Fullbore Friday
just a nice day on the water
What is overperformance?
What is producing billions of dollars - really tens to hundreds of billions of dollars - of effects for what was probably the investment of the equivalent of the travel budget for a US Joint Staff triple-digit J-code?
Assuming this report from Der Spiegel is correct, this is a good benchmark:
The Andromeda is a decrepit tub. The sides of the vessel are dented and scraped from too many adventuresome docking maneuvers while the porous pipes in the head exude a fecal stench. The 75 horsepower diesel engine rattles like a tractor and the entire boat creaks and groans as it ponderously changes course. The autopilot is broken. Other sailors hardly take any notice at all of the sloop: Just another worn charter vessel like so many others on the Baltic Sea.
The perfect yacht if you're looking to avoid attracting attention.
Who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline?
One hell of a team of professional, it appears.
Maybe this is just a cover story, maybe not. Either way …
Fullbore.
Read it all - if nothing else it is a great story.
Clancy....eat yer heart out
I've figured Ukraine from the get-go. They have the technical know-how. According to my son, who is a pipeline engineer, Ukraine has a university offering one of the few pipeline engineering degrees in Europe. (It may be the only one. The conversation took place a year ago, shortly after Nordstream got ventilated.) They have the motivation. They are the ones that benefit most from the pipelines being down (except for maybe Turkey). Ukraine has been pulling ballsy strikes the whole war.
It is a legitimate military act against a nation which is attacking them. (The gas might be going to Germany, but the pipeline is owned by the Russian government.) It is as legitimate as Britain cutting Germany's transatlantic cables at the beginning of WWI and WWII. Especially since it crippled Russia's ability to use withholding gas as economic blackmail.
Ukraine does not want to admit it now, but when the history of this war are written in 2050, my money is Ukraine will have turned out to have done it.