Thread by @TrentTelenko

This is an interesting thread looking into the "Who done it" of the NS-1 & NS-2 sabotage & some game theory on the suspects.

I'm going to highlight one the tweets from the thread to reintroduce the "Irrational Regime Hypothesis"🧵 as an explanation for the behaviors

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https://twitter.com/EmmaMAshford/status/1575137413340561411

...you are seeing from Putin's Russia.

@EmmaMAshford makes an extremely astute point that modern political science and foreign policy academics have not been particularly...umm...call it 'reality based' vis a' vis the foreign policy of Putin's Russia.
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https://twitter.com/EmmaMAshford/status/1575139746107596802

I don't hold this against those academics for acting in their own interests in avoiding sticking their necks out & getting chopped for being right.

First, I lived 33 years inside the iron rice bowl of US military procurement.

Upton Sinclair had the line describing both
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...place's incentives.

Which takes us all to the "Irrational Regime Hypothesis" that templates & describes the behaviors of regimes/institutions with no clear line of succession whose leadership factions vie for power by telling the 'Guy in Charge'

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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1509349920913907727

...what he wants to hear regardless of objective reality to gain power at the expense of other power factions.

I laid out the concept in March 2022 & pointed out Foreign Policy Academics gave me the hypothesis.

5/

https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1509349923237552133

The "Irrational Regime Hypothesis" thread was to be both a descriptive then and a marker against future events, like the bombing of the NS-1 & NS-2 pipelines.

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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1509349925162823682

I laid out example of several regimes who fit the "Irrational Regime Hypothesis" and its origins in the early 2000's in the comments sections of foreign policy related social media blogs.

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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1509349938320359424

I believe @EmmaMAshford is correct that the most likely suspect for the NS-1 & NS-2 bombings is Russia, but not for game theory reasons, but rather for reasons of Means, Motives and Opportunity.

The "Irrational Regime Hypothesis" explains the motive.
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With all due respect to people like OSINT people like @CovertShores, divers, mini-subs and remotely operated vehicles are simply too risky for this sort of thing.

Pipeline logistics 101 explains both the means & opportunity.

BLUF: Every pipeline has pumping (liquid) or
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...compression stations (gas) every so often to keep product moving and never stop moving.

To do maintenance on pipelines you have hatches where you can insert maintenance equipment called 'pipeline pigs' that do it.
See photos & link:
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corrosionpedia.com/the-ultimate-g…

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Pigs move with the product flow disrupting product delivery as little as possible depending on the type.

If you are going to blow an undersea pipeline, putting an explosive in a pipeline pig is low risk.

This takes us to the next point regarding compressor stations for
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...undersea natural gas pipelines.

The best of them are long lead item capitol equipment from the western energy industrial sector.

My guess is the simultaneous explosions six kilometers apart on both NS-1 & NS-2 pipelines bracketed a compressor stations in each one.

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The best & highest pressure under sea compressor stations are spaced at 536 km (333 miles) apart while the low pressure compressor stations are spaced at 322 km (200-mile) in the case study I found. (Link)

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jmcampbell.com/tip-of-the-mon…

Whatever kind of compressor stations the NS-1 & NS-2 pipelines used.

They had the Baltic Sea compress a six kilometer long pipeline volume of ignited natural gas onto these stations, destroying them utterly.

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Thus, there is no way either pipeline will ever be used again without the Western sanctions on the Russian energy sector being lifted to replace the undersea natural gas pipeline compressor stations for NS-1 & NS-2.

Thus putting Germany on-side with Russia to lift them ASAP.
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This is the sort of "Cunning but stupid" move that irrational regimes do.

It reminds me of nothing so much as the African-American Sheriff in the movie Blazing Saddles taking himself hostage to get away from racist town folks
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imdb.com/title/tt007123…

...who were going to shoot him for being an African-American. (Yes, they were that dumb.)

Certainly the German Parliaments vote to prevent the transfer of German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, before the Russian sabotage, was a strong factor in Putin 'taking himself hostage.'

17/

Speaking of dumb, the signal the German Parliament actually sent with that vote was "please detonate the natural gas pipelines our economy depends upon."

Which rather takes us back to @EmmaMAshford's point about 'clear foreign policy messaging' being anything but.

18/18 End