Comment by gizajob
2 days ago
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?
2 days ago
Should European countries position military craft at 1km intervals on the surface along the route of every cable? Or do you mean they should start cutting Russian cables?
There are many possible methods of deterrence and reciprocal action. If you do nothing, the enemy has no reason not to escalate.
> If you do nothing, the enemy has no reason not to escalate.
Identifying your actual enemy is obviously step 1, and getting this right might be harder than you'd think.
Look at Nord Stream 2...
Nord Stream 2 was already investigated back to Ukraine special services using a cruise ship and then the news went dead for obvious reasons.
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>> 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?
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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.
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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.
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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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Dang, is it really ok to call for murder in HN?
The attacks are acts of war. Self defence in a war is not murder.
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.