. As it stands, the US,
Ukraine and its NATO allies are on the winning side of this war. Blowing up a pipeline in Sweden
and Denmark’s exclusive economic zones would be an unnecessary risk for the US government to take.
Even though this might explain why the US may not have been as keen as we originally
described to blow up the pipelines, it does not explain why president Putin would have
ordered this attack on his own pipelines. Well, to potentially kill three birds with one stone.
The first bird is the opposition within Russia. Anyone who may have dreamt of replacing president
Putin, one way or the other, may have considered resuming gas delivery to Europe,
extending an olive branch, in order to reduce tensions with the west.
But with the Nord Stream pipelines out of the picture, at least for years,
that incentive for any of President Putin’s rivals to topple him has been greatly reduced,
not that the next Russian leader would necessarily have a better attitude toward the West.
The second bird, is weakening the Western alliance. Given the ambiguous nature of this
attack, and not knowing who really was behind it, some Europeans may believe that the US
government conducted an armed attack against the German economy in order to benefit themselves.
This could undermine the cohesion in the western alliance against Russia as it relates to the war
in Ukraine. Dividing the western alliance is a step closer to victory for president Putin.
And if you are thinking it is impossible that the Russian government would have
destroyed billions of dollars in hopes of weakening the western alliance,
think again. There is a war going on. If you took president Putin’s threats of using nuclear
weapons, even a little bit seriously, then blowing up a pipeline that was a lost cause,
in order to gain some potential advantage in this war, does not seem far-fetched at all.
The third bird is what this attack potentially signals, and that, is the threat of escalation,
not against Ukraine, but against the Western alliance. Russia already tried to hold the EU
nations hostage by reducing and cutting their supply of natural gas. Even though that did
increase the gas prices, and has some Europeans worried about how they are going to survive the
upcoming winter, it was not as impactful as the Russian government had hoped. Europe is still
standing strong with Ukraine. So the next logical step for Russia is to escalate the situation.
If Russia did in fact blow up its own pipeline, this could signal the beginning of a new series of
attacks on critical infrastructure. The backbone of our communications, the 500 or so underwater
fiber optic cables that connect the continents, span thousands of miles and sit completely
unprotected against sabotage. Even though there is some redundancy in case of damages,
no one has a backup plan in case of a large-scale attack on this vital infrastructure. This could
disrupt everything around the world, from banking, to commerce, to day to day communications.
And no, satellite communications are not a feasible alternative at this point. To put
this in perspective, Antarctica is not connected via fiber optic cables to the rest of the world,
so they strictly use satellite communications. But just the research stations in Antarctica
produce more data than they can transmit through satellites! So we need those fiber optic cables.
This threat is more realistic than you might think. In 2021, The United States implemented the
Cable Security Fleet. The idea was that in case an enemy sabotages any of the 50 or so cables that
connect the US to the rest of the world, cable ship owners and their crew may not want to risk
their ships to work in contested waters, where the cable ships would be likely targets. Multinational
crewing with divided national loyalties and visa restrictions add complexity in wartime conditions.
Standard marine protection and indemnity insurance policies exclude wartime coverage. So the US
wants US-flagged ships with loyal US Merchant Marine crew to fulfill this service in wartime.
Currently, the US government pays a $5-million dollars stipend annually to any cable ship
operator, that in case of such incidents, can provide guaranteed availability of a cable ship
and a fully American crew on 24 hours’ notice following a national emergency declaration.
And so far, they have 2 ships: cable ship Dependable, operating in the Pacific Ocean,
and cable ship Decisive, operating in the Atlantic Ocean. These ships carry out normal
commercial work but can support the U.S. government in an instant if activated.
What remains to be seen, is whether Russia would go as far as threatening
or actually cutting off international communications, and more importantly,
whether that would be enough to force NATO to fold its hand, and give in to Russia’s demands.
Ask yourself which is more crazy? Russia starting a nuclear war, or cutting a few underwater cables.
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