In fact, the new US President Joe Biden found himself, as the American newspaper The Politico reported, in a "delicate diplomatic situation" not at all because of the new sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which could be introduced as early as May of this year, but much earlier. when he embraced the convoluted legacy of his predecessor's energy policy.
Because we, of course, do not yet know whether Nord Stream 2, after its embodiment in hardware, will solve geopolitical and economic tasks designed for its functioning.
But he (just in fact) drove German-American - and not only economic - relations into an almost insoluble impasse quite easily.
And this is not surprising: while Washington fought more and more loudly against "Russian expansion", Berlin realized more and more coldly: the Americans are fighting not against Russian totalitarianism, but for their own interests.
Well, since it is in the interests of American business now, how to put it mildly, “to nail down European competitors a little”, then, despite the clatter of phrases about “protecting European energy security,” it is precisely this security that the Americans intend to fight for. Win Nord Stream 2.
And European business circles are now quite clearly aware of this and understandably worried: people, forgive me, are quite understandable.
That is why the situation around the slowly completed construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is frankly grotesque: on the one hand, the Washington administration wants to interfere with the implementation of the project.
There is what in the United States is called bipartisan consensus.
Just a reminder: not even Trump, but Obama moved the fight against European energy sovereignty into its open phase.
In which Biden himself once served in the administration in a not very significant position of vice president by recent American administrative standards.
But, on the other hand, now Washington critically needs to somehow strengthen its strategic relations with the FRG - a country that now not only supports the pipeline, but has already stopped even hiding who is its true beneficiary.
And this is by no means an insidious Russian totalitarianism, but the very “European partners”, relations with which are so critically important for Biden’s democrats.
“We are between a rock and a hard place,” it was no coincidence that a source from the new American administration told The Politico.
And he is certainly right.
Moreover, Berlin is now well aware of both the illusoryness of any hopes for US shale LNG (due to the banal reason for its absence on the markets even in the recent period of peak prices, if you paid attention), and the purely technological tragedy that is ripening on the Ukrainian GTS, before still remains a strategic route for the transportation of natural gas to the European continent.
And this does not add optimism from the point of view of supplying the continent with energy resources.
The worst thing is that it is not even about politics.
Even metal has a concept of "fatigue threshold", and the resource of the Ukrainian pipe is almost exhausted, and for a long time.
And without a real, deep modernization, in a few years it will become trite to become unusable for purely technical reasons.
The modernization of the Ukrainian pipe right now costs so much that it is much cheaper to lay some kind of "Nord Stream - 3".
And this is even without taking into account the political instability in Ukraine and the safety issues of the route - we are talking purely about the hardware.
And if you start counting the accompanying factors, then there is a disaster.
That is, it would be somewhat frivolous to rely on the Ukrainian route in the mid-term historical perspective from the point of view of ensuring the energy security of Europe.
No, no one says that this pipe will be turned off tomorrow, but such things are calculated by self-respecting experts for years and decades to come.
And there is no doubt that these figures have been studied quite well in Berlin.
As, in fact, they studied the topic of replacement shale LNG.
It's even easier here.
As someone sadly joked, Trump could at least promise Europe American LNG, because he himself believed in it.
Biden cannot promise anything but green energy, because he knows for sure that he simply does not have the required amount of LNG and is not foreseen in the near historical future.
The state of American oil production and the associated gas production is well known, and, judging by the official statements of the current American authorities, the new administration simply has no intentions to save it - it has a lot of other concerns.
And in general, the administration of Joseph Biden, who is concerned with environmental issues, has somewhat different priorities, and this is also somehow rather stupid not to understand.
But the Biden administration cannot simply give up the political struggle against Nord Stream 2: for too long, and by the Democrats themselves, in the first place, the anti-Russian hysteria was dispersed in the States.
And even the fact that in fact this is a fight between the United States and Germany, and Russia is the most interested observer in it, the accelerated political processes cannot interfere in any way.
No one is particularly interested in the details here, and Biden's internal political opponents will gladly splash oil and kerosene into the already rather fiery flame.
But the price of victory in this confrontation for its participants is somewhat different: if for the current American administration in the current circumstances it is just a matter of political prestige, then for the northwestern European industrial cluster, the industrial heart of modern Europe, this is, in fact, a question energy security.
And therefore, if you like, survival and development.
By the way, this is precisely why the Russian side continues to behave so calmly and judiciously, despite the widespread hysteria, in the current circumstances: it is just that Moscow understands all these circumstances very well, including the fact that there is no alternative for the Old Continent of Russian energy supplies.
With others, in general, all the same, in the foreseeable future, everything in Europe is not going very well.
Therefore, if Europe wants to somehow more or less decently live and develop steadily, it will certainly do everything possible and impossible to keep its traditional suppliers.
But if Old Europe begins to creak and break under any, including friendly American, pressure on issues that are vitally important for it in the literal sense of the word, then Russia itself may involuntarily have a question: do we ourselves need such an unreliable one, even in questions of their own survival partner?
In this world, political suicides are somehow not saved, it is simply not accepted, do not believe it - ask at least the same former USSR.
Although, I think, it will not come to that.
The instincts of self-preservation, including (and almost in the first place, it happened so), of economic self-preservation, fortunately, in the traditional European communities are still too strong.
But this is, so to speak, about high.
And if we talk about things more mundane, then there is no doubt that Nord Stream 2 will be completed on the sly.
And it will be launched.
But this does not mean at all that this soap opera will end there - by no means, it will be continued.
Moreover, it seems to me that a new, no less exciting season awaits us.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.