Are there any publicly available statistics on how often undersea cables - or other infrastructure under water - get damaged in certain regions? I vaguely remember some comment claiming that there are hundreds, I think, of incidents globally per year and I essentially never heard of any of them. And if the number is actually that high, then I am still only hearing about a tiny fraction of them. I would like to know how much of an outlier the Baltic sea in the last year or so is.
Owner company confirms "modest damage" to the cable that "doesn't affect the communication links".
"Det är bolaget Cinia som äger kabeln som går mellan Tyskland och Finland. Bolaget bekräftar för SVT Nyheter lättare skador, som inte påverkar kommunikationsförbindelserna."
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/uppgifter-om-nytt-kabelbr...
True, but there's more discussion on this thread.
why is Russia still connected to the internet?
They are working on disconnecting themselves.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russia-is-trying-...
A mysterious motor-boat appears and slam-explodes into russian tankers. No country claims to be the owner. Drunk motorboat enthusiasts suspected - no trace of hybrid warfare..
Letters of marque could definitely do a comeback.
Letters of marque worked when you could expect to get value from the permission it gave you. That matters wasn't just that you had a letter, but that whoever gave you the letter has the power to ensure you can use it. I could write you a letter of marque to steel cars, but the police will just ignore that letter (or arrest me for doing so - there are likely a few laws that could apply though I don't know them). If US Congress writes you a letter to steel a car, you can then take that stolen car and use/sell it in the US - the full power congress is behind you in saying you can do that (but don't drive the car to Canada or Mexico).
The important part here is I don't thing anyone can get enough value to be worth it. Often ships have negative value in a scrap yard - they are so full of toxic/hazardous things that scrap yards charge more than they are worth to cut them up.
Millions of barrels of oil or a shipment of coal is pretty valuable.
Right.
Escalation just when US leadership is pulling away.
Stroke of strategic brilliance right there.
/s
EU should probably walk backward, slowly, saying “good dog”, while feeling around behind them for a stick. Ie - Take this opportunity to, quietly but significantly, scale up EU military capabilities. That would come in handy for dealing with both Russia, and the US, by the way. It’s crazy times so you don’t know what the future will hold.
EU is armed to the teeth. All you had TODO is to pretend its corruption, throw a few parties in a rented Mückelsee villa and the disappearence of a billion in peace time is invisible for the russian sigint.
That Berlin Airport was not that expensive. Have fun slamming into a wall of robots..
Compared to the US or Russia Europe is not well armed. In some areas they are, but in critical areas the EU is way behind: air defense is going to be critical for any potential war in the near future and the EU has nothing of their own.
I hope this is a lesson Europe does not forget, and they start building immediately.
Not OP, but the facts are that while Russia is rapidly exhausting its military hardware (which can be independently verified), Europe has relied perhaps too heavily on the US defense industry for military hardware and capabilities. This works fine when there is a good relationship with the US, but does not work when regime change occurs and the US takes an adversarial posture with its supposed allies. If your friend no longer offers to equip you for defense and war, you should be prepared to build your own. Otherwise, you've already lost.
Russia isn't going to win, it's going to slow burn to failure (again, military hardware exhaustion, parts of their economy on the brink of failure, working age demographics crisis leading to ~21% central bank rates to attempt to quell inflation to no avail), but Europe improving its military capabilities would derisk against potential tail risk aggression and losses as Russia stumbles to a failure mode. Putin will die eventually, although it is unknown who and what replaces him; Europe must manage that risk.
Europe is learning the hard way that you can't use economics to tame an aggressor (Nord Stream) nor can you rely on benevolent allies to be benevolent in perpetuity. This is objectively good, as it will force Europe to re-industrialize to an extent, and I argue manufacturing base and supply chains are of national security interest (gestures broadly at everything). Not your manufacturing base and supply chain? Not your freedom.
Weird how these accidents has started happening so often...
The European countries needs to stop being so soft.
I find it funny how if you marginally, but consistently, offend a geopolitical entity (Europe), you can actually train it to reduce the limits of what it considers acceptable. Just like a dog, or a person, I guess.
The problem is, what more can Europe do? Sanctions are already in place. What is the next step? Conflict?
Actually slow stress is how you build muscle.
Europe is a case of being crippled by assistance, like a man who uses an electric wheelchair until his leg muscles atrophy. They've leaned on US security guarantees so long that most countries have no functioning deterrent (look up the German air force sometime if you want to be sad).
>Europe is a case of being crippled by assistance
Good times create weak people.
Weak people create hard times.
The question is if it can overcome the next phase without another Adolf or war.
Hard times create strong people.Usually, good times create agricultural surplus, transport infrastructure, better organization and larger, healthier armies. But in the specific case of being dependant on a larger, benevolent state for protection, that gets undermined. Anyway, hard times create desperate people, not exactly strong ones. And then something about interesting times, but that's a different saying.
That trope has been well debunked. It makes a nice saying, but it isn't true. There are plenty of examples of good times creating strong people; and others of hard times creating weak people.
I have several issues with this quote from the manosphere. The manosphere was infested with both Russians and Ukrainians who were busy "preparing for the big war" with lifting etc. since at least 2014. Now they are in a trench warfare and barely make any progress in either direction.
Could it be that talking up war for so many years leads to a self-fulfilling prophesy?
The people doing most of the talking of course are "public intellectuals" who tell others to go lift and prepare for war. TV commentators on the Russian side, Lindsey Graham and a couple of RedPill folks on the Ukrainian side.
Now the weak EU leaders who barely have 20-30% public support have a big mouth and tell others to go to the gym (metaphorically).
> Europe has past its good times phase and is hitting the reality of the hard times. > The question is if it can overcome the next phase without another Adolf or war.
This whole thread is a joke right? The US is the one who just elevated the modern day Hitler to world leader and is now cheering him on as he collaborates with the Russia to commit genocide in Ukraine, and the Israelis to commit genocide in Gaza.
I'm a Swede and I'm mostly upset that my government isn't acting more forcefully.
As another swede, I'd be happy to se Kristersson show some backbone. But he's apparently made out of snail so that won't happen.
Not condemning the aggressor over and over make us look soft, indeed.
I liked it too and investigated phrases involving "snigel", but it looks like it was ad-libbed.
Should European countries position military craft at 1km intervals on the surface along the route of every cable? Or do you mean they should start cutting Russian cables?
There are many possible methods of deterrence and reciprocal action. If you do nothing, the enemy has no reason not to escalate.
> If you do nothing, the enemy has no reason not to escalate.
Identifying your actual enemy is obviously step 1, and getting this right might be harder than you'd think.
Look at Nord Stream 2...
>> There are many possible methods of deterrence and reciprocal action
What do you suggest?
Fully close the border with russia? Permanently deny any boat that makes port in russia access to EU ports, I could go on
Ban, arrest or damage "shadow fleet" tankers that transport Russian oil. Control their supply chain e.g. stop selling them spare parts for stolen planes. There are many things, all the way to taking hostages, but EU needs to grow some spine to do that.
Reciprocal action gives the enemy plenty of reason to escalate.
If that's actually the framework, then you need to respond not reciprocally or in kind or 'tit for tat', but to overwhelm. Speed, surprise, and violence (literal or metaphorical) of action.
Poor metaphor. Retaliation in this case means that in a short time all of the cables are cut and subsea cabling comes to an end.
Really sounds like you’re quoting from Mein Kampf
So what?
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After you have seen the German ambassador burst out in tears at the Munich Security Conference, that's all you need to know about the state of affairs. The current generation of EU bureaucrats have no balls dealing with outside forces!
We should really tell the US to f' off and stop cutting our undersea cables and blowing up our undersea pipes.
Did I miss something? What pointed to the US?
blitzar's imagination (or sarcasm).
<BotTemplate> Foggy first sentence of agreement Nuclear Threats for deterrence Political divisive topics </BotTemplate>
What do you suggest?
The diplomatic option: Severe penalties for such damage and requiring insurance/bonds for it could be one option. Let the insurance companies figure it out. Insurance companies might decide that ships with a Russian crew or going to/from Russian harbors are uninsurable or very expensive.
The "language that Russia understand" option: "If you do this one more time, ships going to/from your harbors won't be allowed through the straits anymore, IDGAF what international law says". Should it happen again, inform any such ship that they're not allowed passage and will be fired upon if they try. If they try, follow through.
Obviously I don't have all the answers.
But just a few weeks ago us Swedes released a ship that was pretty obviously acting with malicious intent because of limited research or due to incompetence.
I'd like that to stop.
While I agree in principle, we can't throw the rule of law overboard just because others don't respect it. It was a commercial vessel with Maltese/Bulgarian links and russian crew if I'm not mistaken. While I'd hope that such vessels stop serving russian ports and would get rid of any involved crew there would be a need to prove intent do directly penalise and impound the vessel/owner.
Intent is a distraction. The cable owners should require their governments to impounded the ship against costs to repair the cable.
If there is never any consequence for action we are left with only anarchy.
I quite like the idea of a united EU army. It's something that's been floated quite a bit recently.
"I quite like the idea of a united EU army."
Won't happen, at least not in any meaningful form.
Baltics or Poland are existentially threatened by Russia, Spain or even Germany are not, even if Russia can do a limited damage to them. What is supposed to create "unity" in that regard? What would force Spain to contribute as much as, let's say, Finland? We can see even now, with all these US threats, not every NATO country was willing to increase its spending on military. And even more importantly, who is going to command such EU army? Commission?
Baltics and Poland are only threatened by Russian TV commentators and sometimes Dugin, who depending on the mood of the day says that Poland and the Baltics are not part of the Eurasian project, and on other days says that Estonia is in the German influence sphere (!) but Latvia and Lithuania are in the Russian sphere. These people foam at the mouth and have little influence.
I have never heard any serious Russia politician claim that the Baltics or Poland should be invaded.
Ukraine and Georgia are fundamentally different (for them), which is why they always have been red lines as pointed out in the Burns diplomatic telegram.
Well, Macron is probably the only European leader that, declaratively at least, would like to push for more agency for Europe. Issue is that, for now, he offers only words. He already is trying to back down from the idea of sending troops to Ukraine (and number that was proposed was pathetic, considering intensity of this conflict).
Nukes are but a one thing, useful only in specific circumstances, but not sufficient. It is unrealistic to expect France using nukes if Russia attacks Lithuania, for example. Stakes are not justifying such escalation.
European countries lack conventional means: UAV, artillery, missiles. And soldiers.
I would like to see unified command and control facilities, interoperability agreements, combined purchasing and a within EU military industrial plan. Most of this already exists in the form of NATO and can be repurposed for near $0.
There is no need for anything more, nor are the institutions really designed for a single president / general to direct everyone in a conflict. Putting in place all the capabilities to work together in a conflict should be done however.
Zelinsky was by no means the first, I heard talks of this since the crimean annexation.
By Zelensky, I think.
What? I'm pretty sure he said that.
Yeah, here it is: 'Army of Europe' needed to challenge Russia, says Zelensky
Yes, he spoke on it at the Munich Security Conference, to frequent applause
Yes (I don't know why you were downvoted), and others, but unfortunately I find it highly unlikely to happen. Or at least, it'll only happen when it's already too late, and Russia starts steamrolling more of Europe while the US does nothing (or actively supports it - the current admin is highly pro Russia).
The US is no longer a reliable ally to the EU or NATO. The EU must be able to protect itself.
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Yes, united behind a strong upright leader, or even führer.
Undersea cable breaks have been an ongoing issue for decades. To the tune of hundreds per year. Usually it's completely accidental and sometimes just environmental (it is a pretty hostile environment).
It became newsworthy and a part of the zeitgeist so every incident is heavily reported on now, making it seem like there has been a big uptick when this stuff has always been happening.
As to those countries being soft, this is happening in international waters and they have been seizing ships. Not sure how much more they are supposed to do. Anti-ship missiles?
There is an uptick on what looks strongly like intentional breaks. The question is how many of those "accidents" in the past where not, but we didn't realize it.
There's a very large uptick in these events in the Baltic sea and it's not just because of media reporting.
Happens very often: rarer than land breaks but still on the order of multiple a year. Pay for low latency links and you’ll be exposed to this unreasonable fact. I have a hatred for Chinese fishing trawlers not for their destruction of food stock but for their propensity to ruin my day by predictably damaging the EAC-C2C system.
Yeah, happens globally but not that often in same region.