The Nord Stream Question – USA Gov Policy

Unlike a chameleon whose eyes can rotate 360 degrees to view the whole landscape around it simultaneously, human vision tends to focus our interest on the dangers immediately in front of us. The result is that while we are paying close and careful attention to an imminent security threat, we often overlook other significant factors operating on the sidelines or relegate that data to a secondary status to be dealt with at a later date. While it is true that Putin’s Russia stands immediately in front of our path and under our careful watch, it isn’t sufficient to view Moscow’s actions in isolation.

Russia is Waltzing along the sidelines with China and other adversarial nations who would benefit greatly from seeing the United States preoccupied and struggling with its international security environment. Kenneth Waltz, who published his seminal work Theory of International Politics the same year the US normalized relations with China, would argue that while the international world is composed of a system-wide structure of states we can analyze, we also need to consider the interacting units. Developments in the Nord Stream Two pipeline project may be on the sidelines as the world deals head on with the impact of Covid, Chinese aggression, cyber threats and other security-related issues, but pipeline issues and their impact in the Ukraine and the rest of Europe should not be ignored.

In a July 15 European General Court landmark decision concerning the Nord Stream Two pipeline, Germany lost its appeal to stop Gazprom’s unrestricted use of onshore OPAL (Ostsee-Pipeline-Anbingdungsleitung). This judgment, which now becomes the new cornerstone standard, gives us cause to revisit how energy decisions are made among the European Union (EU) states, Russia, and the United States, and their implications for future Russian natural gas projects on the European continent. This year the European Court went even further than its earlier ruling stating that the principle of energy security solidarity is binding on all institutions and bodies of the EU.

Russian energy may now flow more freely to Eastern and Central Europe, but now the Ukraine and some West European states face the potential of a major gas shortage this winter. According to the Jamestown Foundation, European gas storage remains at under 60% capacity. Celsius Energy reports it is not expected to exceed 79% by the end of November. Gasprom-controlled underground storage facilities in Germany currently are at 13% and in Austria at only slightly higher at 14%. Gas prices have more than doubled from the typical high wintertime pricing.

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With the world looking in other directions, Biden lifted the US’ opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and Putin won his golden victory. Russia gets to supply Europe as its wishes; Ukraine will lose about $3 billion in gas transit fees; and Moscow will have geopolitical protection for gas transiting Europe via its territory, according to Paul Gregory, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. As compensation Putin has offered the Ukraine between $50-$70 million in investment monies to offset the purchase cost of fewer than 100 windmills to produce green energy for Ukraine’s domestic use.

Biden called his move to lift sanctions a goodwill gesture to improve German-American relations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls her nation’s energy moves a purely commercial undertaking. From the Ukraine’s perspective, these side deals bolster Russia, deliver empty promises of energy security from Merkel, and are a betrayal by Washington. No one dares address what will occur this winter if Russia’s Gasprom develops “maintenance problems” in its supply line of energy going to the Ukraine. Already deliveries to that country are down by 50% this year. If Putin decides to annex additional territory, what nation will be willing to risk losing their monopolized, Russian energy supply? Putin, in addition to Ukraine, already has weaponized energy against the Baltic states and Eastern Europe. While the West keeps a watchful eye on China and the Middle East, Putin is running unimpeded down the sidelines, apparently, out of our line of sight. It may be a chilly winter in parts of Europe this year.

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Thursday, she presents key updates on Russia.

Photo: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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