Knowing only the public information I have access to right now, no. I’m extremely dubious that the US was involved.
Let’s start with the elephant: Biden’s comments in February that the US could destroy the pipeline. The German Chancellor was right there. It was a joint press conference held February 7th. Reporters pestered Biden until they got a soundbite. It wasn’t even a very good one considering he said nothing about destroying the pipeline, just ‘ending it’. Germany did that itself when it canceled Nord Stream 2 on February 22, two days before the invasion. Why bother damaging the pipeline when it had already been canceled and Nord Stream 1 had been shut off by the Russians?
Second, one thing the US military excels at is blowing things to smithereens. There are three leaks on three of the four pipelines (both pipelines have dual pipes). All three are repairable and in fairly shallow water (by industrial standards). The leaks are also fairly close to the Danish island of Bornholm which should also help simplify repair. None of these things should be true if the US wanted the pipes destroyed. Really big holes in really deep water as far from land as possible makes repair difficult to impossible. Fairly small holes in relatively shallow water close to land makes repair much easier.
On the political side, I’m not a fan of the Biden admin but they haven’t thus far been driveling idiots. Politically, this is just beyond the pale stupid. The US doesn’t want or need Poland and Germany ticked off at us. Germany isn’t really harmed by messing with the pipelines but they do incur repair costs and may want the option open for someday when doing business with Russia makes sense. That’s probably at least a decade away but why tick off Germany by raining on their future parade now?
The new pipeline from Norway, the Baltic Pipe, opened on September 27. Germany no longer has its back against the wall. Not that the new pipeline makes everything hunky dory, but it does buy Germany and Europe breathing room. It also significantly decreases the value of Nord Stream. Poking holes in Nord Stream doesn’t benefit the US under these circumstances.
There could be some deep undercover secret that makes poking reparable holes in Nord Stream in a way to make it really obvious that it was sabotage somehow beneficial to the US. All of the possibilities I can think of involve dragons and Caribbean pirates. And those are the reasonable ones – all the convoluted conspiracies I can dream up make dragons downright mundane.
If Nord Stream were somehow a security threat the United States Navy has plenty of lovely things that make very big booms and would actually destroy the pipeline. Annoying Germany or Russia has no political benefit that I can see. The value as a distraction is greater for Russia than the US – frankly we don’t want to distract Russia from self destructing.
Sure, I can be wrong. I’m usually wrong at least once a day. Humans are like that. But putting on my best analyst hat, I can’t come up with a good argument for the US having damaged Nord Stream that actually fits both the physical facts and the political ones.
Unless there really is a dragon who wants to be captain of a pirate ship in the Gulf of Mexico.
