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Comment by distances | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if you live in Europe, but for almost everyone who does it's obvious that Russia is the only actor who does things like this. I'm not aware of any public discussion contemplating "who" in the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea. Everyone assumes it's Russia, and the only question is "why".

It's true that we don't have yet a smoking gun or direct admission. But it walks like Russia, it quacks like Russia, so any speculation to the contrary seems pointless.

I do admit there's a certain cold war-esque mystery in debating it here in HN, but just wanted to point out what's obvious for people living close to the events.

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You don't know your history if you think Russia is the only country who would do this. The US security agencies wouldn't think twice about blowing up a hated pipeline to force a hesitating ally to commit. (And the Swedes would covertly help them, neutrality be damned)

Your geographical proximity means nothing. I happen to live in the country that makes IMMENSE profits from not competing with Russian gas from those pipelines, and I still am not buying the false flag theory.

Are you really saying Germany is a hesitant ally, despite them being the third-largest arms supplier to Ukraine? US or any other allied country would only risk losing support, there's barely any upside with Germany already committed to non-Russian gas imports.

I also don't see why Russian sabotage would be a false flag attack. I don't think they are seriously trying to pin it on anyone else.

Anyway I probably shouldn't have replied as I don't see any point in debating the obvious. I'll then just eat my hat later if I need to change my understanding of the modus operandi of some country in the European arena.

  Are you really saying Germany is a hesitant ally

Germany is a hesitant ally in the Russian war. They want the Russian gas and they don't want to insert themselves into the conflict (hence being so reluctant to sell arms to Ukraine).

  US or any other allied country would only risk losing support, there's barely any upside with Germany already committed to non-Russian gas imports.

Exactly. Why provoke a hesitant ally in a war that's winding down?

Don't you remember the US pressuring to stop NS2 earlier in the year? How can Germany NOT be a "hesitant" ally in energy matters if its enconomy depends mostly on cheap energy, being the biggest EU exporter?

No, we would not help in this.

This can actually destroy the Germany's economy-- destroy, and if that goes down, so does ours (i.e. Sweden's). The EU would be done as a project achieving any kind of regional independence, a second rate power for ever. Industrial competitiveness, once lost, stays lost.

I'd go as far as to say, that if Germany's energy situation actually destroys its industry in the way that can possibly happen, then the Ukraine war is small potatoes, strategically.

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