Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Not assuming malice is a good policy in ordinary everyday situations, but the razor lacks that nuance and says to Never assume malice, which is going too far.
It's a razor fight then!
If they wanted it done bad enough, they could have found a way.
Well, the US literally did have a practice round, but I don't think their benefit outweighs the potential backlash either. Russia really doesn't risk backlash, but on the first order seems more harmed than not. Maybe it would force Europe to reckon with a winter without Russian gas before the winter comes? Seems pretty flimsy.
Sure there is. The Polish Navy could practice finding the pipeline as much as they want. They could also practice blowing things up underwater as much as they want. Doing both at once isn't much more of a problem.
Also I think the backlash issue is overstated, particularly for America. What would Germany do, rage-quit NATO? Not a chance. Get pissy about it but do nothing? Very likely. Bury the evidence so they don't have to explain it to their public? Also very likely. In this regard, America has much more leeway than Poland.
I don't think rage-quitting NATO would be the concern, but a trade war. The US bombing the pipeline is like a tariff applied outside their borders, you can't firmly discount the possibility that someone would take issue with it. Is it likely? Honestly I doubt it, but for the US to benefit western Europe would definitely need to crack come winter (which is by no means guaranteed), and it would be have to be easier to import from America than from Russia even if they did, which isn't obvious. If the US had the capacity to sell enough gas to Europe to profit from this, they wouldn't be worried about energy-hungry nations breaking the embargo!
The UK is not my first or even second suspicion, but it could have been them.
There’s no point in overthrowing him to turn the pipeline back on if the pipeline doesn’t exist.
Gazprom executives may wish to resume their lives of absurd luxury yachting around the Mediterranean. They probably don't enjoy being sanctioned and deprived of the luxury they think they're entitled to.
But at the same time, this requires some real resources to execute something like this. I can imagine mid-sized corporations having access to the resources to do it, but not without leaving a significant paper trail.
I don't imagine terrorist organizations have that kind of funding.
The US is a good candidate, but I don't see how it hurts Russia more than it hurts the rest of Europe. It'd be unusually Machiavellian for even us, if it was the US.
I don't know who that leaves...
It doesn't matter if it hurts Europe, if it benefits the USA. The capital never cares about the colonies, and weakening own colonies and enemies, while at she same times strengthening themselves, is a valid strategy. Machiavellian or not, doesn't matter.
Long term, Europe is bound to be dependable on LNG gas imports from the USA. Many companies are shutting down in Europe and considering moving to the place with much cheaper energy.
How do you calculate the hurt? Absolute hurt, or relative hurt? If I take $20 from you and $10 from a homeless man, I've taken more from you in absolute terms but more from the homeless man in relative terms.
Hanlons Razor, as you are using it, says that is usually not the case.
There is a reason for the heuristic to hold for a time after a big change in human society. This usually corresponds to a time when the peoppe in power don't understand what was going on. They had strategies that were successful in the previous age and those strategies are obsolete now. The first usage seems to be approximately in the time of Napoleon, when gunpowder fundamentally changed feudalism. For another example, compared to its younger brother, World War 1 could have had Yakety Sax as its soundtrack.
There is also a really compelling machanism by which Hanlon's razor fails to apply. Eventually it is the case that competent, selfish strategies prevail and proliferate. They don't go away once they exist, they just accumulate. Eventually, behavior you encounter can be most easily explained by deducing the optimal strategy for the agents involved. This is roughly how biologists operate, and they only study things with comparatively low intelligence.
It should be noted that Hanlon's razor is, as a rule, completely incompatible with the equally popular Chesterton's fence heuristic. If incompetence is likely the correct explanation for the fence, then its fine to get rid of.