My Take | Don’t be too harsh on Seymour Hersh and his Nord Stream bombing theory
- Acclaimed investigative reporter believes the US blew up Baltic gas pipelines, but unlike some of his past revelations there is no smoking gun
Americans took out the Nord Stream pipelines in a military operation that amounted to an act of war against Russia. Or so according to the latest bombshell dropped by famed US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Not only that, but if what he claims is true, Washington did so with the full knowledge and active cooperation of the Norwegian government, another member of Nato.
The United States does have the means and the motive to destroy the whole Nord Stream project that had, until recently, supplied Russian natural gas to Germany and the rest of Europe. But, and this is a big but, Hersh fails to provide the smoking gun. For all its sensational claims, the story doesn’t provide much that is new or useful, as people like yours truly have always thought the Americans had every reason to do it; we just don’t have proof. Call me prejudiced.
Even so, the Hersh piece is still worth reading because it provides a cogent explanation of the importance of the Nord Stream pipelines in the context of the war in Ukraine.
Bombshell
Cheap natural gas had helped fill the Russian state coffers and fuelled the German industrial and business boom in the past two decades. Germany, the most powerful country in Europe, therefore threatened to be the weak link in the Western “united front” being put together by Washington and Nato against the Russians in Ukraine.