Back in those times, there were fewer companies, the economies were less diversified, and the big companies had a lot more national importance through their GDP slice and employment numbers.
These days, I believe that the largest contributor to the US GDP is probably Apple and I don’t think the government is likely to attack anyone just because Tim Cook asked them to.
In the UK, the largest industry is “wholesale and retail trade” at 11% of the economy so, while Shell and BP are fairly large companies, oil still only contributes 3% of the value of the country.
I’m sure that a company like Samsung has some pretty hefty sway in South Korea. The Zaibatsu companies in Japan produce every type of product so, even though the array of products that they produce is widely varied, they only have a few corporations. In places like that, I might see some influence over the local government. In the US and the UK, I don’t know that it’s still worth considering.
It seems to me that if we are going to go down the path of non-government shenanigans, the obvious suspects would be people in the green movement. They’ve been known to attack the oil and gas infrastructure before. There are a large number of greens who oppose oil and gas pipelines. If they are willing to derail trains, set up blockades and spike trees for environmental purposes they’d certainly be willing to sabotage a pipeline - especially if the side benefit is hurting Putin.
Perhaps someone is worried that Europe is going to get off the renewables train in favor of natural gas, and they decided to throw a wrench into that.
It was apparently only 300 ft down. Anyone could do it. A technical diver, or as mentioned above someone with a bomb and a camera and 300’ of cable to lower it.
Or, you could use a cheap underwater ROV. ‘Cheap’ by organization standards. A few thousand bucks.
$16,000, ready to go. They have lesser models down to $6500. Any of them could do the job. That’s easily affordable by any number of groups, or even individuals. Put a 1 kg shaped charge on the bottom of it, land it on top of the pipeline, and boom.
I’m sure there are many such options out there. For that matter, such an ROV would not be hard to build for an advanced hobbyist. Or heck, this $1700 amazon ROV could probably do it:
That was during the Reagan administration. As the story goes, the pipeline explosion was coupled with George HW Bush (who had connections in Saudi Arabia from his CIA days) convincing the Saudis to pump more oil to drive the price down. Gas and oil even then were a huge part of the Soviet Union’s income. It was part of a coordinated campaign to stress the Soviet Union financially, militarily and morally to break them.
It’s probably also one reason why the Saudis have gotten so much slack from America for their human rights abuses.
Politico writes the Western line to take is it was the Russians:
And the EU declares that whoever it was will face sanctions, which they would not dare to impose on the USA. (link in German, suppose it can be found in other languages or translated with Deepl(dot)com) The statement was repeated by the President of the Commission, Ms Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Council of the EU, Mr. Charles Michel, and the High Representative of the External Action Service, Mr. Josep Borrell.
The green movement opposes pipelines because of the risk of environmental damage. Methane gas is the worst greenhouse gas (if not the worst), AFAIK.
Damaging a pipeline, causing massive venting of methane gas, would be directly opposed to what environmentalists want. None of them would cause an oil spill or a gas leak in order to oppose oil spills or gas leaks.
It is maybe arguable that they could access diving equipment or remote cameras. It is not arguable that the green movement had access to 300kg of high explosive.
The most harmless possibility would be IMHO some rich maverick with almighty fantasies. I hope it was Elon Musk, I haven’t heard anything stupid from him for two weeks or so. It is highly improbable, I know, but it would be the best option I can think of right now. Peter Thiel would be even better.
There is one angle that makes me suspect Russia is the only actor who could rationally have decided on it: the significant risk of such an operation being found out, beforehand, during or after
A corporation or nonprofit is caught red handed: That entity is history; a non-profit’s goals would be disavoved by a lot of people; the persons involved get double digit prison terms; severe damage to reputation of investors/backers.
A state party other than Russia is caught red handed: Relations of that state party with Germany (as well as with other Western European countries feeling the gas squeeze) are shattered. In the case of Ukraine being caught red handed public opinion would press the German government to immediately stop any support to Ukraine and show the 1.1 million Ukrainian refugees in Germany the door.
Russia is caught red handed: That would be received with shrugs all round. Nobody’s attitude towards Russia gets changed. After all we know Russia has for years sent assassins to Western Europe, attacked IT infrastructure, and has not even bothered to be subtle about it.
Another point: It’s hard to discern a rational Russian motive in this act, but this year has witnessed Russia repeatedly attempting to destabilize Europe – even to the point of significant self-harm.
I think that the “internal rival” angle and the “false flag for escalation” angle, when combined, seem a plausible enough motive given Putin’s implausible previous acts. Whoever would benefit from the gas line being intact is hurt, and as a bonus you have an excuse in case you want to expand the war. Which isn’t to say that Russia did it, but it’s more plausible than all other actors combined. I don’t know enough about pipelines to be sure if sabotage or accident are more plausible.
If I had to bet I would say it was the US, the UK, Germany itself (in “burning the ships” gesture) or some other pro-Ukraine party, Russia had nothing to gain from sabotaging the pipeline, it takes away a very useful negotiation tool.
Taking away that negotiation tool on the other hand is in the interest of the aforementioned pro-Ukraine parties.
