By Malcom Kyeyune, UnHerd, 8/21/24

To understand the truth about the Nord Stream pipeline, one needs to master a certain form of “Kremlinology”. Everything about it is designed to obfuscate, every strand shrouded in prevarication and deceit.

From the start, the investigation was a textbook cover-up. The Swedish government rushed to secure evidence, citing their putative rights under international law, consciously boxing out any sort of independent, UN-backed inspection. Of course, after gathering all the evidence, the Swedish authorities studiously did exactly nothing, only to then belatedly admit that it actually had no legal right to monopolise the information in the first place.

The Germans, for their part, were also supremely uninterested in figuring out who pulled off the worst act of industrial sabotage in living memory against their country. In fact, over the course of a year-long non-investigation, we’ve mostly been treated to leaks and off-the-record statements indicating that nobody really wants to know who blew up the pipeline. The rationale here is bluntly obvious: it would be awfully inconvenient if Germany, and the West, learned the true answer.

Thus, the recent revelation that the true mastermind behind the ongoing deindustrialisation of Germany was none other than a Ukrainian by the name of “Volodymyr Z.” must have come as an unwelcome surprise. For not only is the idea that the authorities have suddenly cracked open the Nord Stream case not credible in the slightest, but the sloppy way in which the entire country of Ukraine is now being fingered is likely not an accident. Indeed, at the same time as the ghost of Nord Stream has risen from the grave, the German government announced its plans to halve its budget for Ukraine aid: whatever is already in the pipeline will be sent over, but no new grants of equipment are forthcoming. The German government is hunkering down for increased austerity, and so it is cutting Ukraine loose.

Germany, of course, is hardly alone. Even if there were enough money to go around, Europe is increasingly not just deindustrialising but demilitarising. Its stores of ammunition and vehicles are increasingly empty, and the idea of military rearmament — that is, creating entirely new military factories and supply chains — at a time when factories are closing down across the continent due to energy shortages and lack of funding is a non-starter. Neither France, the United Kingdom nor even the United States are in a position to maintain the flow of arms to Ukraine. This is a particular concern inside Washington DC, where planners are now trying to juggle the prospect of managing three theatres of war at the same time — in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Pacific — even though US military production is arguably insufficient to comfortably handle one.

And so, in an effort to save face in this impossible situation, Ukraine is now being held solely responsible for doing something it either did not do at all, or only did with the permission, knowledge, and/or support of the broader West. This speaks to the adolescent dynamic that now governs Western foreign policy in a multipolar world: when our impotence is revealed, find someone to blame.

The war in Ukraine, after all, was already supposed to be won, and Russia was supposed to be a rickety gas station incapable of matching the West either economically or militarily. Yet here we are: our own economies are deindustrialising, our military factories have proven completely incapable of handling the strain of a real conflict, and the Americans themselves are now openly admitting that the Russian military remains in a significantly stronger position. Meanwhile, Germany’s economic model is broken, and as its economy falls, it will drag many countries such as Sweden with it, given how dependent they are on exporting to German industrial firms.

10 years ago, during the 2014 Maidan protests, the realist John Mearsheimer caused a lot of controversy when he began warning that the collective West was leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and that our actions would lead to the destruction of the country. Well, here we are. At present, our only saving grace is the continuing offensive in Kursk — a bold offensive that will surely be remembered as a symptom of Ukraine’s increasing desperation.

Indeed, a far better guide of things to come can be found in the fingering of “Volodymyr Z.” as the true culprit behind the Nord Stream sabotage. Here, rather than accept responsibility for the fact that Ukraine was goaded into a war it could not win — mainly because the West vastly overestimated its own ability to fight a real war over the long haul — European geopolitical discourse will take a sharp turn towards a peculiar sort of victim-blaming. No doubt it will be “discovered” that parts of Ukraine’s military consisted of very unsavoury characters waving around Nazi Germany-style emblems, just as it will be “discovered” that journalists have been persecuted by oligarchs and criminals in Kyiv, or that money given by the West has been stolen, and that arms sent have been sold for profit to criminal cartels around the world.

All of these developments will duly be “discovered” by a Western political class that will completely refuse to accept any responsibility for them. Far easier, it seems, to calm one’s nerves with a distorting myth: it’s the Ukrainians’ fault that their country is destroyed; our choices had nothing to do with it; and besides, they were bad people who tricked us!