Former UN weapons inspector accuses the US of attacking the Nord Stream pipelines. I understand that the pipelines had been closed as a result of sanctions but with their destruction there is no hope of reversing the situation.

Ritter outlines the case succinctly but how credible is this?

Threats

From TV detective shows I know that when a person has been murdered the police would commonly ask if the victim had any enemies. Did he or she receive any threats recently. It would appear that in this case Nord Stream had received threats from US President Biden.

“If Russia invades Ukraine, we will end Nord Stream 2”

The journalist asks: “But how will you do it? If the project is controlled by Germany…”

Biden responds: “I promise you we will be able to do it”

7 February 2022

The same threat is repeated by Victoria Nuland, BIden’s ‘Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs’:

Motive

Whether genuine or not a purported RAND document provides a credible meta motivation for both the Nord Stream sabotage and also the effective sabotaging of Europe’s relationship with Russia and of Germany’s industrial capabilities.

• In what appears to be an exceptional internal leak from the think tank RAND Corporation, known among other things to have been behind the American strategy for foreign and defence policies during the Cold War, a detailed account is given of how the energy crisis in Europe has been planned by the United States.
• The document, which dates from January, acknowledges that the aggressive foreign policy that was being pursued by Ukraine before the conflict would push Russia into having to take military action against the country. Its actual purpose, it contends, was to pressure Europe into adopting a wide range of sanctions against Russia, sanctions which had already been prepared.
• The European Union’s economy, it states, “will inevitably collapse” as a result of this, and its authors rejoice in the fact that, among other things, resources of up to $9 billion will flow back to the United States, and well-educated young people in Europe will be forced to emigrate.
• The key objective described in the document is to divide Europe – especially Germany and Russia – and destroy the European economy by placing useful idiots in political positions in order to stop Russian energy supplies from reaching the continent.
  
  https://nyadagbladet.se/utrikes/shocking-document-how-the-us-planned-the-war-and-energy-crisis-in-europe/

Secretary Rice’s comments in 2014 are consistent with the strategy discussed in the RAND document.

Rice:”You want to change the structure of energy dependence. You want to depend more on the North America energy platform … to have pipelines that don’t go through Ukraine & Russia”

Opportunity

With regard to opportunity the pipes were sabotaged within the territorial waters of NATO countries; is it likely, at this time in particular, that NATO forces would be unaware of enemy activity in these waters? The strong presence of the US in the region not only gives them greatest opportunity but simultaneously diminishes the opportunity for Russian action in that region. Harley Schlanger expands on this point in the following video: