A Favor from Biden with Regard to the Gas Pipelines

Ordinary people tend not to believe what they don’t want to believe, that is, those things that seriously alter their collective memory or set of values. With this in mind, let’s get into it.

First, Washington never approved of Europe’s growing reliance on Russian gas. Accordingly, Donald Trump, with his usual finesse, called Germany’s funding of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline stupid. He also suggested the Germans would end up being captive to Russia and complained that the United States had to contribute the lion’s share to the NATO budget while the European Union financed Moscow by importing energy. But, of course, that was Trump, that raving lunatic according to progressives, and so the matter was closed to the amusement of the German press and polite criticism from Berlin. Then along came Joe Biden, who was one of us — although not as much as Barack Obama — and who broke away in February 2022, saying sharply, “If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2.” Sitting next to Biden at a joint press conference, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz played dumb and muttered something about adjusting sanctions against Russia. Well, indeed, Nord Stream 2 is no more, as the president threatened. Incidentally, he was following the unanimous position of Congress with respect to European dependence on the Kremlin.

Second, the sabotaged pipelines run through the Baltic Sea seabed, where nine NATO allies overlook the coast, if we count Finland and Sweden, always with an eye on the movement of Russian submarines and watching out for ships that could be serving as enemy submarine tenders. Logically, the latest NATO naval maneuvers, which took place last June, were strongly anti-submarine, displaying an abundance of sonobuoys and other detection equipment.

Third, if there is a world power that can operate with precision at great sea depths it is the United States. The Russians can do so as well, that’s true, but such an intricate maneuver in which one simultaneously blows up two gas pipelines in several places and in hostile waters to boot, involves more than a handful of mini-submarines and a great deal of luck.

Fourth, given that Russia is the one controlling the gas tap, which means that merely by closing the valves it can leave half of Europe without fuel (something it already did over the summer under the guise of maintaining the gas network), we would need some evidence to support the allegation that Vladimir Putin chose to damage precisely the facility that allows the delivery of gas to Germany while antagonizing Poland and Ukraine — Putin’s black beasts — preventing them from collecting the substantial transit fees from their onshore gas pipelines. Algeria has done the same thing to Morocco without blowing up anything.

Finally, the United States is our ally and it wants the best for us. Thus it’s likely that by blowing up the pipelines in question, Biden has done us a favor. Is there any of that? It’s the same evidence we could use to charge Uncle Putin.