Let’s suppose Putin is worried about defectors in his ranks who may be incentivized to take over in order to turn on the pipeline. In that case, couldn’t Putin remove the incentive by turning it on himself? And wouldn’t that be a strictly better option for him than destroying it?
No? At least, not anymore. Not only do I think he doesn’t want to do so for ideological reasons, it would make him look weak to change his mind about this in the absence of any policy concessions from the west, and having the pipeline off is probably domestically popular among regular citizens. His replacement two years from now can say, “this whole war was disastrous; Putin has put ideals ahead of national interest”, because he’s not putin and didn’t start the war. But for Putin, any outcome of the conflict that isn’t winning or turning Russia into ashes trying to do so is going to be read as an ideological concession to insiders that he cannot afford to be seen making.
(I’m willing to bet at 50:50 odds that America didn’t do it, up to 1k, btw)
No? At least, not anymore. Not only do I think he doesn’t want to do so for ideological reasons, it would make him look weak to change his mind about this in the absence of any policy concessions from the west, and having the pipeline off is probably domestically popular among regular citizens. His replacement two years from now can say, “this whole war was disastrous; Putin has put ideals ahead of national interest”, because he’s not putin and didn’t start the war. But for Putin, any outcome of the conflict that isn’t winning or turning Russia into ashes trying to do so is going to be read as an ideological concession to insiders that he cannot afford to be seen making.
(I’m willing to bet at 50:50 odds that America didn’t do it, up to 1k, btw)