On the menu today: As natural gas continues to leak from the Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany, European officials increasingly suspect Moscow took action to sabotage the lines. As the preeminent symbol of German and European dependence upon Russian energy supplies — a trend that American presidents going back to John F. Kennedy opposed — this is the result of former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder effectively selling out his country’s energy policies to Vladimir Putin. Finally, we’ve got to give credit where it’s due: Former president Donald Trump had this issue nailed, and when he warned the Germans, they just scoffed and dismissed him.
The Upside of Nord Stream Failing
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?
- Our 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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