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.
You can’t have it both ways. The US can be out of fight or claim that its goal is the Russian strategic defeat and blow pipelines.
Companies are relying much too much on cloud based critical infrastructure applications. It is driven by cost and efficiency but it is also very vulnerable and delicate.
Millions of corporate workers can longer perform basic functions for their jobs without the internet.
Internet outage essentially brings commerce to a halt nowadays.
Perhaps BLOWING UP Nordstream wasn’t such a great idea after all?
“Excuse me, but only the United States is allowed to mess with foreign pipelines and cables. So back off Russia and China, and know your place.”
Correct, Rule 49 of the Rules Based International Order (that the EU needs to keep reminding Russia of) is quite clear here, as it states:
Rule 49: “Pipeline modifications are permitted to be done by EU and NATO members as needed to ensure EU and NATO Cohesion”
In this case, the modifications carried out to Nordstream requires that Germany accede to US requirements that no ‘peace settlement’ take place in Ukraine until the Russian government is overthrown. Prior to the modifications, Germany was considering discussions with Russia to end the Ukraine War. With the modification now in place, Germany has no choice but to continue to support US policy. I believe that the EU High Court has extended this to communications cables as well.
“Going to be hard on China when Americans can’t buy all their crap on the internet.”
China has 1.6 billion people to buy their ‘crap’ and another 2 to 3 billion people who they don’t need undersea cables to communicate with. They’ll survive...just fine.
“The dumb is strong in this post.”
No kidding, and they REALLY DO WANT WAR. Sick people.
“Russia threatened all our coastal cities with that “nuclear torpedo” that would cause a tsunami”
Weren’t some of you guys claiming last week that Russian nukes don’t work and therefore a nuclear war is no big deal.
So which is it?
You probably think the Lusitania wasn’t carrying materiel also
Uh, this is bunk. EMP is a real concern, but the effects are way overplayed by some DC advisory panel queens looking for a huge payout for consultign contracts. We have actual real measurements on this from various exo-atmospheric tests. It's real. But one shot is not going to destroy everything electronic/electrical in the US. Even within the actual threat area, the effects are very heterogeneous. Was your computer shielded by the car in your garage. Was the cable run NS or EW? Are you in a basement? Are you in a steel frame or steel reinforced concrete building?
Starlink. Which is one of the reasons Russia and China have grumbled about it.
There was more than one mistake in the Iraq wars, but somebody on the US side knew that if we destroyed their financial infrastructure it would set a very dangerous precedent. The Biden gang is unable to see very far ahead.
My first thought as well .. not invulnerable, but an option.
How do we back up Starlink? Preprogrammed satellites ready to replace ones shot down? Planes carrying the equivalent data until new satellites can replace ones taken down?
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
And Germany can’t even complain. Become a member of NATO, and you become our vassal (well, there’s another word that starts with B, but I won’t go there).
Who’s your Daddy, Germany?
If some other country we didn’t like had blown up Nordstream, we’d be screaming “terrorism!”. Nuland publicly gloated about it on video.
Mayor Pete is more concerned about ‘racist roads’... it’s a strange world.
Some here might think China can't attack US satellites. But they really are serious about space tech, nanotech, etc. We would have been much better off in every way with Trump.
It wasn’t just Russia’s. Germany owned 49% of Nordstream. The cheap gas powered their industry. Now their industries (including giant BASF) are moving their plants to China:
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4134435/posts?page=147#147
I’ve felt for some time - when sides are all chosen - that Germany, Iran, China, North Korea and Russia will be on the same side - along with a bunch of smaller countries. We’re not playing this hand well....
You're right.
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