[This article was originally published on Sept. 26, 2021, however, in light of the new developments it is worth a review. Several gas leaks in the pipelines of both Nord Stream 1 & 2 have been reported over the past day or so. It is acknowledged that they are a result of sabotage, and of course, there is immediate finger pointing at Russia. The damage done to both Nord Stream 1 & 2 will render both pipelines unable to function for likely over a year, making energy supplies for Europe this winter looking quite grim. However, the question we should ask ourselves is “who really stands to benefit from sabotaging these two critical gas lines?” The United States has been clearly against Nord Stream 1 & 2, from the very beginning, with President Biden going so far as to threaten Germany, that the United States had its ways of ensuring Nord Stream 2 would never come online, such as in reports like this one “Biden says Nord Stream 2 won’t go forward if Russia invades Ukraine, but German Chancellor demurs” where Biden stated at a joint press conference with Scholz, in February, 2021 “If Russia invades [Ukraine]…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2…We will bring an end to it.”
“But how will you do that exactly, since the project and control of the project is within Germany’s control?” asked Reuters
“We will, I promise you, we’ll be able to do it,” Biden replied.
This is the sort of typical threat the United States has been delivering consistently, and yet when the pipelines are actually rendered incapacitated due to sabotage, everyone blames Russia? People need to ask themselves, if the United States clearly desired such a situation as this to occur, which will create a humanitarian disaster in Europe the likes they have not seen since the dark days of WWII, what was the expectation of the United States all along? In other words, the United States is on record having stated multiple times that this is the outcome it wished to occur, and now that there is no hope of these gas lines being used during this winter, only now do people realize what this means for European lives?!? That countless Europeans are going to die this winter because of this? It doesn’t make sense does it? And now the U.S. and NATO are going to paint this as something unfortunate and that it was the Russians who clearly did it because it is the Russians who wanted to see Europeans suffer, when in fact it was the Russians who were trying to supply those energy needs?! Well, how do we justify the American resistance to Nord Stream 1 & 2 to begin with then? And how do we justify that this is exactly what the United States was not only calling for, but threatened would occur, that Nord Stream 2 would never be permitted to go online, or as Biden put it “we will bring an end to it.” Curious as well, how Germany escalated its rate of remaining nuclear reactor shutdown this past year, except for about three, which are scheduled to be shutdown by the end of this year. See my paper “The EU’s ‘Fit for 55,’ ‘Farm to Fork’ and the Cancelation of Nord Stream: A Mass Sacrifice to the Gods?” for more on this. Does this energy disaster not seem like the very opposite of an accident but rather a conscious decision?
The reason why Germany is being brought down to its knees is because it has been forbidden to join in an economic participation with Russia, for if Germany is in a situation where it can choose this destiny for itself, it will upset the entire world order that the Davos crowd has been envisioning and to which there is presently a great deal of panic over since their size of the pie has been rapidly shrinking. Perhaps they think if they blow the bridge they can have their remaining piece of the world island…]
As Pepe Escobar eloquently put it in his essay “Requiem for an Empire: A Prequel,” the days of clueless cold warriors dreaming of a Germany-Japan axis, and Washington’s opportunity to erect itself as Supreme World Paradigm saviour of the “free world,” or the unilateral 1990s basking in the tawdry “end of history” celebrations while “toxic neocons, gestated in the inter-war period via the gnostic cabal of New York Trotskyism, plotted their power takeover.”
Escobar rightly assesses that “today, it is…the specter of a Russia-China-Germany entente that terrorizes the Hegemon as the Eurasian trio capable of sending American global domination to the dustbin of History.”
Escobar writes:
“The key players in the Heartland have clearly seen through the imperial propaganda fog; it will be a long and winding road, but the horizon will eventually unveil a Germany-Russia-China-Iran alliance rebalancing the global chessboard.
This is the ultimate Imperial Night of the Living Dead nightmare – hence these lowly American emissaries frantically scurrying around multiple latitudes trying to keep the satrapies in line.”
Indeed, frantic scurrying is most chaotically afoot.
In light of this, the strange death of Germany’s Ambassador to China and top Merkel advisor Jan Hecker on Sept 5, 2021, two weeks after taking the Beijing post, along with Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier’s strange hospitalisation the day after, is cause for concern.
As reported by China News:
“Hecker’s appointment as Berlin’s envoy to China – amid simmering bilateral tensions over human rights and the South China Sea – was regarded by foreign affairs observers as a move by Merkel to stabilise and continue her approach of engagement with China, on the eve of her departure after 16 years as chancellor.
Germany will hold elections on September 26 to decide Merkel’s successor and observers have warned of turbulence ahead in China-German relations.”
Details as to the cause of Jan Hecker’s death have yet to be released to the public.
Thomas Schäfer, who was Germany’s Minister of Finance in Hesse for ten years, also had a strange death on March 28th, 2020, said to be suicide, the popular and highly dubious line being that he could not handle what would be the financial stress on Germany in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is unclear how this line was justifiably attributed to his death and not just convenient gossip. His body was found next to the Cologne-Frankfurt high speed rail, police “speculated” that he had killed himself. Call it a hunch…
In addition, the day after Ambassador Hecker’s death, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier was admitted to a Berlin hospital, Sept 6, 2021, after a dinner where guests reportedly said he felt unwell and had difficulty finding words.
News agency DPA reported he was at a dinner meeting of the Bundestag’s economic committee at a Berlin hotel, when he suddenly required emergency medical attention and was transported to the hospital for a yet to be known reason.
On Jan 25th, 2021, Altmaier was criticised by some over the EU’s investment deal with China, and whether Germany should have waited until after Biden’s inauguration. In a CNBC interview he was posed the question of whether this was a “tactical mistake,” or “awkward timing” on the part of Germany, to which Altmaier responded:
“I think it was not a mistake because we have signed [something]… in large part…arrangements the U.S. already have with China. It is about creating a level playing field. So I am very optimistic that we can develop and negotiate and sign more similar agreements worldwide, as the U.S. will also follow this path in their negotiations with other countries worldwide.”
Altmaier also says in the same interview:
“We realised that green hydrogen is the missing link of energy transition in most of the industrialised countries. We will have to import it from other countries. So if we could organise an international green hydrogen infrastructure, where it is produced in countries with lots of sunshine and winds, where it is shipped to other countries…then it could have a very stimulating effect to the world economy.”
Green hydrogen is extracted from water using electrolysis powered by renewable energy. This type of hydrogen production is cleaner than extracting it from coal or natural gas.
China’s region of Inner Mongolia has approved a massive power project that will use solar and wind to produce green hydrogen. Inner Mongolia’s Energy Administration has given the go ahead to a cluster of plants in the cities of Ordos and Baotou that will use 1.85 gigawatts of solar and 370 megawatts of wind to produce 66,900 tons of green hydrogen a year, the Hydrogen Energy Industry Promotion Association said in a report.
In addition, Europe’s biggest utility Enel (ENEI.MI) is looking to develop a green hydrogen project in Russia as part of plans to expand its renewable energy business in the country according to Enel’s Head of Europe, Simone Mori.
Russia, rich in oil and gas, is seeking to have a share of up to 20% of the global hydrogen market.
Germany also got its way with Nord Stream 2, to which the United States was heavily mobilising against, which is expected to transport from Russia to Germany double the capacity of the original Nord Stream, a total of 110 billion m^3, fuel that Germany desperately needs to maintain its people’s livelihood and economy.
However, Germany’s strained relation with the Anglo-American power is nothing new.
On Jan. 14th, 1963, President of France de Gaulle declared at a press conference that he had vetoed British entry into the Common Market. This would be the first move towards France and West Germany’s formation of the European Monetary System (EMS), which excluded Great Britain.
On Jan 22nd, 1963, the Franco-German Treaty (also known as the ÉlyséeTreaty) was signed by West Germany Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, which had enormous implications. Franco-German relations, which had long been dominated by centuries of rivalry, had now agreed that their fates were aligned in their opposition to the Anglo-American Empire. (This close relationship was continued to a climactic point in the late 1970s, with the formation of the EMS, and France and West Germany’s willingness in 1977 to work with OPEC countries trading oil for nuclear technology, Iran being a central player, which was sabotaged by the U.S.-Britain alliance.)
It was understood at the time by West Germany and France, that the Carter Administration’s insistent demands that western Europe and Japan invoke economic sanctions against Iran was like asking them to cut their own throats. Yet, the raised political tensions succeeded in breaking apart the economic alliances and the slow blood-letting of Europe commenced. For more on this refer to my paper.
The Élysée Treaty was a clear denunciation of the Anglo-American forceful overseeing that had overtaken Western Europe since the end of WWII.
As Germany moves ever closer to the Russian-Chinese’s multipolarism, will it succeed in avoiding the last squeeze from the Anglo-American Empire’s death grip?
Cynthia Chung is the President of the Rising Tide Foundation and a writer at Strategic Culture Foundation, consider supporting her work by making a donation and subscribing to her substack page for free. This article was originally published by Strategic Culture Foundation.