I'm rooting for the Danish anarchists. You basically just need underwater explosives and a boat. You hang the explosives on a long rope, throw it over board like an anchor, and drag it into the pipeline. When you hit the pipeline, you detonate the explosives.
I think that already happened in at least one other instance. [0]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-security-agency-spie...
That's genius. The detonator would not have to be very sophisticated to magnetically detect the steel in the pipeline.
"The gas pipes are made of 4.1 cm thick steel, which is protected by an 11 cm thick reinforced concrete shell"
https://yle.fi/uutiset/74-20000414 (in Finnish)
Plus, motivations are wrong. The US catastrophically ends European energy dependence on Russia so that... it can compete with the Middle East and Russia and Canada on a more equal footing? Yeah, no. The US is not that desperate for cash.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r...
The U.S. motivation is that it has tried to shut down energy trades between the Soviet Union/Russia and Germany for more than 50 years.
The pain of seeing a quarter of your industry close for lack of energy might have easily bent the will of Germans and others after this winter. All political announcements about replacing Russian gas before 2027 at the earliest were a pipe dream (pun intended)for anybody with any actual knowledge of the industry.
Even now, a large portion of what was supposedly bought elsewhere was just repackaged and re-originated at the port of loading, but actually Russian gas - hence part of the price hike going to a chain of middlemen.
Blowing it up guarantees Nordstream is forever dead.
The same day a new pipeline was announced as open from Norway to Poland.
Didn't a Polish EU MP tweet "Thank-you USA" when the news broke of the explosions.
It's worth keeping in mind that the pipeline was also pretty much dormant anyway, the official nord stream data has it that flow collapsed around june, down to exactly 0 (by their books, there was still pressure in the pipe) kWh per day by September.
Prez Biden said the U.S. will stop it.
Victoria Nuland said the same.
There was Baltops 22, which just happened to 'practice' dearming underwater mines, as mentioned in local media.
Also mentioned in local media, the last three ships of the U.S. Navy passed by there just a week before the explosions,
with one especially suited for such operations.
Also one U.S. Navy Helo flying and circling exactly above the areas of the explosions, as shown by several tracking sites.
Apply some 'Occams razor'...
edit: Eyeroll