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      in World Politics

      Nord Stream 2: Leverage Against Russia?

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      Following the poisoning of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent from the Novichok group, the possibility of using Nord Stream 2 to put pressure on Russia has been widely discussed. Specifically, there are calls to abandon the project, to impose a moratorium or to block gas deliveries through the pipelines if the Kremlin refuses to assist investigations.

      The Nord Stream 2 Baltic gas pipeline is highly symbolic, embodying the willingness of Germany and other European partners to cooperate with Russia. Five European energy companies hold stakes in the project, which is led by Gazprom. It began in 2015 — one year after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea — and has been the target of unrelenting criticism ever since, initially concentrating on Moscow’s declared goal of bypassing Ukraine.

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      The German government recognizes the project’s economic benefits for consumers and the gas market and has backed it within the existing legal framework under the paradigm of keeping politics out of business. In order to cushion Ukraine’s losses, Berlin also backed a Russian-Ukrainian agreement guaranteeing Kyiv gas transit revenues for another five years. To keep its options for completing the pipeline open, Berlin blocked attempts by Brussels to assert control. That is now both a burden and an opportunity.

      Pressure From Washington

      Recent developments have been largely driven by the US, which has successively stepped up pressure to abandon the project. The American Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act has succeeded in stopping pipelaying since the end of 2019, and Congress has taken steps to make it impossible to resume the work. The US administration has also altered the guidance of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, threatening to penalize any entity or individual involved in construction since July 15, 2020.

      If construction is to resume, Berlin will have to act more proactively to counter the impact of Washington’s sanctions. On the one hand, it will be difficult to politically justify actively supporting the construction of Nord Stream 2, while on the other hand, Berlin must continue to reject and criticize such secondary sanctions as a matter of principle.

      Stopping Nord Stream 2 would be seismic. But what happens when the dust has settled? The government will have to make difficult choices. The following four aspects need to be considered.

      First, the immediate effect on the energy supply would be marginal. The project is neither — as so often asserted — a danger to European energy security, nor is it essential. Existing pipelines through Ukraine retain an annual capacity estimated at 100 to 120 billion cubic meters, with the Yamal-Europe pipeline through Poland and Belarus adding 33 billion cubic meters and Nord Stream 1 another 55 billion. There are also pipelines to Turkey and Finland. Together, these would easily cope with the peak volume of more than 190 billion cubic meters, which Gazprom supplied to Europe in 2017-18.

      Embed from Getty Images

      That means, conversely, that stopping Nord Stream 2 would not in the slightest reduce the volume of gas purchased from Gazprom. But this direct, efficient modern pipeline would reduce the risks of transit disruption and technical failure. Without it, Nord Stream 1 and its connecting pipelines become crucial.

      Second, indirect effects on the economy and energy supply are hard to estimate. Sunk costs in the Baltic would hurt Gazprom but would also be costly for European companies. Aside from the commercial repercussions, it should be remembered that Nord Stream 2 would improve the resilience of the European gas supply and that an expanded gas supply would benefit industry and consumers.

      The gas reserves on the Siberian Yamal Peninsula have already been developed, while the global LNG market can quickly tighten again. The “Energiewende” (green energy transition) will naturally reduce demand for natural gas, but the speed with which that occurs will also depend on an expansion of the power grid and a rapid, consistent transformation in heating and industry. Here, there is still much work to be done.

      Third, abandoning an economic infrastructure project for political reasons would represent a paradigm shift for Berlin. Major infrastructure projects undeniably have (geo)political implications, and other states do link business and politics in pursuit of national interests, too. That new geo-economic reality represents a challenge for Germany’s strategic sovereignty, also in the energy sphere.

      But that is precisely the point: Other states act in pursuit of their interests. For all the political fireworks, the project is a strategic asset for German commerce and industry. Germany and its EU partners would only be harming themselves if they stopped construction just to send a normative message to the Kremlin. Putin would probably interpret this as Germany simply caving to US pressure, further weakening the political signal

      Fourth, the normative justification raises questions: Is the situation really qualitatively new? Would earlier events not actually have offered more solid grounds? Here, we are confronted with an almost insoluble dilemma of the fossil-based energy system: We purchase oil and gas from authoritarian regimes every day. In that regard, the Energiewende has a geopolitical dividend.

      But make no mistake: Even a successful energy transition will rely on energy imports from these countries, and on the ability to reliably realize major infrastructure projects. The days of the special strategic energy partnership with Russia are over, but a functioning modus vivendi for trade and exchange with this big and resource-abundant neighbor remains essential. From that perspective, a moratorium would gain time for all involved. But the conditions for resumption would have to be clearly communicated, agreed with EU partners and implementable for Russia.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Russian hackers targeting US political campaigns ahead of elections, Microsoft warns

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      The same Russian military intelligence outfit that hacked the Democrats in 2016 has attempted similar intrusions into the computer systems of organizations involved in the 2020 elections, Microsoft said Thursday.Those efforts, which have targeted more than 200 organizations including political parties and consultants, appear to be part of a broader increase in targeting of US political campaigns and related groups, the company said.“What we’ve seen is consistent with previous attack patterns that not only target candidates and campaign staffers but also those who they consult on key issues,” Tom Burt, a Microsoft vice-president, said in a blogpost.Most of the infiltration attempts by Russian, Chinese and Iranian agents were halted by Microsoft security software and the targets notified, he said. The company would not comment on who may have been successfully hacked or the impact.Microsoft did not assess which foreign adversary poses the greater threat to the integrity of the November presidential election. The consensus among cybersecurity experts is that Russian interference is the gravest. Senior Trump administration officials have disputed that, though without offering any evidence.Intelligence officials have found that – as in 2016 – the Russian government is attempting to undermine the Democratic candidate and boost Donald Trump’s chances of winning. In 2016, actors working on behalf of the Russian government hacked email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and publicly released stolen files and emails. The Russian government also funded “troll farms” in St Petersburg where nationals pretending to be from the US would post misinformation online to sow unrest.“This is the actor from 2016, potentially conducting business as usual,” said John Hultquist, the director of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm FireEye. “We believe that Russian military intelligence continues to pose the greatest threat to the democratic process.”The subject of Russian interference has been an ongoing frustration for Trump, who has disputed the country’s meddling in the 2016 elections despite extensive evidence, calling it a “witch hunt”. Trump loyalists at the Department of Homeland Security have also manipulated and fabricated intelligence reports to downplay the threat of Russian interference, a whistleblower claimed on Wednesday.A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign said it takes cybersecurity threats “very seriously” and does not publicly comment on specific efforts it is making.“As President Trump’s re-election campaign, we are a large target, so it is not surprising to see malicious activity directed at the campaign or our staff,” she said. “We work closely with our partners, Microsoft and others, to mitigate these threats.”The attempted hacks come at a time when election security concerns are remarkably high, given that many people will be voting with mail-in ballots due to the Covid-19 pandemic. An international body in August called these “the most challenging” US election in recent decades.Campaigns are also at a heightened risk for hacking given that many employees are now working from home without heightened security measures that may exist on workplace computers, said Bob Stevens, the vice-president of mobile security firm Lookout.“Mobile devices now exist at the intersection of our work and personal lives,” he said. “Considering how reliant we are on them to support all aspects of our lives, bad actors have taken note.”The Microsoft revelations on Thursday show that Russian military intelligence continues to pursue election-related targets undeterred by US indictments, sanctions and other countermeasures, Hultquist said.Microsoft, which has visibility into these efforts because its software is both ubiquitous and highly rated for security, did not address whether US officials who manage elections or operate voting systems have been targeted by state-backed hackers this year. US intelligence officials say they have so far not seen no evidence of that. More

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      in World Politics

      Deconstructing the Powerful and Persistent Russiagate Meme

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      The frontier between legitimate political analysis and fake news in the US has never been easy to draw. Politicians and polemicists have attempted to impose the idea that only established corporate networks can be trusted to steer clear of fake news. Content on topics they consciously neglect to cover is written off as fake news.  

      Conversely, any idea, incident or minor fact — whether real or not — that appears to comfort officially approved talking points will easily be “confirmed” and employed as evidence to support the spoken or unspoken agenda of “respectable” media. Last week, American journalist Glenn Greenwald provided recent examples of the flagrant abuse of the notion of confirmation.

      As storytellers, politicians and media presenters prefer to suggest simple links between real (and sometimes imaginary) effects and their probable causes. They believe that readers and listeners prefer simple narratives that confirm existing beliefs. This is a founding principle of the culture of hyperreality that pervades political news in the US.

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      The public has begun to react. Increasingly, Americans realize that their news has become profoundly unreliable. A Pew survey published on August 31 revealed that 80% of Americans feel that the news is influenced by corporate and financial interests. Unfortunately, they lack the means and possibly also the curiosity to understand how that influence works.

      Russiagate, a prime example of news pushed by the Democrats and “designed” by the corporate media four years ago, is still in the headlines. Reduced to its simplest form — a correspondence of cause and effect — the message is patently absurd. It requires maintaining the belief that so long as the Russian government has access to the internet, elections in the US will never be able to produce reliable results. Because both the Russian government and the internet will continue to exist for decades to come, democracy in the US is officially dead.

      Some politicians, mainly Democrats, and their allied media outlets have an interest in promoting this belief. The New York Times has doggedly maintained a strategy of regularly presenting new evidence of activity by Russians with the aim of demonizing Russia as the unique source of content designed to undermine US democracy while conveniently ignoring all the others, including pervasive domestic tampering.

      The most recent example appears in an article with the title, “Russians Again Targeting Americans With Disinformation, Facebook and Twitter Say.” Its authors, Sheera Frenkel and Julian E. Barnes, have found new evidence that “in April, Facebook removed a Russian-backed operation in Ghana and Nigeria that was targeting Americans with divisive content.” Like Satan himself, Russia is everywhere.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Divisive content:

      Any news item that calls into question the unparalleled goodness of the US political and economic system promoted by its two major political parties and suggests that it may be legitimate to contest the status quo

      Contextual Note

      No rational being would doubt any of the following isolated facts:

      The internet is a global platform for communication and exchange
      People all over the world use internet tools called social media, especially Facebook and Twitter
      These two dominant platforms are US corporations
      Social media platforms thrive on participation from every corner of the globe
      The dominant platforms work within the tradition that sees freedom of expression as a political right derived from the US Constitution
      Freedom of expression opens the door to conspiracy theories, propaganda, fake news stories, deepfakes, doxing, stalking, cyberbullying, revenge porn, identity theft and other antisocial or criminal activities in the land of opportunity known as cyberspace
      None of the facts cited above is controversial or even debatable. But there are subtler ones that are often hidden from observers’ attention. For example, this one never mentioned by the media: The people of all other nations, including Russians, are interested in US politics not just because they are curious about how another population manages its affairs, but also because those affairs have a dramatic impact on their own lives.

      Embed from Getty Images

      American media and Democratic politicians appear to consider foreign interest in US politics a violation of America’s political space. They are right to condemn any action that interferes directly with electoral processes. But using the communication tools available to all is not interference. Americans should be the first to recognize these forms of expression as examples of a modern skillset created and promoted by their own culture: marketing. It’s a science in which anything that falls short of breaking specific laws is legitimate.

      Russian political leaders can express themselves in a variety of ways. So can the British, the Israelis, the Saudis or indeed any nation that cultivates explicit or subliminal marketing. Those leaders can use official government communication channels to proclaim policy and vision. They can pay for lobbyists in Washington. They can (and definitely do) use their intelligence networks to spread messages using legitimate and devious means. They can also simply encourage enterprising private citizens to further their explicit or implicit aims.

      Random citizens of all nationalities — moved either by curiosity, personal concern, financial interest or loyalty to a government they identify with — can do the same thing. Individual Americans have done so in Hong Kong without necessarily being piloted by the CIA. This inevitably happens so long as freedom is not totally suppressed.

      Those who represent established interests may deem this “divisive.” But it cannot reasonably be called manipulation of democracy or interference in electoral processes. The current global system of the internet is dominated by impressively wealthy private interests whose strategy is to encourage and reward any form of successful influence. The worm is at the core of the apple, not on its surface.

      The Times article demonstrates the absurdity of its Russiagate campaign. Frenkel and Barnes write: “Researchers are also concerned about homegrown disinformation campaigns, and the latest Russian effort went to some lengths to appear like it was made in the United States. In addition to hiring American journalists and encouraging them to write in their own voices, the Peace Data website mixed pop culture, politics and activism to appeal to a young audience.”

      The evil Russians are simply paying talented Americans banished from the mainstream by corporate money to speak in total sincerity. What could be more American? The Supreme Court established that “money is speech.” Russiagate is a predictable consequence of a system designed to reward anyone with cash to pay for content.

      Historical Note

      The media have begun constructing their preferred history of the latest Russian felon, a website called Peace Data. Defending the corporate monopoly on the news, The New York Times describes Peace Data as an example of “a more covert and potentially dangerous effort by Moscow” that uses “allies and operatives to place articles, including disinformation, into various fringe websites.”

      The Times cites the testimony of one of Peace Data’s American authors, who explains that the website simply asked him to express his views as someone who “had frequently challenged whether Mr. [Joe] Biden represented the progressive values of the Democratic Party.” Can allowing Americans to express themselves be called manipulating electoral processes?

      The funding of the website has been traced to Russia. But if the Russians didn’t create or even significantly edit the content, the fact that it is “divisive” simply reflects real divisions within US society. The source of division is none other than Biden’s policies, which many Americans banned from the corporate media happen to disagree with.

      It should be noted that any publication is likely to run some form of disinformation. The Times itself does so consistently, never more egregiously than in its push to invade Iraq in 2003. Its Russiagate coverage for the past four years has simply maintained a longstanding tradition.

      The seasoned journalist Joe Lauria deconstructs the Peace Data story in an article for Consortium News. Describing a website that “failed to gain significant traction,” he scoffs at “what the FBI calls a threat to American democracy.” In contrast, The Daily Beast decided to play the Russiagate game. Its article with the title, “She Was Tricked by Russian Trolls—and It Derailed Her Life” tells the story of a Peace Data author, Jacinda Chan. Only at the end of the piece do we learn that the supposed victim, a talented disabled woman, not only bears no grudge but rejects the Russiagate paranoia The Daily Beast is promoting: “To this day, Chan says she still doesn’t believe Facebook and the FBI’s investigations that show Peace Data was a front for Russia’s troll factory.”

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More