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> One major theme in the ongoing US-Russia conflict over the past decade-plus (dating back to at least 2008) is a fight over who gets to sell oil and gas to Europe.

No, it wasn't. America wasn't pushing to sell to Europe, and Europe was becoming more and more reliant on Russian and Asian gas. The shift to American gas (and every other country they can get it from) happened after Russia invaded Ukraine and then shut off the taps when Europe instituted sanctions.

Iranian sanctions were mostly inertial, but have now turned out to be good considering that Iran is negotiating nuclear tech in exchange for shipping weapons to Russia.

My view is that the split with Putin really started in late 2003, when Putin rejected an Exxon offer to take a controlling stake in Russian oil via the purchase of Yukos, and then jailed Khodorkosky (who was close to various USA interests) on tax evasion charges. Prior to that, Putin got a lot of favorable mention in the US press, he visited GW Bush in Texas, was an ally in the 'war on Terror' etc. If Putin had taken the offer, Russia would have become more like Saudi Arabia - i.e. part of the petrodollar recycling system. Putin's domestic popularity in Russia since then is largely due to the fact he redirected oil money to domestic economic growth and military reconstruction, rather than to Wall Street funds.

Everything since then has been one pipeline war after another, from the perspective of energy deals at least. Georgia 2008, for example, was "not a pipeline war!" according to the Guardian (meaning a lot of people were saying it was, and they were pushing back). Note how the 2006 BTC pipeline route (Baku-Azerbaijan-Turkey) was chosen to bypass Russia?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/11/georgia.russia...

After that, there were the two competing pipeline deals in Syria, c. 2009-2010. One was a Russia-Iran deal, one was a Qatar-Saudi-USA deal. In 2010, Assad took the Russia-Iran offer, and in 2011, Obama's government OKed a CIA destabilization-and-regime change program in Syria. If Syria had taken the other offer, I doubt that would have happened. This Ukraine war is just more of the same (plus, a new Cold War is good for military procurement budgets).

Of course, energy geopolitics isn't the only issue, but anyone who has read Steve Coll's "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power", or Daniel Yergin's "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power" will recognize it's often the central reason for international conflicts.

As far as the clearly reprehensible human rights record of Putin being the reason for the conflict, that's laughable - just look at Mohammed bin "Bone Saw" Salman in Saudi Arabia, or the Yemen war. Now if MBS pulled out of Wall Street and ended the Saudi roll in petrodollar recycling, then we'd be hearing about the need for regime change. And if Putin and Assad had signed up for the petrodollar program, they'd be lauded as democratic reformers, and the Ukraine invasion would portrayed in the US media as a necessary action to dismantle neo-Nazi militias (see Yemen, again).

There are many things that can lead to international conflict and war: Energy, influence, territory, etc.

The Ukraine war is primarily territorial at any cost, as can be seen by Russia's willingness to lose Europe as a trading partner (including the now uselessness of most of its pipeline network since it was primarily directed to Europe), as well as almost all of Russia's complete surprise (including top government elites and the army brass) at the invasion in the first place. Belligerence from resource grievances fester for decades, and are telegraphed well in advance since pretty much the entire government will be on board before they start. It's also fairly obvious with Putin's continued nationalist rhetoric about reuniting "little Russia", and his continued rhetorical grievances with the West for over a decade. This is an obsession, planned in a way that nails everyone's colors to the mast. The causes for this war are primarily ideological (rebuilding Russia into its fabled great empire), not economic or strategic (although those do play minor roles, as always).

Putin canned the one defense minister (Serdyukov) who was trying to do something about reconstruction

> My view is that the split with Putin really started in late 2003

It started with (or maybe earlier than, but crystallized with) the NATO-Yugoslav war in 1999 (and this was widely and fairly specifically noted at the time.) Certain factions of the American political establishment may have been in denial about that rift until 2003, though.

LNG was never going to be competitive with pipeline gas, no one was in some "fight" over US or Russia selling to EU. But there sure is a long, long history of Russia using its gas supplies to blackmail and manipulate ex-USSR and other states, including using it's old puppet governments in Ukraine to literally disarm it.

Their coercion extended to bombing pipelines, too, of course:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Russia%E2%80%93Georgia_en...

Finally, the price of LNG is so high as to be thoroughly uninteresting for bulk uses like heating. That means it is rapidly being displaced by other methods like heat pumps. The future isn't "LNG from the US", it's "no gas" and current events have very much turbocharged that transformation.

The US (in 2021) used 827 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year and produced 934. The amount it's expected to send to Europe (45 billion cubic meters) amounts to under 5% of its own production which has been increasing every year. Most of that hasn't even been sent yet so the percentage up to now is even smaller.

So yeah this was never about the US selling natural gas to Europe.

You have to add on the 34 bcms to the 45 bcms for a total of 79 billion cubic meters expected to be exported to Europe in 2022. Prices in Europe for gas seem to be about 10X higher than in the USA. Costs of LNG export are also higher, but I imagine the profit return on those European sales is about as large as their total profit on all domestic USA sales (and note domestic prices have doubled as well).

This is pretty basic supply and demand stuff. It's hard not to conclude that a major US goal was cutting Europe off from Russian gas, and replacing that with American LNG. You can find all sorts of quotes to this effect from the US government before 2022:

> (March 2021) "‘President Biden has been very clear, he believes the pipeline is a bad idea, bad for Europe, bad for the United States,’ Blinken says in Brussels"

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/secretary-of-state-blinken...

So, if Europe's not going to get gas from Russia, who does that leave? Perhaps the glut of fracked American gas, provided in LNG tankers, instead?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/business/energy-environme...

(Sep 2021) "Natural Gas Boom Fizzles as a U.S. Glut Sinks Profits: Chevron’s multibillion-dollar write-down of gas assets is the most recent sign that the gas supply has far outstripped demand."

These dots are not that hard to connect.

>You have to add on the 34 bcms to the 45 bcms for a total of 79 billion cubic meters expected to be exported to Europe in 2022.

The 34 was already being exported so it's sort of disingenuous to add it in terms of supply/demand impact.

>Costs of LNG export are also higher, but I imagine the profit return on those European sales is about as large as their total profit on all domestic USA sales (and note domestic prices have doubled as well).

Now you're making assumptions.

>So, if Europe's not going to get gas from Russia, who does that leave?

Transitioning to clean energy, nuclear, etc.

>These dots are not that hard to connect.

Thank you for finally not beating around the bush on what your actual point and angle are.

Well, the amount the US is expected to send to Europe in 2022 is at least 79 billion cubic meters. The price differential relative to selling that gas in the US @ ~$4 per mmBTU (pre-inflation 2021) vs in Europe @ $34 per mmBTU (post-inflation 2022), where 1 bcm = ~36 million mmBTU is what?

I get an addition $85 billion in gross revenue relative to selling that gas domestically (where there was a supply glut). Even if you just add on the excess shipped to Europe relative to 2021, that's at least an additional $40 billion.

Add on the ~doubling of domestic gas prices from 2021 to 2022 which is for that 827 bcm used domestically, hmm... roughly another additional $60 billion in revenue.

So, the Ukraine war has brought a windfall revenue gain to US gas producers on the order of $100 billion for 2022, right?

As far as agenda, mostly I'm interested in accurate information.

> This is pretty basic supply and demand stuff. It's hard not to conclude that a major US goal was cutting Europe off from Russian gas, and replacing that with American LNG. You can find all sorts of quotes to this effect from the US government before 2022:

It’s actually very easy to conclude that this is not the case because selling a few billion dollars worth of oil simply isn’t worth global destabilization. To the extent that this was some sort of “goal” of the US (under the Trump admin I’m guessing?) it’s a minor goal at best.

The reason Biden for example said that the pipeline was a bad idea was because Europe was placing its energy security in the hands of Russia, which as we saw turned out to be a bad idea. Note previous Russian aggression in Crimea in 2014, etc.

Similarly to “NATO expansion” being a dog whistle to anti-American sentiment the “the US wants to sell gas” is another attempt to distract from much more plain and serious truths such as Putin simply thought he’d be able to take over Ukraine and wanted to do so.

It's more like an extra $100 billion in revenue. Not counting the military procurement bill, which is what, approaching $20 billion? This war is a real cash cow for certain sectors of the US government (fossil fuels and defense contractors), although the resulting inflation isn't doing anyone else any favors.

Yea so not a lot of money and not worth the global instability, hence it’s a very poor theory.

A much better one would be something like the US knowing that the Russian military was in very rough shape and that an invasion would lead to the permanent decline of Russia and shore up allies in Europe and elsewhere so they goaded Putin into action by not doing anything after previous actions in places like Crimea.

But that’s also prescribing too much agency to the US government.

  > With the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines ... that mostly leaves
  > the USA as the primary supplier.

Does that suggest motive for the destruction? Who else has both motive and means?

Selling more gas to Europe isn’t a massive windfall to USA. The Biden administration has bigger fish to fry and wouldn’t risk such an intervention in Swedish waters just as Sweden is joining NATO.

My money is on Russian hardliner factions operating rogue without Putin’s approval. He can’t admit he doesn’t know who did it. The Russian state security apparatus is so large, we have no idea what kind of internal tensions exist. Putin may have unleashed something he doesn’t control anymore.

>The Biden administration has bigger fish to fry and wouldn’t risk such an intervention in Swedish waters just as Sweden is joining NATO.

This is a pretty naive perspective - Since when has Sweden ever stood up to the crimes and misdeeds of the USA? Sweden ranks up there with Australia in the "lackey-state underdog to the USA" rankings ..

It's just not worth the Americans' time to be plotting such a thing now. Selling more natural gas is irrelevant to the Biden administration's survival. And there were general elections in both Sweden and Denmark within the past two months — terrible timing for such an offensive CIA operation in NATO waters because any information leak would have handed a potent electoral weapon to anti-American opposition parties.

The Russians are already a very active presence in the Baltic Sea, and this attack fits with their general pattern of confusion and misdirection.

There is no evidence that the Russians were anywhere near the pipeline around the time it was destroyed.

There is massive evidence that the US and its allies were operating in those waters, and up to something, leading up to the day of the attack.

The idea that the US wouldn't jeapordize its relationship with the Baltic states in order to cut off a vital supply of economic resources to Europe is very, very naive. The US has done far worse to its so-called allies.

My money is on Putin doing it, to dissuade any would be throne-pretenders in case of a coup. Any new government has fewer funding options, which would be good to negotiate with Europe, and to pay cooperating oligarchs.

It would be cutting the nose to spite the face, except Putin is cutting Russia's nose, not his own. What matters is staying in power, not the good of the nation.

I agree. Scorched earth policy. Putin for whatever reason is going all in on Ukraine. Even if the war ended tomorrow it would take Russia decades to rebuild it's army.

To rebuild to its previous apparent capability or to its actual capabilities?

If Russia is given the means, it may take only a few years to rebuild to its actual capabilities of 2021. Which is bad enough to cause trouble.

The means is an interesting question. Having done a little scuba diving, the depth of the pipelines (70-90 meters) put it out of range of any diver without a sophisticated mix of gases (Trimix diving). A remotely operated vehicle would also work. The pipelines were made of thick steel wrapped with concrete, so some kind of high-tech explosive was necessary, perhaps shaped charges (used in the oil industry for blowing holes in pipe casing to increase oil flow, for example).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_pipeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimix_(breathing_gas)

See the EPA for details. I guess it's okay to link to this, it's an official US government site.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/casingperf...

Perhaps locating both of the pipelines deep under the water would be difficult? Point being, the ability to do this might not be as exclusive to nation-states as it has been portrayed (note the ease with which the videographer found the pipelines with an ROV, although the big bubbles probably helped). So, who knows?

As far as who benefited, well, Russia certainly seems to want to continue selling gas to Europe, and is pushing for repair of the pipelines. The USA wants to replace Russian gas with American LNG. Coming up with a reason for Russia to do it would require some mental gymnastics, I think.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/12/putin-offers-to-bo...

Not really. If Russia wanted to continue to sell gas to Europe it could end the war against Ukraine (or have never started it in the first place). Gas sales aren’t a high priority there. Putin doesn’t care one bit about those, and likely had the pipeline blown up as a “no way back” for those who might have wanted to negotiate behind his back.

The US blowing up NS2 for a few billion dollars worth of gas sales is beyond stupid because it risks completely ruining all of the momentum the US has in isolating Russia and having its military completely implode. If your view is that the Russians are the enemy (as the US view is) why would you stop them from making a terrible mistake or put any of that at risk? You wouldn’t.

Ukraine recently discovered it had large reserves of natural gas. Enough that it could potentially threaten Russia as Europe's main supplier. Many people suspect this was the primary reason Russia invaded.

> Many people suspect this was the primary reason Russia invaded.

Regional energy control was possibly a factor but securing a defensible border was the over-arching goal of Russia’s last few wars in the region and Ukraine is no exception. Ukraine has the Carpathian Mountains, and allows access to Poland and Moldova to secure the Polish and Bessarabian gaps.

Securing the borders from what? If he was worried about NATO he would be beefing up troop deployments along the borders of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia where he has withdrawn troops and he wouldn't have his military completely bogged down in Ukraine. Why would Russia need to secure borders anyway? Who is going to invade on foot? They have nuclear weapons and would have a justifiable reason in using them if they were wantonly invaded.

It seems so many want to run away from the straightforward situation which is that Putin wanted to take Ukraine or decapitate its government and make it more like Belarus, and he thought that he would be able to do it. Everything else is a sideshow at best, and Russian propaganda at worst.

> Securing the borders from what?

Russia has been invaded by land countless times over the centuries as it has few natural barriers. Securing good natural borders has been a major national security concern for Russia for centuries and up until the fall of Soviet Union they had secured all of them. They have been winning those back gradually over the last couple of decades.

> If he was worried about NATO he would be beefing up troop deployments along the borders of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia where he has withdrawn troops

The Baltic states are likely future targets. Thankfully they've been doing so badly in Ukraine they are being forced to withdraw forces from other areas and debasing their ability to achieve those future aims.

> They have nuclear weapons and would have a justifiable reason in using them if they were wantonly invaded

Firstly, there are numerous scenarios where Russia is not wantonly invaded but perhaps different powers use salami tactics either directly or by proxy that wouldn't justify nukes at any particular point. Secondly, Russia may not want to rely on its ability to maintain nuclear weapons long-term especially while its industrial base decays, the result of its crumbling education system unravels, and its demographics rapidly decline. Regardless, it's much better strategically to have good defensive geography and nukes.

> It seems so many want to run away from the straightforward situation...Everything else is a sideshow at best, and Russian propaganda at worst.

The idea that Russia wants a secure border geography and that Ukraine is a barrier to that is not new nor controversial. The (continued) invasion of Ukraine was long expected and the high level reasons long known.[1][2]

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/ru... 2. https://zeihan.com/russias-twilight-war/

> Russia has been invaded by land countless times over the centuries as it has few natural barriers.

Russia has nuclear weapons. They can say that they are worried about being invaded but I certainly reject that as an argument worth consideration.

> The Baltic states are likely future targets. Thankfully they've been doing so badly in Ukraine they are being forced to withdraw forces from other areas and debasing their ability to achieve those future aims.

Agreed and I think initially (I certainly posted) he intended to break NATO by testing the resolve of the alliance in the Baltics, where had he actually had success in Ukraine would have invaded the Baltics and likely took them quickly as well which would have left the US and NATO allies in the position of continuing a war and reconquering land. I think what he miscalculated was that the US was quite serious about protecting the Baltic states and would have for sure gone to war with Russia directly over them.

> The idea that Russia wants a secure border geography and that Ukraine is a barrier to that is not new nor controversial.

It is in the sense that there was ever any desire to "be secure" as that is a new talking point designed to cause uncertainty in what is desired. It's mostly just about claiming territory perceived to be historically lost and other elements such as this are part of an ongoing propaganda campaign. Putin himself tells you this over and over again in his speeches. Ideas like NATO on the doorstep are recent propaganda tools because NATO has "been on the doorstep" for awhile. It also seeks to remove agency from nations in forming their own security partnerships.

> Russia has nuclear weapons.

Nukes aren’t the trump cards you seem to think they are. In fact I would go so far as to say that nukes are essentially useless outside of deterring being destroyed by nukes or otherwise imminently existentially threatened. Even then they’re no guarantee as no one knows if MAD would actually be triggered in the event of a devastating attack. Regardless, salami tactics and other less-than-total-defeat strategies are likely to be quite effective at avoiding anything too grave to provoke a nuclear response because they can be conducted in such a way that suicide by MAD remains irrational.

> NATO has "been on the doorstep" for awhile

Not very long by European standards. It is obviously an ongoing concern for Russia having an enemy military alliance next door and that is also not a controversial statement. What country wouldn’t be gravely concerned by that? However, this is a long term strategy regardless of NATO and they have been executing it systematically for decades by gradually capturing the defensive geographies around Russia. They see it as existentially necessary to do this and that’s why they have to be stopped in Ukraine.

> Nukes aren’t the trump cards you seem to think they are.

The idea that NATO would invade Russia on its face is ridiculous, as you know, especially considering it’s a defensive arrangement. The idea that nuclear weapons don’t protect Russia from such an attack is also ridiculous, as you know.

But if you believe that they do not protect Russia, it doesn’t follow to then antagonize a far superior military force and risk invasion and destruction.

> Not very long by European standards.

Not a relevant point

> It is obviously an ongoing concern for Russia having an enemy military alliance next door and that is also not a controversial statement.

It’s an ongoing self-inflicted concern, to be certain. But you can choose two options: countries can decide their own security arrangements, or might makes right. If you remove agency from Ukraine you simply give license to other countries such as China or the United States to act as they see fit.

> However, this is a long term strategy regardless of NATO and they have been executing it systematically for decades by gradually capturing the defensive geographies around Russia. They see it as existentially necessary to do this and that’s why they have to be stopped in Ukraine.

If this is what you and/or Russians believe then the United States should immediately go to war with Russia, especially since nuclear weapons aren’t trump cards and they should invade before Russia secures these natural borders you speak of since the two nations are adversaries and there is no reconciliation. Although I’m still wondering what the point would be.

I was curious about exact numbers and found this in the most recent EU report:

https://imgur.com/a/HIkyO05

Is the difference in price between Europe and the US down to shipping costs?

To transport Nat Gas you have to cool it down to -265F thereby reducing its volume 600X to transport economically as a liquid (LNG), then it needs to be safely turned back into a gas at its destination. That is expensive relative to pipeline fed Nat Gas.

> Mission accomplished?

What is the mission?

"With the destruction of the Nordstream pipelines"

They are not destroyed. There are 4 pipes in total and 1 pipe of NS2 is intact. Most likely Russia destroyed the other pipes to get NS2 working (you want gas? Need to certify NS2 and we won't pay contract penalties, because this is not our fault)

Resources blackmail didn't work, hence nuclear threats and mobilisation.

Source for the downvoters https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/single-line-nord-str...