[HN Gopher] Sweden Investigates New Cable Break Under Baltic Sea
___________________________________________________________________
Sweden Investigates New Cable Break Under Baltic Sea
Author : xnx
Score : 176 points
Date : 2025-02-21 13:54 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Owner company confirms "modest damage" to the cable that "doesn't
| affect the communication links".
|
| "Det ar bolaget Cinia som ager kabeln som gar mellan Tyskland och
| Finland. Bolaget bekraftar for SVT Nyheter lattare skador, som
| inte paverkar kommunikationsforbindelserna."
|
| https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/uppgifter-om-nytt-kabelbr...
| eproxus wrote:
| https://translate.kagi.com/translate/Swedish/en/https://www....
| everfrustrated wrote:
| Dupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43125802
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| True, but there's more discussion on this thread.
| lawn wrote:
| Weird how these accidents has started happening so often...
|
| The European countries needs to stop being so soft.
| dmos62 wrote:
| 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.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| 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).
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Europe is a case of being crippled by assistance_
| Good times create weak people. Weak people create
| hard times.
|
| 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. Hard times create
| strong people.
| card_zero wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| >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 .
| mvc wrote:
| > 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| twhgra wrote:
| 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).
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| Behold the north koreans hardest and smallest of all
| warriors
| OKRainbowKid wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the next Adolf won't be from/in Europe
| watwut wrote:
| 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?
| watwut wrote:
| Europe now knows US is supporting Russia and not a reliable
| ally.
| lawn wrote:
| I'm a Swede and I'm mostly upset that my government isn't
| acting more forcefully.
| powerhugs wrote:
| 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.
| CountSessine wrote:
| Just as an aside, I love the term, "made out of snail."
| Is this a Swedish idiom?
| card_zero wrote:
| I liked it too and investigated phrases involving
| "snigel", but it looks like it was ad-libbed.
| powerhugs wrote:
| No, it was just an play on his lack of backbone, lol
| geysersam wrote:
| I'd prefer they didn't act until there's actually proof
| what is behind it.
| munksbeer wrote:
| The problem is, what more can Europe do? Sanctions are
| already in place. What is the next step? Conflict?
| dmos62 wrote:
| 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.
| barbazoo wrote:
| 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
| maxglute wrote:
| 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.
| munksbeer wrote:
| 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.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| Sink any russian ship making a move.
| preisschild wrote:
| 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.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Chamberlain all over again...
| ssijak wrote:
| What do you suggest?
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I quite like the idea of a united EU army. It's something
| that's been floated quite a bit recently.
| card_zero wrote:
| 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
| datameta wrote:
| Yes, he spoke on it at the Munich Security Conference, to
| frequent applause
| Trasmatta wrote:
| 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.
| lawn wrote:
| 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.
| atoav wrote:
| Zelinsky was by no means the first, I heard talks of this
| since the crimean annexation.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| "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?
| boredatoms wrote:
| 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)
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| 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.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| 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.)
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| 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.
| pastage wrote:
| 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.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/defending-europe-
| without-us...
|
| Well, seems like some in Europe have doubts about it.
| dmix wrote:
| Nothing in war is easy. It would be very dangerous and
| costly even if winning is likely.
| twhgra wrote:
| 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.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| 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.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| > Russia wants to be a part of Europe
|
| Doubtful.
| wolvesechoes wrote:
| I mean, they are quite open about it.
|
| Europe is not limited to EU or _shared Western values of
| human rights and democracy_.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| 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 .
| type0 wrote:
| > 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.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| Russian helicopters in the early days of the Ukraine war
| had "To Berlin" painted on them in Cyrillic.
| gizajob wrote:
| Yes, united behind a strong upright leader, or even fuhrer.
| blitzar wrote:
| 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.
| trinix912 wrote:
| 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.
| preisschild wrote:
| 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.
| mopsi wrote:
| > 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!
| lawn wrote:
| 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.
| pergadad wrote:
| 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.
| everfrustrated wrote:
| 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.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| 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.
| gizajob wrote:
| 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?
| Trasmatta wrote:
| There are many possible methods of deterrence and reciprocal
| action. If you do nothing, the enemy has no reason not to
| escalate.
| basisword wrote:
| >> There are many possible methods of deterrence and
| reciprocal action
|
| What do you suggest?
| boredatoms wrote:
| Fully close the border with russia? Permanently deny any
| boat that makes port in russia access to EU ports, I
| could go on
| stackedinserter wrote:
| 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.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Reciprocal action gives the enemy plenty of reason to
| escalate.
| pmontra wrote:
| 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.
| gizajob wrote:
| 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.
| toss1 wrote:
| 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.
| simmonmt wrote:
| 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.
| lostlogin wrote:
| So doing nothing causes escalation and reciprocal action
| causes escalation.
|
| What's the answer?
| zhengyi13 wrote:
| 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.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| Act. Do not be acted upon aka re acting.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| So what?
| toss1 wrote:
| 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.
| gizajob wrote:
| Really sounds like you're quoting from Mein Kampf
| toss1 wrote:
| 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.
| mrighele wrote:
| 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
| logifail wrote:
| > 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...
| dmix wrote:
| Nord Stream 2 was already investigated back to Ukraine
| special services using a cruise ship and then the news
| went dead for obvious reasons.
| apelapan wrote:
| That is not impossible but it is far from certain. There
| are plenty of other possibilities and plenty of parties
| with plausible motive.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| internet Traffic watching automated torpedo turrets
| preisschild wrote:
| 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
| peterfirefly wrote:
| We know which vessels cut the cables. Why should anybody on
| those vessels survive?
| hagbard_c wrote:
| 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.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| <BotTemplate> Foggy first sentence of agreement Nuclear Threats
| for deterrence Political divisive topics </BotTemplate>
| blitzar wrote:
| We should really tell the US to f' off and stop cutting our
| undersea cables and blowing up our undersea pipes.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| Did I miss something? What pointed to the US?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| blitzar's imagination (or sarcasm).
| llm_nerd wrote:
| 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?
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| lawn wrote:
| There's a very large uptick in these events in the Baltic sea
| and it's not just because of media reporting.
| backyardflock wrote:
| 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!
| OKRainbowKid wrote:
| Do you have a source for that? This smells like fake news.
| datameta wrote:
| 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.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| 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
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| 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..
| bilbo0s wrote:
| 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.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| EU is armed to the teeth. All you had TODO is to pretend its
| corruption, throw a few parties in a rented Muckelsee 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..
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I hope this is a lesson Europe does not forget, and they
| start building immediately.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Are you saying Russia is better armed than Europe? You
| noticed that it could not win a war it started _even
| without Europe joining_?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| 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.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| if a friend turns on you like that, that friend is
| finished as a arms trader
| jajko wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| mrighele wrote:
| "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"
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| mopsi wrote:
| What about Rafale and Gripen, have you ever heard about
| those?
| bluGill wrote:
| Those are airplanes, not air defense systems. Useful but
| for different purposes.
|
| The EU can't supply those in large numbers either though.
| apelapan wrote:
| 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.
| tokai wrote:
| Letters of marque could definitely do a comeback.
| bluGill wrote:
| 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.
| tokai wrote:
| Millions of barrels of oil or a shipment of coal is pretty
| valuable.
| knowitnone wrote:
| why is Russia still connected to the internet?
| tokai wrote:
| They are working on disconnecting themselves.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russia-is-trying-...
| Etheryte wrote:
| 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.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Prohibit US ISPs from maintaining routes with anyone who
| maintains routes with Russia.
| Etheryte wrote:
| The result of that would be cutting the US off from the
| internet, not Russia.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| 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.
| watwut wrote:
| US is cooperating with Russia and supporting it. Why
| would it cut itself from its newest ally?
| codr7 wrote:
| Russia? We have always been at war with Eur(asia)/ope.
| mrweasel wrote:
| 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.
| MaxPock wrote:
| "free, uncensored information" This just means Western
| version of events .
|
| Western propaganda is no longer as effective as it was a
| decade ago.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| 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%.
| danbruc wrote:
| 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.
| renewiltord wrote:
| 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.
| simion314 wrote:
| Yeah, happens globally but not that often in same region.
| materielle wrote:
| 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.
| maxglute wrote:
| Wonder if there's any industry reports on if there's more
| demand for subcable repair/servicing than typical/projected.
| sumea wrote:
| 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...
| srveale wrote:
| 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.
| zerkten wrote:
| 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.
| lancebeet wrote:
| 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...
| someotherperson wrote:
| 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.
| patapong wrote:
| 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.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| 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.
| razzio wrote:
| 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.
| Carrok wrote:
| Here is a high quality article from last year about how these
| cables are repaired.
| https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea...
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