By Jim
Geraghty
Wednesday,
September 28, 2022
Let’s
get a few things straight:
·
It
would be odd, to say the least, for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
to warn a number
of European nations, including Germany, in June that the two Nord Stream gas
pipelines which carry natural gas from Russia could be targeted in forthcoming
attacks, if the U.S. was secretly planning to attack the pipelines in late
September.
·
For
what it’s worth, it sounds like European
governments strongly suspect that Moscow sabotaged the lines: “Five European officials with
direct knowledge of security discussions said there was a widespread assumption
that Russia was behind the incident. Only Russia had the motivation, the
submersible equipment and the capability, several of them said, though they
cautioned that they did not yet have direct evidence of Russia’s involvement.”
·
Among
the many reasons it is unlikely that President Biden would order covert action
to attack the infrastructure running to a NATO ally, leaking
natural gas is bad for the environment. Which government seems more likely to
take an action and not care about the impact on climate change: the Biden
administration or the Russian government run by Vladimir Putin?
·
National Review’s Mark Wright offers an astute analysis, examining the possibility that
this was a Russian shot across Europe’s bow: “Destroying Russian-owned
infrastructure in international waters wouldn’t be an attack on NATO countries
or NATO assets — with all the fallout that might entail — but could still be
seen as a capability demonstration and a threat to Western energy
infrastructure, such as to the major pipeline systems originating in Norway
that provide much of the U.K.’s and Western Europe’s remaining gas supplies.”
Maybe
this is a giant Russian middle finger to Germany and Europe. But it is one that
reduces the likelihood of a return to the status quo of European dependence
upon Russian energy for a long, long time, and in the process makes billions of
dollars of Gazprom expenditures worthless. There were a whole bunch of European
elites, in both the public and private sectors, who had staked their literal
and metaphorical fortunes on Russia’s being a long-term source for European
energy needs, and who were likely still holding out hope that within a year or
two, the war on Ukraine would end and the continent’s policies could start
creeping toward the pre-war status quo. Those hopes are now going glub-glub-glub.
One of
the fascinating responses to yesterday’s
Corner post was
the social–media fury at the notion that I could
possibly be chuckling over the damage — and
suspected sabotage — of natural-gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany.
The pipelines have already been damaged; how I react to the damage isn’t going
to change anything.
I don’t
have sources well-placed enough in the national-security community to know for
sure whether the U.S. did this. I wish I did, as it would be
good for book sales.
And in
the end, I’m just one (hopefully good) writer at one (very good) publication.
U.S.–Germany relations, U.S.–Russia relations, and Germany–Russia relations
will be shaped by forces much larger than me. What we see on social media is
solipsistic emotion-policing; how dare I feel about an event
differently than these folks.
European
dependence on Russia for energy was always a bad idea because of the character
and behavior of the regime in Moscow. No one worries
about Germany’s dependence on Kazakhstan or Norway for crude oil, or its dependence on Norway and
the Netherlands for natural gas. But the notion that greater economic
interdependence with Europe would tame Russia’s inclination toward geopolitical
aggression is a long-in-the-works proven failure, much the way that greater
U.S. economic interdependence with China has not tamed Beijing’s inclination
for geopolitical aggression.
European
dependence upon Russian energy sources is not a new concern. Presidents
Kennedy and Reagan opposed the construction of a new pipeline running from the
Soviet Union to Eastern Bloc satellite states.
Germany
chose to build pipelines instead of liquid-natural-gas terminals in its
ports, up until
recently: “Germany
does not have its own regasification terminals for LNG and imports enter
through neighboring countries’ terminals, especially Belgium and the
Netherlands. Germany also receives some LNG via road freight.” If your country
gets natural gas through sea terminals, you can import it from any of the ten or so
countries that are major LNG exporters. If, for some reason, your country has a
problem with the government of Qatar, it can reduce or stop imports from there and
increase imports from Australia or Malaysia. If your country builds a pipeline
to get natural gas, it’s dependent on the country where that pipeline starts.
The U.S.
warned Germany; the Germans didn’t listen. One of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline’s
biggest cheerleaders was former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and 17 days
after leaving office,
Schröder received a call from Vladimir Putin with a job offer to lead the
shareholder committee of Nord Stream, the Russian-controlled company in charge
of building the first undersea gas pipeline directly connecting Russia and
Germany. By 2017, Schröder had joined the board of the Russian oil company
Rosneft, and was making $600,000 per year. Over the years, his ties to Russian
energy companies have made Schröder millions of dollars.
This is
akin to former presidents Bush or Obama approving the Keystone XL pipeline and
then taking a job on the board of TC Energy Corporation — but even this
metaphor misses the moral dimension. We would need to imagine if the Canadian
oil giant was effectively run by and for a former KGB officer with an
abominable human-rights record.
In other
words, those pipelines running from Russia to Germany are a symbol of the
German government and its energy policies effectively being purchased by
Vladimir Putin.
And Schröder
doesn’t even feel bad about how things turned out:
In the interviews, Mr. Schröder, now 78, spoke with undiminished
swagger, cracking jokes but arguing in essence that, well, if he got rich, then
so did his country. When it came to Russian gas, everyone was on board, he
pointed out, mocking his detractors over copious amounts of white wine.
“They all went along with it for the last 30 years,” he said. “But
suddenly everyone knows better.”
Mr. Schröder scoffed at the notion of now distancing himself personally
from Mr. Putin, 69, whom he considers a friend and sees regularly, most
recently last month in an informal effort to help end the Ukraine war.
[As of April] Mr. Schröder refuses to resign from his board seats on
Russian energy companies, despite calls to do so from across the political
spectrum, not least from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a fellow Social Democrat, who
worked closely with Mr. Schröder when he was chancellor.
By May,
Schröder had resigned his seat on Rosneft’s board, but he still
has his lucrative position with Nord Stream. After everything Russia has done in the
invasion of Ukraine — after Bucha, the bombings of theaters and schools, the
shelling near nuclear-power plants, the bombing of the Babyn Yar Holocaust
memorial — Schröder still hasn’t seen anything that makes him say, “Sorry, I
can’t work with these guys any longer in good conscience.”
Are you
starting to see why I’m not all that torn up about those leaking underwater
pipelines? You might as well build a giant statue of Putin overlooking the
Brandenburg Gate.
Brace
yourselves for words you do not often read in this newsletter: Former
president Donald Trump got this issue 100 percent right, and he demonstrated considerable
foresight on the matter back in 2018:
One of them captured the amused reactions of the German delegation as
Trump said: “Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does
not immediately change course. Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed
to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign
powers.”
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas could be seen smirking alongside his
colleagues.
During a NATO summit in July, he took aim at the Germans for the same
reason, specifically singling out a planned
800-mile pipeline beneath
the Baltic Sea called Nord Stream 2. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is
captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,”
Trump told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, also speaking on camera at
the time. “We have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that’s
being paid to the country we’re supposed to be protecting you against.”
Angela Merkel responded, “I’ve experienced myself a part of Germany
controlled by the Soviet Union, and I’m very happy today that we are united in
freedom.”
Good
call, chancellor, good call. Way to nail that one.
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