The US doesn’t make too big a deal about its disproportionate contribution to NATO because NATO folds in perfectly with the US government’s desire for empire. Nord Stream 2 will go through because there’s no way the US will exact any real price on Germany, it’s an essential part of the empire. From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:
When the U.S. created NATO, a primary purpose of the alliance was to serve as a western wall to defend Germany against the 400,000 Russian troops on the eastern side of the Elbe River.
Seventy years later, Germany has decided to double its dependence on Vladimir Putin’s Russia for the natural gas needed to run the German economy, despite the opposition of her great protector, the USA.
The Biden administration decided to waive sanctions on Matthias Warnig, the ally of Putin whose company, Nord Stream 2 AG, is laying the pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany that is now 95% complete.
When done, Nord Stream 2 will make Moscow Germany’s principal supplier of natural gas, and cut Kyiv out of hundreds of millions in transit fees it annually receives for letting Russian gas pass through Ukraine to Germany.
Previously, Joe Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had seemed resolute in opposition. Said Blinken:
“We think the (Nord Stream 2) pipeline is a bad idea. It advances Russia’s interests and undermines Europe’s interests and our own. It actually goes against the very principles that the EU has set out in terms of energy security and not being too dependent on any one country, notably, in this case, Russia.”
As late as March, the Biden administration had made clear its commitment to complying with sanctions legislation put in place with bipartisan support in Congress, and had called on companies involved in Nord Stream 2 to “immediately abandon work on the pipeline.”
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 