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."
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.
This is the P in CAP theorem: partition awareness.
I used to work on distributed systems, and network partitions were a frequent enough occurrence that they weren’t considered an extraordinary event. By that, I mean that we wouldn’t page during network partitions because it was still considered normal system operation. Our design was designed from the ground up to consider network partitions as a frequent and normal operational state.
What we did do is watch SLAs. If the network partition continued for too long, then our data quality would degrade over time. So we would page based on data quality.
I don’t know the answer to the actual question you asked, I would be curious to know, too.
According to experts, there have been no cable breaks of this type for over a decade in the Baltic Sea and now suddenly there have been about 5 in just 1,5 year, at a time when ruzzia is conducting aggressive hybrid warfare and the last 2 ships discovered were also Chinese ships, a country that supports ruzzia and one ship had a ruzzian captain and they also seem to belong to the ruzzian shadow fleet.
Several of the ships have also gone to / from ruzzian ports and behaved strangely, for example zig zagged over the cable before, turned off the transponder, drifted around etc. which ships do not normally do.
Suddenly, cable breaks in the Baltic Sea are 26 times higher than in the rest of the world, it can not be dismissed as "accidents". These cables have not broken by chance, according to experts, but this is a deliberate act.
A quick internet search suggests that these are indeed frequent:
« Between 2007 and 2010, 53 telecoms faults were recorded around the UK, 19 of which were caused by anchors »
« Various modes of fishing involving placement of heavy gear on the seabed result in 50 to 100 faults a year, typically in water depths shallower than 1500m »
You could easily find other sources and statistics.
If you have never been at sea, it may sound extraordinary that an anchor or a fishing net could by chance damage a cable, but you would be quite far from the truth. You could read this report on one case about a ship dragging anchor over a cable: https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/operator-of-ship... and complete it with video from youtube of how life looks like in a cargo ship under a storm, to form a better picture of what it's like.
Also, all of the investigations on recent cases that's been pushed on top of the press for some reason, concluded on accidental damage. As always, it is recommanded to read professional newssources rather than political ones. For instance, you could search for "site:www.marineinsight.com cable damage"
Finally, I can see how all this noise can be used by NATO to justify strengthening their presence in the baltic see, but I fail to see the advantage for Russia. Let's be clear, I'm certain there are many russian agents in the west trying to sabotage west politics and mess with public opinions etc... but creating a few more incidents of cable damage on the baltic sea? How is that helping exactly? The disruption that could be caused is probably less than the cost of the seized ship.
For such a obviously political topic, believing that there exist an unadulterated pathway for information to flow from an event happening at the bottom of the sea up to your favorite internet news corporation seams uterly silly.
There is a company, TeleGeography, that collects data about telecommunications industry. I recently read their recent blog post[1] about undersea cable breaks.
To summarize the article: On average, 199 cable faults per year from 2010-2023. Two thirds of these faults are caused by external forces like fishing vessels. Most cable faults are not made public. The preliminary data from 2024 suggests slightly more publicly disclosed faults, but nothing extraordinary. It is hard to detect the physical cause of cable damage. One likely cause is inexperienced crews on poorly maintained ships.
Personally, I do not believe all the cable faults in the Baltic sea are pure accidents. Russia (and China) have found the "perfect" way to test how we react and play their games. This testing is nothing new and it has happened before in many forms. It is likely that we have not even noticed some of the testing or they are not made public.
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.
How crazy is it to cover the cables with passive sonar and detect damage threats? How much crazier is it to create a sufficient number of undersea drones that can prevent damage before it happens? Maybe manoeuvre a protective barrier over the predicted impact area if there's a dragging anchor or fishing net? Pick a fight with enemy drones?
I'm increasingly impressed and terrified with air/ground drone capabilities displayed in Ukraine. The sea floor seems like the next logical step. But maybe it's more efficient to detect damage quickly and make repairs easy.
Global connect (the company that owns and operates most data cables in the Baltic sea) is running tests with tamper detecting cables. They say they will be able to detect a whale at a distance of 80 kilometers. I assume the whale is just used as an example to demonstrate its sensitivity, since whales haven't been implicated in any of the previous cable breaks.
The whales already signed an international treaty on this, and it's really unlikely they are going to violate their treaty obligations by destroying fiber optic cables.
Also, you know, whales not having sharp teeth and the ability to chew small breaks into cables that look remarkably like intentionally dragging boat anchors across them and all that.
I hope researchers get access to some of that data. Would be cool if an unintended side effect of this work ends up benefiting marine wildlife research.
Wouldn't it be simpler to run dummy detection lines in parallel or through certain tracks to identify negligent activity? Critical cables get hit but it's hard to investigate and take action because the vessels are flagged in the Cook Islands etc. (Lawfare had a recent podcast on this.) It's not bad luck when there is some systematic behavior detected, but that data is hard to collection. Drones are cool but there is a huge area to cover reliably and often stay undetected by the adversary.
Submerged drone flotillas are probably the next great pursuit for armed forces, especially those lacking a large naval fleet of their own.
Ukrainian surface naval drones have proven to have superiority over naval capital ships in littoral and medium seas (which is what the Mediterranean and the Baltic Seas are like compared to the Black Sea).
Deep water naval drone superiority is probably very close, but ability to hunt, track, and kill ballistic submarines will be critical to undermining US naval dominance. Both China and EU will be heavily invested in this.
If all military naval assets can be neutered by cheap drones, then a sort of mutually assured destruction of sea trade can be somewhat enforced. Maybe.
Would it be possible to protect the cables with a 'hook line' before and after the actual cable that is anchored in the seabed (if possible)? Ship anchors would get stuck on the hook line before doing damage. Only needed below the shipping lanes.
If ship anchors are able to reach the sea bottom then it can't be too deep. Drilling fasteners in the sea bottom at shallow depths could be feasible depending on the makeup of the sea bed. No idea about the cost to install vs repair though.
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 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.
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.
They have IRIS-T and SAMP/T, the latter being somewhat comparable to the Patriot. Beside American made aircrafts there are also locally produced ones. I would be more worried by the lack of a proper equivalent of AWACS.
In general though issue is not quality (at least compared to Russia) but quantity. Also if I was an European country I would be worried about the usability of any advanced weapon bought from our American friends: I wouldn't be surprised if, in case of confrontation between Europe and Russia, the guy in the Oval Office decided to block sales of spare parts in order to force war mongering Europeans to come to an agreement with peace-seeking Putin, or if his plutocratic friend decided to completely axe the project because "it sucks and drones are better"
This is the first I've heard of them, and Ukraine isn't demanding them. Either that means they are somehow worse than nothing, or the EU cannot supply them even though they exist on paper (based on planned increases I'm guessing the later). Remember military equipment that you don't have when needed is no better than fiction.
They are both (IRIS and SAMP) in Ukraine, doing an excellent job from what I read. I'm sure Ukraine are asking for them, as they are very expensive and it would be insane to gift the if not wanted.
Many European countries chose Patriot for diplomatic reasons. The US used to favour those who bought their weapons. Not any more it seems, so I guess that mistake will not be repeated in the near term.
Absolutely. Russia is better armed. They have a massive store of Soviet equipment they have been using up, along with their own production (they were long a world class supplier for equipment - there are a lot of Russian equipped armys around the world)
Russians problems are about bad leadership. They have a lot of badly trained troops (their well trained troops do very well, but they are a small minority and running out). They have logistics issues. They have problems with leaders using well trained troops for things they are not trained for. They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans. They have problems with leaders there because they are political good not because they are great military commanders.
Do not fool yourself though. Russia is a very well armed country. They have problems, but lack of arms is not their issue in Ukraine.
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.
The unfortunate side-effect is also that as US does not honor guarantees given in the Budapest memorandum, no country is going to give up nuclear weapons trusting contracts, and that European nation states (and possibly Canada, Mexico) will draw the conclusions on how to best get functional security guarantees ie. have own nuclear stockpile. This has been the status quo USA has bought by being a security provider, and by betraying it the downside is to returning to the nuclear armageddon scare of the cold war — if a European country nukes Russian territory, the retaliation might well bite back to the US soil. If Europe got too cozy with conventional warfare capabilities, the US got too cozy with the idea that they’re providing security out of the goodness of their hearts instead of it being a geopolitical bargain where they receive certain advantages as well.
Cant say I disagree with any of this, EU members each messed up good here, for decades completely ignoring all voices from eastern part warning about exactly-fucking-this and how you cant trust russians even with nose between their eyes. The solution may be easy - leave green deal since nobody else cares about it anymore, and EU is hardly 5% of global population but it has potential to wreak havoc on millions of jobs here. Not sure it would be enough to cover all extra spending but it would certainly help.
But that would require significant political change in all major players in EU, Leyden so far is pushing for it like there is no tomorrow and otherwise all is well and good. She seems untouchable. Germany prefers buying electricity from foreign coal rather than keep nuclear running for few more years. Also Germans will probably let half of Europe burn before they would make Wehrmacht the force to again reckon with.
Each country had 3 years to massively ramp up budgets and build factories, start recruiting. Poland and baltics did the moves since they had plenty of russian atrocities happen not so long ago, but the rest? We dont deal with strictly rational society here.
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.
Sanctions are partial, the shadow fleet is operating, support for Ukraine is partial, China and India are not experiencing notable repercussions for supplying Russia, Europe is buying Russian gas. There's a lot Europe could do to show that it's serious about security, without troops in Ukraine. Oh, troops and training personnel in Ukraine's rear is another one.
My guess is that this is how much they can do before seriously impacting people's cushy lives. Wouldn't want to inconvenience your population in any way, would you? /s
The leaders of free countries have the issue that if they increase the cost of living too much they'll be voted out by voters angry enough to listen to Russian agitprop. The Western narrative is very damaged especially in our own underclasses.
If you aren't willing to move to conflict (or whatever the next step is) at some point, then you are, in fact, just bluffing, and you are being called out on that bluff.
You can choose what that point is, but it's weird not to expect enemies to continually test where your line is, and walk you right up to it.
I'm not sure what you expect to see here?
Let's assume for a second armed conflict is the "natural" next step.
Either you are willing to get into an armed conflict over it or not. If you aren't, and they are willing to accept everything other than armed conflict (sanctions, etc), why should they care at all what you think or do? They already know you won't escalate past a certain point. As long as they are willing to accept how far you are willing to escalate, ....
EU is just being out greyzoned by RU in this area - greyzone because under UNCLOS subsea infra regulations, RU suppose to pay for indemnities but we know that's not going to happen unless EU returns siezed RU $$$. TBH RU still has 100B+ more worth of cables to sabatoge and other shenanigans going forward in response to EU shooting firt with greyzone seizing of RU assets. People calling for blockades / shooting ships think that's worth escalating to actual kinetic war, in which case EU will simply be the relative larger loser since a 20T EU economy vs 2T RU economy has much more to lose, i.e. would be fairly easy to just fuck up EU energy / energy import infra.
Yes, this all comes back to Russia calling our bluff on war. They can continue to harass and invade and pursue their territorial expansion, because they have less to lose than the EU.
But, at some point there is a limit. If the EU does choose, as you call it, kinetic war, Russia will be toast. They cannot win a conventional war against a far larger economy. Just like Ukraine cannot win the war against Russia.
If that's what you're hoping for, Ukraine is very grateful for volunteers. There's a bunch of Swedes who did go there to fight. There's a bunch who are there right now.
Or is it "somebody else" who has to show a backbone and take action?
I understand. But I don't know if there's been any lacking in condemnation on his part. As far as I remember, most leaders of nations have condemned the war completely since day one. What do you wish for him to achieve by condemning it harder?
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).
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.
>being dependant on a larger, benevolent state for protection,
<benevolent> not really. we bougth a ton of USA weapons and also our soldiers died in USA started wars, it was an alliance and now USA just betrayed us , the blood and money we sacrificed was for nothing, I hope the cheap eggs from Trump satisfies MAGA idiots for this international betrayal .
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).
In a thread full of hatred and calls for more senseless violence and calls to sink all ships etc.
I don't know if wealth makes us weaker, but it apparently don't make us less prone to be manipulated by emotions.
Well, implied bothsidism where Ukrainiens are somehow equally to blame for Russian invasion and attempt at genocide would be a good reason to downvote that.
It was an unprovoked aggression from the Russia, made because Russia wants to annex territories. Full stop. That current American or whatever leadership sees annexation and expansive wars as a cool thing is unrelated to that.
And for that matter, Canada did not started issues between US and Canada either. It is purely American made aggression.
> 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.
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?
Because it is not the entire crew of those vessels which are complicit in these actions. It is far more likely that one person dropped the anchor - which does not seem to register on the bridge, no warning lights seem to be installed if I can trust what I've read and seen on this subject - so it would bounce over the bottom. The autopilot will take care of keeping the vessel at its programmed course and speed until the anchor gets stuck (which seems to have happened the last time a cable was cut somewhere off Gotland, the vessel suddenly went from 6 kts to 0 kts and staid around that speed for about 30 minutes).
That does not mean such vessels should be let off. They should be held at anchor until the responsible person(s) have been identified and the vessel's owners should be held financially responsible for the damages. Once a few owners have been made to pay up they'll make sure it becomes impossible for an individual to go out to the bow at night to drop an anchor without anyone noticing.
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.
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.
Lack of reciprocal action is called self deterrence. Or in simpler words, it's what happens when you keep doing what the bully at school asks you to do, more and more, because he could escalate, even if you are as strong as him or stronger.
That's one possibility, but another is that they're deterred. Suddenly doing the bad thing hurts, so there's a good chance you'll go find some other person to pick on.
But of course you can't /know/ the outcome beforehand, which is what makes it a high-stakes game. The only thing you know is that if you keep doing nothing they'll have no reason to stop.
No, there is a VAST menu of effective retaliation or response measures. The response absolutely does NOT need to be exactly in kind or 1:1.
The key is that the measure must cost the aggressor more than they gain, and of course be reasonably proportional.
Plus, even if we stick to your irrelevant requirement, response is better. It is less bad to have no subsea cabling for everyone vs making no response and ending up with only the aggressors having subsea cabling.
But when they want to escalate, any convenient pretext they can fabricate will be spewed out
Appeasement ONLY encourages aggressors. They can ignore any statements and rhetoric and correctly conclude: "I did X, no real consequences, therefore I can do more X".
The ONLY language they understand is force or consequences with real cost to them. Vladimir Lenin said it very clearly:
>>"We probe with bayonets. Where we find steel we withdraw, where we find mush we press on."
When delaying reciprocal action, the cost for the next round ALWAYS increases.
Delaying response is a fools' game.
Democracies always play that fools' game because for any one politician, it is easier to kick the can down the road with bad reasoning like you posted.
But when the situation finally becomes unavoidable, it is a deep serious problem. Here we are.
Hmm. Although I've never read that tome, it would not surprise me to find he expresses similar strategies.
It's really just the Imperialist Autocrats' standard playbook, and it is little different from the schoolyard bully — "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is up for grabs".
They all just keep aggressing until they get hurt, then they find someone else to harass and steal from.
Non-credible: Cover the coasts with Anti-Submarine Torpedo Rockets, and the moment you detect an issue in your submarine cables / pipelines, launch at the position :D
Even more non-credible: Use the nuclear-armed version with a small nuclear warhead
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Invasion is not necessary. It is sad that any discussion limits politics and rivalry between countries to full-scale invasion.
Poland and Russia have opposing interests. Period. Russia wants to be a part of Europe, Poland doesn't want Russia to be a part of Europe. Poland wants to be sovereign country that keeps growing economically, Russia doesn't want that.
Russia doesn't need to invade Poland, it is enough to "reshape the European Security Architecture", reduce Polish chances to develop and growth etc.
well until 2022 no serious Russian politician (is there such a thing among the sock puppets ?) said Ukraine needed a invasion . Dictatorships.. if the boss pops a hemoroid in the morning , you march according to plan in the evening .
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.
At this moment, the Russian military is very weakened. Europe doesn't have overwhelming force but could easily kick Russia out of Ukraine. (Except it won't for political reasons.)
It is easy to talk about war, Europe would win the battle for Ukraine if they entered the war, no doubt about it. What that means for the EU politically makes an intervention in Ukraine a pipedream.
I lived when the defense industry got money during the cold war, of course they need more money to win and obviously they will do everything they can to get more funding.
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.
I, on the other hand (as an EU citizen), would like to not be drafted to fight in a conflict by two random governments of countries I don't live in and share nothing ideologically with. Sure, we can all do taxes together, share the currency, etc. I know that NATO already is that way, but the EU is not a military alliance and should never be.
> I, on the other hand (as an EU citizen), would like to not be drafted to fight in a conflict by two random governments of countries I don't live in and share nothing ideologically with.
... because that worked out so well for Europe when Poland was invaded in 1939 and everyone looked the other way?
After the war, top German generals like Franz Halder, the Chief of the Army General Staff, revealed that their actual strength had been much smaller than the British and the French had feared. Anglo-French forces could have outnumbered them 1:5. The generals speculated that a well-coordinated allied attack from France could have defeated Germany in just a few weeks.
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.
I could be wrong, but imo the EU is looking more rickety than the Russian Federation. It's not far fetched for the future to feature a militarised and experienced in war Russia starts breaking apart the EU and nibbling parts off.
Any recommendations? Or is this a case of double secret probation[0], or putting the invisible locks on the door[1]?
Frankly, the EU is guilty of neglect in this respect for years. Poland, for example, had been urging things like more energy solidarity since it joined the EU, something Germany consistently shot down or waved away. Mustard after the meal in some ways.
A stronger response will require more defense investment to counter hybrid warfare.
He was actually one of the presiding members (forgot their title) who was completing his term. He got emotional over the gravity of the transition. To shed tears is not a mark of weakness. It serves as that signal only for the emotionally repressed.
We have far more to gain by attempting to get free, uncensored information to the Russians, compared to what we're currently risking in terms of potential cyber-attacks (Which Russia could easily orchestrate from other countries anyway).
The real question is: When are we going to require ever single Russian ship parsing through the Baltic Sea to be escorted by JEF naval vessels.
Whenever this concept comes up, I can't help but ask, how would you actually implement cutting them off? They're chums with China, so is the plan to cut them off as well? And then all the countries that border China? What about other countries they share a border with? Etc. The only realistically feasible option is if they choose to do it themselves.
The result would be that there would be two Internets, one with the US, and one with Russia. Each country could then choose which one to join (either-or).
So countries would have to choose between keeping access to Microsoft (Azure, Office 365, Windows updates), Amazon (AWS, Amazon itself, Prime Video), Google (Google Cloud, all Google services), Meta (WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram), Github, Cloudflare, Slack, Steam, Netflix, Mastercard, Visa, ... - or to the services in countries that chose differently.
I don't think that is a choice that any even remotely Western-aligned country could even consider a choice. It's likely that there would be some form of backlash (countries disliking this loss of sovereignty and measures to discourage reliance on US-based cloud providers in the long term), but in the short term, this would not be cutting the US off from parts of the Internet that it cares about.
And with most countries having chosen (well, "chosen") the US-aligned Internet, India and China would have to choose between begrudgingly playing along, or seriously hurting their economies due to the additional friction of communicating with their export markets.
I have no doubt that the US could pull this off. Not necessarily repeatedly and without consequences, of course, but right now, if they wanted to, I don't think the rest of the world would have a choice to not go along with it.
I can tell you for a non-critical funzies app I have facing the internet, when I country-blocked China and Russia (which I know is neither authoritative nor exactly correct) my fail2ban log entries of brute forcing ssh connect attempts dropped by over 90%.
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...
https://translate.kagi.com/translate/Swedish/en/https://www....
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.
This is the P in CAP theorem: partition awareness.
I used to work on distributed systems, and network partitions were a frequent enough occurrence that they weren’t considered an extraordinary event. By that, I mean that we wouldn’t page during network partitions because it was still considered normal system operation. Our design was designed from the ground up to consider network partitions as a frequent and normal operational state.
What we did do is watch SLAs. If the network partition continued for too long, then our data quality would degrade over time. So we would page based on data quality.
I don’t know the answer to the actual question you asked, I would be curious to know, too.
According to experts, there have been no cable breaks of this type for over a decade in the Baltic Sea and now suddenly there have been about 5 in just 1,5 year, at a time when ruzzia is conducting aggressive hybrid warfare and the last 2 ships discovered were also Chinese ships, a country that supports ruzzia and one ship had a ruzzian captain and they also seem to belong to the ruzzian shadow fleet.
Several of the ships have also gone to / from ruzzian ports and behaved strangely, for example zig zagged over the cable before, turned off the transponder, drifted around etc. which ships do not normally do.
Suddenly, cable breaks in the Baltic Sea are 26 times higher than in the rest of the world, it can not be dismissed as "accidents". These cables have not broken by chance, according to experts, but this is a deliberate act.
A quick internet search suggests that these are indeed frequent:
« Between 2007 and 2010, 53 telecoms faults were recorded around the UK, 19 of which were caused by anchors »
« Various modes of fishing involving placement of heavy gear on the seabed result in 50 to 100 faults a year, typically in water depths shallower than 1500m »
from https://www.iscpc.org/documents/?id=201
You could easily find other sources and statistics.
If you have never been at sea, it may sound extraordinary that an anchor or a fishing net could by chance damage a cable, but you would be quite far from the truth. You could read this report on one case about a ship dragging anchor over a cable: https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/operator-of-ship... and complete it with video from youtube of how life looks like in a cargo ship under a storm, to form a better picture of what it's like.
Also, all of the investigations on recent cases that's been pushed on top of the press for some reason, concluded on accidental damage. As always, it is recommanded to read professional newssources rather than political ones. For instance, you could search for "site:www.marineinsight.com cable damage"
Finally, I can see how all this noise can be used by NATO to justify strengthening their presence in the baltic see, but I fail to see the advantage for Russia. Let's be clear, I'm certain there are many russian agents in the west trying to sabotage west politics and mess with public opinions etc... but creating a few more incidents of cable damage on the baltic sea? How is that helping exactly? The disruption that could be caused is probably less than the cost of the seized ship.
For such a obviously political topic, believing that there exist an unadulterated pathway for information to flow from an event happening at the bottom of the sea up to your favorite internet news corporation seams uterly silly.
Wonder if there's any industry reports on if there's more demand for subcable repair/servicing than typical/projected.
There is a company, TeleGeography, that collects data about telecommunications industry. I recently read their recent blog post[1] about undersea cable breaks.
To summarize the article: On average, 199 cable faults per year from 2010-2023. Two thirds of these faults are caused by external forces like fishing vessels. Most cable faults are not made public. The preliminary data from 2024 suggests slightly more publicly disclosed faults, but nothing extraordinary. It is hard to detect the physical cause of cable damage. One likely cause is inexperienced crews on poorly maintained ships.
Personally, I do not believe all the cable faults in the Baltic sea are pure accidents. Russia (and China) have found the "perfect" way to test how we react and play their games. This testing is nothing new and it has happened before in many forms. It is likely that we have not even noticed some of the testing or they are not made public.
[1] https://blog.telegeography.com/is-it-sabotage-unraveling-the...
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.
Quite surprising indeed that it happens more frequently in a region with a lot of ships, a lot of cables, and a shallow sea... :-/
Here is a high quality article from last year about how these cables are repaired. https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea...
Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43125802
True, but there's more discussion on this thread.
I know nothing about this topic.
How crazy is it to cover the cables with passive sonar and detect damage threats? How much crazier is it to create a sufficient number of undersea drones that can prevent damage before it happens? Maybe manoeuvre a protective barrier over the predicted impact area if there's a dragging anchor or fishing net? Pick a fight with enemy drones?
I'm increasingly impressed and terrified with air/ground drone capabilities displayed in Ukraine. The sea floor seems like the next logical step. But maybe it's more efficient to detect damage quickly and make repairs easy.
Global connect (the company that owns and operates most data cables in the Baltic sea) is running tests with tamper detecting cables. They say they will be able to detect a whale at a distance of 80 kilometers. I assume the whale is just used as an example to demonstrate its sensitivity, since whales haven't been implicated in any of the previous cable breaks.
Swedish: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/ljusstrale-genom-kablar-k...
How do we know that the whales have not been implicated without these sensors? Perhaps they will reveal that whales were the issue all along.
The whales already signed an international treaty on this, and it's really unlikely they are going to violate their treaty obligations by destroying fiber optic cables.
Also, you know, whales not having sharp teeth and the ability to chew small breaks into cables that look remarkably like intentionally dragging boat anchors across them and all that.
The idea of a sabotage-whale armed with torpedoes reminds me of the book Starter Villain by John Scalzi. (It's... relatively zany.)
I hope researchers get access to some of that data. Would be cool if an unintended side effect of this work ends up benefiting marine wildlife research.
Wouldn't it be simpler to run dummy detection lines in parallel or through certain tracks to identify negligent activity? Critical cables get hit but it's hard to investigate and take action because the vessels are flagged in the Cook Islands etc. (Lawfare had a recent podcast on this.) It's not bad luck when there is some systematic behavior detected, but that data is hard to collection. Drones are cool but there is a huge area to cover reliably and often stay undetected by the adversary.
Submerged drone flotillas are probably the next great pursuit for armed forces, especially those lacking a large naval fleet of their own.
Ukrainian surface naval drones have proven to have superiority over naval capital ships in littoral and medium seas (which is what the Mediterranean and the Baltic Seas are like compared to the Black Sea).
Deep water naval drone superiority is probably very close, but ability to hunt, track, and kill ballistic submarines will be critical to undermining US naval dominance. Both China and EU will be heavily invested in this.
If all military naval assets can be neutered by cheap drones, then a sort of mutually assured destruction of sea trade can be somewhat enforced. Maybe.
Would it be possible to protect the cables with a 'hook line' before and after the actual cable that is anchored in the seabed (if possible)? Ship anchors would get stuck on the hook line before doing damage. Only needed below the shipping lanes.
If ship anchors are able to reach the sea bottom then it can't be too deep. Drilling fasteners in the sea bottom at shallow depths could be feasible depending on the makeup of the sea bed. No idea about the cost to install vs repair though.
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.
"Nothing of their own" is a bit exaggerated.
They have IRIS-T and SAMP/T, the latter being somewhat comparable to the Patriot. Beside American made aircrafts there are also locally produced ones. I would be more worried by the lack of a proper equivalent of AWACS.
In general though issue is not quality (at least compared to Russia) but quantity. Also if I was an European country I would be worried about the usability of any advanced weapon bought from our American friends: I wouldn't be surprised if, in case of confrontation between Europe and Russia, the guy in the Oval Office decided to block sales of spare parts in order to force war mongering Europeans to come to an agreement with peace-seeking Putin, or if his plutocratic friend decided to completely axe the project because "it sucks and drones are better"
This is the first I've heard of them, and Ukraine isn't demanding them. Either that means they are somehow worse than nothing, or the EU cannot supply them even though they exist on paper (based on planned increases I'm guessing the later). Remember military equipment that you don't have when needed is no better than fiction.
They are both (IRIS and SAMP) in Ukraine, doing an excellent job from what I read. I'm sure Ukraine are asking for them, as they are very expensive and it would be insane to gift the if not wanted.
Many European countries chose Patriot for diplomatic reasons. The US used to favour those who bought their weapons. Not any more it seems, so I guess that mistake will not be repeated in the near term.
What about Rafale and Gripen, have you ever heard about those?
Those are airplanes, not air defense systems. Useful but for different purposes.
The EU can't supply those in large numbers either though.
Are you saying Russia is better armed than Europe? You noticed that it could not win a war it started even without Europe joining?
Absolutely. Russia is better armed. They have a massive store of Soviet equipment they have been using up, along with their own production (they were long a world class supplier for equipment - there are a lot of Russian equipped armys around the world)
Russians problems are about bad leadership. They have a lot of badly trained troops (their well trained troops do very well, but they are a small minority and running out). They have logistics issues. They have problems with leaders using well trained troops for things they are not trained for. They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans. They have problems with leaders there because they are political good not because they are great military commanders.
Do not fool yourself though. Russia is a very well armed country. They have problems, but lack of arms is not their issue in Ukraine.
Remember Russia is currently buying arms from countries willing to sell. Can't say you convinced me
> They have problems with nobody willing to tell the full truth to leaders and so leaders can't make the right plans
That for sure. This started at least when no one told putting he is terminally insane back in 2021.
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.
The unfortunate side-effect is also that as US does not honor guarantees given in the Budapest memorandum, no country is going to give up nuclear weapons trusting contracts, and that European nation states (and possibly Canada, Mexico) will draw the conclusions on how to best get functional security guarantees ie. have own nuclear stockpile. This has been the status quo USA has bought by being a security provider, and by betraying it the downside is to returning to the nuclear armageddon scare of the cold war — if a European country nukes Russian territory, the retaliation might well bite back to the US soil. If Europe got too cozy with conventional warfare capabilities, the US got too cozy with the idea that they’re providing security out of the goodness of their hearts instead of it being a geopolitical bargain where they receive certain advantages as well.
if a friend turns on you like that, that friend is finished as a arms trader
Cant say I disagree with any of this, EU members each messed up good here, for decades completely ignoring all voices from eastern part warning about exactly-fucking-this and how you cant trust russians even with nose between their eyes. The solution may be easy - leave green deal since nobody else cares about it anymore, and EU is hardly 5% of global population but it has potential to wreak havoc on millions of jobs here. Not sure it would be enough to cover all extra spending but it would certainly help.
But that would require significant political change in all major players in EU, Leyden so far is pushing for it like there is no tomorrow and otherwise all is well and good. She seems untouchable. Germany prefers buying electricity from foreign coal rather than keep nuclear running for few more years. Also Germans will probably let half of Europe burn before they would make Wehrmacht the force to again reckon with.
Each country had 3 years to massively ramp up budgets and build factories, start recruiting. Poland and baltics did the moves since they had plenty of russian atrocities happen not so long ago, but the rest? We dont deal with strictly rational society here.
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?
Sanctions are partial, the shadow fleet is operating, support for Ukraine is partial, China and India are not experiencing notable repercussions for supplying Russia, Europe is buying Russian gas. There's a lot Europe could do to show that it's serious about security, without troops in Ukraine. Oh, troops and training personnel in Ukraine's rear is another one.
My guess is that this is how much they can do before seriously impacting people's cushy lives. Wouldn't want to inconvenience your population in any way, would you? /s
The leaders of free countries have the issue that if they increase the cost of living too much they'll be voted out by voters angry enough to listen to Russian agitprop. The Western narrative is very damaged especially in our own underclasses.
If you aren't willing to move to conflict (or whatever the next step is) at some point, then you are, in fact, just bluffing, and you are being called out on that bluff.
You can choose what that point is, but it's weird not to expect enemies to continually test where your line is, and walk you right up to it.
I'm not sure what you expect to see here?
Let's assume for a second armed conflict is the "natural" next step.
Either you are willing to get into an armed conflict over it or not. If you aren't, and they are willing to accept everything other than armed conflict (sanctions, etc), why should they care at all what you think or do? They already know you won't escalate past a certain point. As long as they are willing to accept how far you are willing to escalate, ....
In the end, people monitor actions, not words.
And how much of Russia's puffed up chest and militaristic culture is America's fault?
You edged them during your whole cold war thing & now you got a headache and want the neighbours to take care of it.
This seems 100% irrelevant to the question of "what more can be done".
I'm totally unsure why this is directed at me.
russia has been invading and committing genocide since day 1 of its existence, starting with Genghis Khan:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan
EU is just being out greyzoned by RU in this area - greyzone because under UNCLOS subsea infra regulations, RU suppose to pay for indemnities but we know that's not going to happen unless EU returns siezed RU $$$. TBH RU still has 100B+ more worth of cables to sabatoge and other shenanigans going forward in response to EU shooting firt with greyzone seizing of RU assets. People calling for blockades / shooting ships think that's worth escalating to actual kinetic war, in which case EU will simply be the relative larger loser since a 20T EU economy vs 2T RU economy has much more to lose, i.e. would be fairly easy to just fuck up EU energy / energy import infra.
Yes, this all comes back to Russia calling our bluff on war. They can continue to harass and invade and pursue their territorial expansion, because they have less to lose than the EU.
But, at some point there is a limit. If the EU does choose, as you call it, kinetic war, Russia will be toast. They cannot win a conventional war against a far larger economy. Just like Ukraine cannot win the war against Russia.
Investing a lot more into Ukraine's military, so Ukraine can defeat Russia for us.
Also increase Sanctions even more. We still have Banks like the Austrian Raiffeisenkasse that operate in Russia.
Sink any russian ship making a move.
Conflict already exists. Next step is punching bully back in the face.
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.
Just as an aside, I love the term, “made out of snail.” Is this a Swedish idiom?
I liked it too and investigated phrases involving "snigel", but it looks like it was ad-libbed.
No, it was just an play on his lack of backbone, lol
If that's what you're hoping for, Ukraine is very grateful for volunteers. There's a bunch of Swedes who did go there to fight. There's a bunch who are there right now.
Or is it "somebody else" who has to show a backbone and take action?
I ask for our leader to condemn acts of aggression.
You read it as I want more bloodshed?
Some of us still live in democracies.
I understand. But I don't know if there's been any lacking in condemnation on his part. As far as I remember, most leaders of nations have condemned the war completely since day one. What do you wish for him to achieve by condemning it harder?
I'd prefer they didn't act until there's actually proof what is behind it.
Chamberlain all over again...
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 now knows US is supporting Russia and not a reliable ally.
It's not an ally, it's an enemy now.
>Europe is a case of being crippled by assistance
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.
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.
>being dependant on a larger, benevolent state for protection,
<benevolent> not really. we bougth a ton of USA weapons and also our soldiers died in USA started wars, it was an alliance and now USA just betrayed us , the blood and money we sacrificed was for nothing, I hope the cheap eggs from Trump satisfies MAGA idiots for this international betrayal .
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 can't believe this message is flagged:
> 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).
In a thread full of hatred and calls for more senseless violence and calls to sink all ships etc.
I don't know if wealth makes us weaker, but it apparently don't make us less prone to be manipulated by emotions.
Well, implied bothsidism where Ukrainiens are somehow equally to blame for Russian invasion and attempt at genocide would be a good reason to downvote that.
It was an unprovoked aggression from the Russia, made because Russia wants to annex territories. Full stop. That current American or whatever leadership sees annexation and expansive wars as a cool thing is unrelated to that.
And for that matter, Canada did not started issues between US and Canada either. It is purely American made aggression.
Behold the north koreans hardest and smallest of all warriors
> 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.
Hurr durr we was stronger back in da good old days when we beat our wives and killed the gays!
Why do so many people resort to that argument, as if they can predict what would happen if Europe went to war.
I'm pretty sure the next Adolf won't be from/in Europe
Hard times create broken people. Good times create good strong people. In general, historically it was so.
Christ can people stop with this stupid quote? And could we stop using fiction as argument about real world too?
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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?
We know which vessels cut the cables. Why should anybody on those vessels survive?
Dang, is it really ok to call for murder in HN?
Because it is not the entire crew of those vessels which are complicit in these actions. It is far more likely that one person dropped the anchor - which does not seem to register on the bridge, no warning lights seem to be installed if I can trust what I've read and seen on this subject - so it would bounce over the bottom. The autopilot will take care of keeping the vessel at its programmed course and speed until the anchor gets stuck (which seems to have happened the last time a cable was cut somewhere off Gotland, the vessel suddenly went from 6 kts to 0 kts and staid around that speed for about 30 minutes).
That does not mean such vessels should be let off. They should be held at anchor until the responsible person(s) have been identified and the vessel's owners should be held financially responsible for the damages. Once a few owners have been made to pay up they'll make sure it becomes impossible for an individual to go out to the bow at night to drop an anchor without anyone noticing.
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...
Nord Stream 2 was already investigated back to Ukraine special services using a cruise ship and then the news went dead for obvious reasons.
That is not impossible but it is far from certain. There are plenty of other possibilities and plenty of parties with plausible motive.
>> 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.
It seems to me that Russia found a reason to escalate whenever it wanted anyway.
If else, Russians see any restraint by the enemy as a sign of weakness and an excuse to escalate even more.
“You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw” ― Vladimir Ilich Lenin
So doing nothing causes escalation and reciprocal action causes escalation.
What’s the answer?
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.
Act. Do not be acted upon aka re acting.
The answer is fairly obvious, but it doesn’t sound nice, and mentioning it on this forum is forbidden as far as I understand.
Lack of reciprocal action is called self deterrence. Or in simpler words, it's what happens when you keep doing what the bully at school asks you to do, more and more, because he could escalate, even if you are as strong as him or stronger.
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.
That's one possibility, but another is that they're deterred. Suddenly doing the bad thing hurts, so there's a good chance you'll go find some other person to pick on.
But of course you can't /know/ the outcome beforehand, which is what makes it a high-stakes game. The only thing you know is that if you keep doing nothing they'll have no reason to stop.
No, there is a VAST menu of effective retaliation or response measures. The response absolutely does NOT need to be exactly in kind or 1:1.
The key is that the measure must cost the aggressor more than they gain, and of course be reasonably proportional.
Plus, even if we stick to your irrelevant requirement, response is better. It is less bad to have no subsea cabling for everyone vs making no response and ending up with only the aggressors having subsea cabling.
It does NOT give them reason
It may give them pretext
But when they want to escalate, any convenient pretext they can fabricate will be spewed out
Appeasement ONLY encourages aggressors. They can ignore any statements and rhetoric and correctly conclude: "I did X, no real consequences, therefore I can do more X".
The ONLY language they understand is force or consequences with real cost to them. Vladimir Lenin said it very clearly:
>>"We probe with bayonets. Where we find steel we withdraw, where we find mush we press on."
When delaying reciprocal action, the cost for the next round ALWAYS increases.
Delaying response is a fools' game.
Democracies always play that fools' game because for any one politician, it is easier to kick the can down the road with bad reasoning like you posted.
But when the situation finally becomes unavoidable, it is a deep serious problem. Here we are.
Really sounds like you’re quoting from Mein Kampf
Hmm. Although I've never read that tome, it would not surprise me to find he expresses similar strategies.
It's really just the Imperialist Autocrats' standard playbook, and it is little different from the schoolyard bully — "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is up for grabs".
They all just keep aggressing until they get hurt, then they find someone else to harass and steal from.
So what?
internet Traffic watching automated torpedo turrets
Non-credible: Cover the coasts with Anti-Submarine Torpedo Rockets, and the moment you detect an issue in your submarine cables / pipelines, launch at the position :D
Even more non-credible: Use the nuclear-armed version with a small nuclear warhead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RUR-5_ASROC
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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.
<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.
Invasion is not necessary. It is sad that any discussion limits politics and rivalry between countries to full-scale invasion.
Poland and Russia have opposing interests. Period. Russia wants to be a part of Europe, Poland doesn't want Russia to be a part of Europe. Poland wants to be sovereign country that keeps growing economically, Russia doesn't want that. Russia doesn't need to invade Poland, it is enough to "reshape the European Security Architecture", reduce Polish chances to develop and growth etc.
> Russia wants to be a part of Europe
Doubtful.
They want to be part of the European economy. Just like Ukraine.
Of course, Ukraine was willing to undergo the required reforms. Russia and Putin is far too proud and suspicious of the West to do that.
I mean, they are quite open about it.
Europe is not limited to EU or shared Western values of human rights and democracy.
well until 2022 no serious Russian politician (is there such a thing among the sock puppets ?) said Ukraine needed a invasion . Dictatorships.. if the boss pops a hemoroid in the morning , you march according to plan in the evening .
> I have never heard any serious Russia politician claim that the Baltics or Poland should be invaded.
Putin did on one of St.Petersburg conferences, but you are right there are no serious politicians in Russia.
I think it has to be the french president, they’re the only EU country with nukes (I dont see UK as EU at this point)
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.
At this moment, the Russian military is very weakened. Europe doesn't have overwhelming force but could easily kick Russia out of Ukraine. (Except it won't for political reasons.)
Nothing in war is easy. It would be very dangerous and costly even if winning is likely.
Not easy path. Easy outcome. If you think winning will dangerous and costly, guess how dangerous and costly losing will be.
Yes, it is very weakened, but the rest of your post... Sorry, but it is the same kind of hopium that people keep overdosing since 2022.
It is easy to talk about war, Europe would win the battle for Ukraine if they entered the war, no doubt about it. What that means for the EU politically makes an intervention in Ukraine a pipedream.
https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/defending-europe-without-us...
Well, seems like some in Europe have doubts about it.
I lived when the defense industry got money during the cold war, of course they need more money to win and obviously they will do everything they can to get more funding.
Russian helicopters in the early days of the Ukraine war had “To Berlin” painted on them in Cyrillic.
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.
I, on the other hand (as an EU citizen), would like to not be drafted to fight in a conflict by two random governments of countries I don't live in and share nothing ideologically with. Sure, we can all do taxes together, share the currency, etc. I know that NATO already is that way, but the EU is not a military alliance and should never be.
I'm also an EU citizen and heavily in favor of an EU-military.
We could be a lot stronger with the same amount of money invested through economies-of-scale.
We can either take the chance to become a superpower or we will be taken over by aggressive countries like Russia.
> I, on the other hand (as an EU citizen), would like to not be drafted to fight in a conflict by two random governments of countries I don't live in and share nothing ideologically with.
... because that worked out so well for Europe when Poland was invaded in 1939 and everyone looked the other way?
After the war, top German generals like Franz Halder, the Chief of the Army General Staff, revealed that their actual strength had been much smaller than the British and the French had feared. Anglo-French forces could have outnumbered them 1:5. The generals speculated that a well-coordinated allied attack from France could have defeated Germany in just a few weeks.
Imagine Europe if Hitler had been hanged in 1939!
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
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgl27x74wpo
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.
Russia didn't even manage to steamroll Ukraine at the start of the war, when Ukraine didn't have the support of the west.
They can cause an enormous amount of lifes to be lost, but winning against nevermind steamrolling EU is farfetched.
I could be wrong, but imo the EU is looking more rickety than the Russian Federation. It's not far fetched for the future to feature a militarised and experienced in war Russia starts breaking apart the EU and nibbling parts off.
And by rickety, I mean political cohesion.
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Yes, united behind a strong upright leader, or even führer.
Any recommendations? Or is this a case of double secret probation[0], or putting the invisible locks on the door[1]?
Frankly, the EU is guilty of neglect in this respect for years. Poland, for example, had been urging things like more energy solidarity since it joined the EU, something Germany consistently shot down or waved away. Mustard after the meal in some ways.
A stronger response will require more defense investment to counter hybrid warfare.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3LzJzQ3wj4
[1] https://youtu.be/7L8UwOZRejA?si=GPvx4hZw4vGMeXkE&t=48
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He was actually one of the presiding members (forgot their title) who was completing his term. He got emotional over the gravity of the transition. To shed tears is not a mark of weakness. It serves as that signal only for the emotionally repressed.
Do you have a source for that? This smells like fake news.
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).
why is Russia still connected to the internet?
We have far more to gain by attempting to get free, uncensored information to the Russians, compared to what we're currently risking in terms of potential cyber-attacks (Which Russia could easily orchestrate from other countries anyway).
The real question is: When are we going to require ever single Russian ship parsing through the Baltic Sea to be escorted by JEF naval vessels.
"free, uncensored information" This just means Western version of events .
Western propaganda is no longer as effective as it was a decade ago.
It is effective. That's why there are so many trump supporters.
Whenever this concept comes up, I can't help but ask, how would you actually implement cutting them off? They're chums with China, so is the plan to cut them off as well? And then all the countries that border China? What about other countries they share a border with? Etc. The only realistically feasible option is if they choose to do it themselves.
Prohibit US ISPs from maintaining routes with anyone who maintains routes with Russia.
The result of that would be cutting the US off from the internet, not Russia.
The result would be that there would be two Internets, one with the US, and one with Russia. Each country could then choose which one to join (either-or).
So countries would have to choose between keeping access to Microsoft (Azure, Office 365, Windows updates), Amazon (AWS, Amazon itself, Prime Video), Google (Google Cloud, all Google services), Meta (WhatsApp/Facebook/Instagram), Github, Cloudflare, Slack, Steam, Netflix, Mastercard, Visa, ... - or to the services in countries that chose differently.
I don't think that is a choice that any even remotely Western-aligned country could even consider a choice. It's likely that there would be some form of backlash (countries disliking this loss of sovereignty and measures to discourage reliance on US-based cloud providers in the long term), but in the short term, this would not be cutting the US off from parts of the Internet that it cares about.
And with most countries having chosen (well, "chosen") the US-aligned Internet, India and China would have to choose between begrudgingly playing along, or seriously hurting their economies due to the additional friction of communicating with their export markets.
I have no doubt that the US could pull this off. Not necessarily repeatedly and without consequences, of course, but right now, if they wanted to, I don't think the rest of the world would have a choice to not go along with it.
US is cooperating with Russia and supporting it. Why would it cut itself from its newest ally?
Russia? We have always been at war with Eur(asia)/ope.
They are working on disconnecting themselves.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russia-is-trying-...
I can tell you for a non-critical funzies app I have facing the internet, when I country-blocked China and Russia (which I know is neither authoritative nor exactly correct) my fail2ban log entries of brute forcing ssh connect attempts dropped by over 90%.