Sabotaging Your Own Pipelines Is Absurdly Easy
Sabotaging Your Own Pipelines Is Absurdly Easy
Occam's razor and Nord Stream
Someone on the Russian end of the Nord Stream pipeleines put bombs into “pigs,” or scrapers, sent them halfway under the Baltic Sea, and detonated them.
This one-sentence explanation for the disaster elegantly lines up with the available facts. Danish officials first noticed a drop in pressure in the Nord Stream 2 line on Monday and then Nord Stream 1 a short time later. Swedish seismologists say there were three explosions and now there are three leaks. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
The simplest explanation for pipelines exploding under the Baltic Sea is the most likely. Alternative explanations that are more complex will also be less plausible. The more coincidences and conveniences a scenario assumes, the more unlikely it becomes. This principle of logic is known as Occam’s razor.
For example, a nefarious plot by western powers would require a secret submersible mission to reach the Nord Stream pipelines and set up demolition charges. Too many coincidences and conveniences are assumed under this scenario.
Whereas the first scenario requires a very small trust circle and has technical advantages for secrecy, another actor would require a much larger number of people to execute the mission, and they would be operating in the middle of a busy shipping lane. Secrecy would be very difficult to achieve and harder to sustain.
Any warship in the area would be seen, and the only warships seen in the area recently were Russian. No one had seen a civilian deepwater operations vessel in the vicinity, either.
Since this happened on Monday, a surprising number of people have asked me about motives rather than responsibility. Why, they ask, would Putin do such a thing?
First, note that Vladimir Putin is turning up the literal temperature. Methane is a global warming gas many times worse than carbon dioxide. Climate-minded Europeans are keenly aware of that.
Add it to the list of emergencies Putin has created in hopes of alarming Europe so they will force Ukraine to settle on his terms: Zapporizhzhia, the grain crisis, the nuclear saber-rattling, now this.
His motives are easily explained. What motive would someone else have? This is where the conspiracy theories lose coherency and turn into a generalized anti-American, anti-western, anti-capitalist mush of magical thinking.
Putin wants everyone afraid because he is afraid. “I’m not bluffing,” he says. But he’s a gambler. When he says he isn’t bluffing, that’s the tell that he’s bluffing. Gamblers always double down, even when the chips are down.
Moreover, this is the mafia state at its purest. A mob boss knows what to do with those who refuse his protection.
Russia spent decades building up a trust relationship with the west to sell their oil and gas through pipelines and secure a long-term financial future. Putin has burned those metaphorical bridges. Europe won’t give in to Nord Stream blackmail, so it’s just a pity that something has happened to it. Cruelty and spite are exactly the point.
Within Russia, the fear and uncertainty of this event serve to stir a demobilized population in a state of mobilization. Russians are conditioned to docility, but even sheep have to be herded.
Men are told the damage was an act of western sabotage before they are put on a bus for a three-day ride to Ukraine, with stops to receive uniforms and get drunk before dying or surrendering. Aware their infrastructure could be destroyed at any moment, companies cooperate.
Of course Russia “won’t rule out sabotage,” so that the word “sabotage” just hangs there in the air. Moscow pretends the event is mysterious. It must be the work of someone else, some unknown party that is hostile to Russia. You know. Them.
Believe nothing until the Kremlin denies it, or until a sudden cacaphony of goobers and tankies and vatniks and Kim Dotcoms reflexively denies it on Twitter.
Sabotage? Sure, but someone else did it. Because? Reasons. Proof? The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, to quote Gin Blossom. And so on. Modern parlance has the term “gaslighting” to describe this toxic sophistry. Given the circumstances, it is appropriate here.
Russia apologists are not pointing to any specific thing here as an alternative explanation. Rather, they question everything and insist that everyone should believe whatever they want.
Squishy beliefs are the best kind, for they encourage magical thinking. The spaces devoid of facts can be filled with demons.
Europe is calling this a deliberate act by Russia because it is a deliberate act by Russia. Believe it. The evidence lies in plain sight. We can trust our own eyes.