And Joe Biden is the one who wields both.
I feel so secure.
Posted on 02/28/2023 8:17:16 PM PST by george76
We live in a world created in 1945. The United States is the world’s dominant political, economic, and military power. We treat those facts as if they are somehow immutable. They are not. We are standing on the brink of losing it all.
The Biden administration continues to blunder forward with its reckless policy of escalation in Ukraine treating the entire enterprise as if it were a video game of some sort. There are in the minds of these men and women no consequences for their actions. Only the other side takes losses. Only the other side feels pain.
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That’s not how war works. That’s not how the world works.
Out there in the shadows, as tensions escalate and the world moves closer to a world war, the sharks are circling. Our enemies are already well down the road to responding to our actions and making us pay a price for our arrogance.
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98% of international internet traffic flows through undersea cables, around 1.3 million kilometers
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The world’s economy runs on internet communications. Those communications move primarily on a vast network of undersea cables. Without those cables, you do not run your business. You do not access your checking account. You do not do anything in the real world.
Without those cables, the world’s economy shuts down, and you fend for yourself.
For some time our allies in Europe have been tracking Russian vessels believed to be mapping undersea cables in the North Sea and surrounding bodies of water. The concern is that the Russians are preparing to stage attacks on these cables in retaliation for European and American support for Ukraine. Dutch military intelligence is now warning that Russian attacks could be expanded to include energy infrastructure in the region.
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There have already been multiple instances of breaks in undersea cables in which the Russians are suspected. There was also recently a suspicious case of what looks very much like Russian casing in preparation for a sabotage attack on a Polish oil terminal.
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On the other side of the world, Moscow’s new Chinese allies are showing the same kind of interest in the undersea cables that run to Taiwan. Two of those cables were recently cut by Chinese vessels. The Chinese appear to be billing the actions as “accidents”. There is a strong suspicion that the actions were a dry run for a much broader attack on communication with Taiwan.
On February 2, 2023, a Chinese fishing vessel sailing close to the Matsu Islands severed one of the two cables, which connect the islands with Taiwan proper. Six days later, a Chinese freighter cut the second cable. The Matsu Islands, which belong to Taiwan, are now left with rudimentary communications.
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The Matsu Islands, which lie close to the coast of mainland China, have been a flashpoint for decades. In 1958 China shelled the islands. Last year the People’s Liberation Army Navy conducted large exercises near the islands.
A recently released research paper on undersea cables had this to say about their vulnerability.
“The characteristics of the cable network make it inherently vulnerable to attack. The location of almost every undersea cable in the world is publicly available and known, making them uniquely vulnerable to hostile actors. Also, they are usually concentrated near one another, both undersea and on land. In part to reduce costs and in part because it is hard to find geographically suitable landing sites, for instance, multiple cables often come ashore at a single site. Similar topographical and cost considerations obtain at sea.”
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Retired Navy Admiral James G. Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander NATO had this to say on the topic.
“It is a little-known or appreciated fact that well over 95% of everything that moves on the global internet passes through a network of just 200 undersea fibreoptic cables; some as far below the surface as Everest is above it. It is not satellites in the sky, but pipes on the ocean floor that form the backbone of the world’s economy…we have allowed this vital infrastructure of undersea cables to grow increasingly vulnerable. This should worry us all.
Cables are isolated in the midst of the oceans, their locations are known, and they are often subject to only minimal security at on-shore landing sites. Furthermore, the technical capabilities required to damage cables are relatively low and unsophisticated. The risk posed to these garden hose-thin connections that carry everything from military intelligence to global financial data is real and growing. In the most severe scenario of an all-out attack upon undersea cable infrastructure by a hostile actor the impact of connectivity loss is potentially catastrophic, but even relatively limited sabotage has the potential to cause significant economic disruption and damage military communications…Recent reports make clear that Russian submarine forces have undertaken detailed monitoring and targeting activities in the vicinity of North Atlantic deep-sea cable infrastructure.
And as another example of Russian interest in asymmetric targets, it is worth remembering that in Crimea, Russia successfully took control of land based communications infrastructure early in its annexation of the peninsula. Russia’s relative weakness also attracts it to conducting hybrid warfare. The fundamental idea of hybrid warfare is hostile activity that stops short of full, overt, offensive action and is sufficiently ambiguous that it allows the aggressor plausible deniability and makes international response more difficult. Hybrid warfare has traditionally been land-based, but as I have argued previously, this is about to change and we should prepare for increased maritime hybrid activity. Chinese activities in the South China Sea and Iranian actions in the Arabian Gulf already show characteristics of a hybrid approach, using civilian vessels rather than easily identifiable ‘gray hull’ naval platforms to obfuscate the involvement of state actors. Underwater cables are an obvious target for such hostile action: they are a vital infrastructure asset with ambiguous protection in international law that can be damaged with relatively unsophisticated, non-military hardware.”
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Before Japanese forces staged their air attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 a U.S. destroyer escort, the U.S.S. Ward reported sighting a Japanese mini-sub entering the harbor and staged a depth charge attack on the target. The command at Pearl Harbor ignored the report. No alert was sounded. The fleet was caught unprepared and decimated.
We stand in a similar position today. Our enemies smell blood in the water. They are preparing for action. Time to sound the alarm before it is too late.
These would be attacks against all global communications given the nature of the internet.
All countries will be affected. Some more than others depending on the cable, but it will hit everyone. It will affect global trade and finance as well.
Going to be hard on China when Americans can’t buy all their crap on the internet.
China is extremely exposed. It too is dependent on internet comms, and blowing up cables anywhere will have consequences.
It is also highly dependent on international trade and finance. If it goes about blowing up international cables this is going to start a retaliatory trade war and financial sanctions.
As for retaliation, Russia is also highly vulnerable to trade sanctions. It can sell very little petroleum through pipelines to friendly countries. It needs tankers, and these can easily be blockaded on the high seas.
The dumb is strong in this post.
You mean THIS BALLOON? which had a high def/high zoom/high res camera mapping everything it passed over?
You have to see that video. 200x zoom showed what that balloon was doing.
You mean THIS BALLOON? which had a high def/high zoom/high res camera mapping everything it passed over?
You have to see that video. 200x zoom showed what that balloon was doing.
If the US wanted to effectively stop Russian foreign trade, it can, easily.
Its already forcing the discounting of Russian oil prices just through the marine insurance system.
The tit for tat in escalation of economic war is hardly one way. And in an economic war Russia doesn’t have a “nuclear weapon”. The US does.
“tracking Russian vessels believed to be mapping undersea cables in the North Sea and surrounding bodies of water. The concern is that the Russians are preparing to stage attacks on these cables”
Now they are worried the Russians are gonna blow things up underwater? You don’t look behind the door unless you’ve hid there yourself.
But actually, Russia has shown a lot of maturity in this whole thing so I doubt they will. But it’s probably on the table if it turns into an open NATO/Russia war.
So, after one act of the illegal blatant piracy, you are advocating for actual piracy and still have a nerve to claim thst it is Russia and China who are the bad guys?:)
Bad or good are not inherent definition. Good and bad deeds make good and bad guys.
You are assuming they don’t want 90% dead.
And Joe Biden is the one who wields both.
I feel so secure.
Also remember who invented the idea of cutting undersea cables. In WWI Germany had 5 undersea cables directly to America. The Brits cut them in 1914 to force all US communications to go through Britain. We were neutral at the time and the war was in it’s first week or so.
No, it's not.
Just you writing it doesn't make it so.
Have a good evening.
I advocate nothing.
Just saying that Russian attempts at economic war are just likely to lead to tit for tat, and the US holds all the trumps in that route of escalation.
Russia threatened all our coastal cities with that “nuclear torpedo” that would cause a tsunami
now Russia is threatening to cut our undersea cables
see? this just proves what an ongoing menace to world peace Russia really is
Tit for tat is the destruction of Norwegian pipelines and and the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. That you are talking about is not escapation.
You probably missed that little insignificant detail that the US entered a proxy war with Russia and broke some things. Who is the threat to whom?
I would suspect these cables are redundant and geographically diverse. Cutting one cable probably wouldn’t end the service of the devices on the endpoints.
If China and Russia do that, then all the US corporations who rely on cheap Indian labor overseas, are in a world of hurt.
“proxy war” ... LOL, more of your Russian BS
Russia is fighting Ukraine ... that’s it
(and not doing very well either)
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