Everyone that thinks it's obvious the US or some other ally of Germany did this is completely ignoring just how big of a risk this kind of action would be. There is an enormous difference between an enemy/opponent like Russia destroying infrastructure and an ally doing this. And no, this isn't the same as eavesdropping on the phones of politicians and other stuff the US has done to its allies.
There would be a minor benefit to the US when destroying the pipelines, but a vastly larger risk if it became public. The benefit is really minor, it's a bit of profit for the gas industry. And even that small benefit requires the assumption that Germany would have dropped support for Ukraine to get Russia to deliver gas again, which is extremely unlikely.
Even if you consider the US to be very ruthless, the cost/benefit ratio simply doesn't even come close to anywhere where this would be a rational choice for the US to blow up the pipelines.
>The benefit is really minor, it's a bit of profit for the gas industry
Not at all really. We've mostly had peace since WW2 on the basis that countries can get on with their thing in peace without being invaded and if someone tries to invade the neighbours the UN/US will try to stop it. We now have Russia trying to break that mostly using the money it got from selling gas/oil. In the early days of the war Germany was sending 200m euro a day to Russia for gas which was using it to fund stuff. The US wants to stop Russia but doesn't want to get into a nuclear war so it's doing things like sanctions and quite likely this. Biden announced if Putin sent tanks into Ukraine they US would "end" Nord Stream 2. So if they didn't do it it would be a sign of weakness.
So it's a world peace thing rather than a bit of profit for gas companies.
There would be a minor benefit to the US when destroying the pipelines, but a vastly larger risk if it became public. The benefit is really minor, it's a bit of profit for the gas industry. And even that small benefit requires the assumption that Germany would have dropped support for Ukraine to get Russia to deliver gas again, which is extremely unlikely.
Even if you consider the US to be very ruthless, the cost/benefit ratio simply doesn't even come close to anywhere where this would be a rational choice for the US to blow up the pipelines.