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Russian Presence Near Undersea Cables Concerns US (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports that the presence of Russian ships near important, undersea internet cables is raising concern with U.S. military and intelligence officials. From the article: "The issue goes beyond old Cold War worries that the Russians would tap into the cables — a task American intelligence agencies also mastered decades ago. The alarm today is deeper: The ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West's governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent.
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Just last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft, cruised slowly off the East Coast of the United States on its way to Cuba — where one major cable lands near the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay. It was monitored constantly by American spy satellites, ships and planes. Navy officials said the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea. What worries Pentagon planners most is that the Russians appear to be looking for vulnerabilities at much greater depths, where the cables are hard to monitor and breaks are hard to find and repair.
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Just last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft, cruised slowly off the East Coast of the United States on its way to Cuba — where one major cable lands near the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay. It was monitored constantly by American spy satellites, ships and planes. Navy officials said the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea. What worries Pentagon planners most is that the Russians appear to be looking for vulnerabilities at much greater depths, where the cables are hard to monitor and breaks are hard to find and repair.
Anyone has such capability. No advanced equipment needed - just old-fashioned depth charges. If you master "underwater explosives", then you cruise along the cable and drop cheap bombs till you hit hit.
Which is what will happen in a war with a low-tech opponent. Russian equipment may be able to cut a cable on the very first try - that doesn't make them more dangerous than a fishing boat retrofitted with with a dept charge launcher. This sort of warfare is too easy.
And yet I'd put my very fate in the hands of America over Russia and China, any day. As much as the American government gets up to all sorts of terrible fuckery, they are angels in comparison. No amount of fuckery you can list will change that truth, and you are blind or brainwashed if you try.
Signed, a non-American.
In case you missed it, the Russians aren't in "peace time" mode. Ukraine, Syria, etc.
Only America is allowed to spy on the world.
Sounds like a money grab. It seems unlikely the Russians would risk peacetime exposure of such an act of sabotage, only to risk the full measure of the American retaliation process, unless the two nations were at war.
Scouting mission? Sure. Possibly.
But Putin's grandstanding is likely more about restoring key pieces of the old Soviet Empire and regaining a foothold in the Middle East, not in confronting the Americans head on.
I would have agreed with you maybe ten years ago, but ever since Russia started flying bombers equipped with nukes near my home here in Alaska ( http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/09/politics/russian-bombers-u-s-intercept-july-4/ ) I have to disagree. Cold War 2.0 is starting folks--the Putin regime is not joking around.
No Democracy, America is Oligarchy now according to experts
Around $300 million per cable. The military spends 60 times that on air conditioning.
Laying down 200 cables would cost 10% of the military budget.
Not feasible to do overnight, but ten every year for 20 years might be doable.
I suspect that you can get the price down a bit if you lay down that many for a long time.
What I see as the big threat is that Putin makes the first move, and the West does not react.
You mean like The Crimea? We sat by and watched Russia annex a sovereign nation's territory and didn't even whimper. We even promised to defend them and failed to do that.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Is this a case of the US getting all whiny when someone else does the exact same shit they do?
If so, you'll forgive the rest of the world for not giving a fuck.
Boo hoo, teh Russians are going to spy on us the same way we spy on everyone else. Waahh, how unfair.
Honestly, this clueless double standard is mind boggling. What the hell did you expect? Other countries to not do this stuff?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This, mostly. ^
I would not go as far as to call Ukraine a failed toppling exercise. It was a case of undue American political influence. The facts are no matter how you want to spin them there was a pro-russian President in power (who was crook but that isn't relevant to the larger Geo-political action). There were public uprisings and protests taking place. 'We' decided to fan the flames and cause the guy to be deposed because, 'democracy and rule of law', while we blissfully ignored the fact Ukraine had no legal process to remove an elected president involuntarily prior to the end of his term.
If Ukraine had an impeachment process and we had simply been advocating thru public speech the people there use it without providing material support, I would say the situation would be quite clear that the Russians were the ones who over steeped but what we did was a lot more like backing a coup than anything else.
Mexico arguably is closer to a failed state than Ukraine was prior to the resent upheaval. Do you think our government would be tolerant of Putin working to install a pro-Russian government there via extra legal means? I expect 'we' would see it as quite provocative and act accordingly.
Again I am not apologizing for Putin at all, he is bad as any of the international criminals out there, but while the press wants to spin it as him being some sort of crazy aggressor I don't think that is reality. He might be aggressive but his actions don't seem all that crazy if you put yourself in his shoes, they look pretty rational and self interested to me. Which does not mean we have to like them or even mean we have to or should tolerate them but if we want to act 'rationally' and possibly self interested we should try to understand what the motives of the other players are rather than just writing them off as crazy.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
F-35?
1. Shout tropes and memes about government spending
2. Dismiss legitimate concern
3. Get paid for troll comment.
4. Rinse, repeat.
Huh? Russia has engaged in plenty of secret wars and occupations in the past "since decades", including some really brutal slaughters (see Grozny for an example, that's how Russia puts down a rebellion). And the US and Israel "sponsored and trained ISIS" (Daesh)? The US and Israel are actively fighting Daesh (the former being among the most active entities in the world fighting them). The US has never supported Daesh - they're even giving pretty much a free pass to al-Qaeda right now (al-Nusra in Syria) because even al-Qaeda is fighting Daesh (when even al-Qaeda thinks you're too radical, you're seriously messed up). Even before the US started actively fighting Daesh they were helping the Iraqi military in their efforts to fight them.
"Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist, I have to go." "But what about your clothes?" "I don't love these."
What I find amusing is that we tapped their military cables ages ago and had a submarine dedicated to it. And now they may be looking to do the same thing? Boo hoo. Lots of factions in the government are happiest when they have a clearly-defined enemy, well, they've got it.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Seriously, you want to spend 10% of the US military's entire budget on one line item?
For faster Netflix streaming? You're damned well right I do. Where are your priorities?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I think the "crazy" part is more due to lazy journalists who can't be bothered to - or might not even be capable of - understanding the actions of someone they're hostile to. The "write off as crazy" approach is cheap and low effort.
The Americans haven't been in peace time mode since 1945 unless I missed history classes.
Yea, we've been bombing the ..... Out of the rest of the world just because we are vindictive sons of ......
Seriously, who teaches this garbage? Where we have been in numerous armed conflicts around the world since the end of WW2, hasn't anybody been paying attention to what other countries have done or are now attempting to do? Does anybody care that there have been a number of successful outcomes from these conflicts? Or does anybody care the motivations behind why the USA got involved? No, we have to further the notion that the lone superpower of the world is somehow corruptly using it's military power to "take what it wants" or any other tripe the "have not's" dream up, then re-enforce this idea by spouting half truths and bringing up isolated unfortunate events as proof.
My favorite is that we went into Iraq for "oil". Well we went into Iraq TWICE in my living memory and didn't get one drop of oil or one square foot of ground from it. The FIRST time was to return the oil fields of Kuwait to Kuwait and make sure Iraq wouldn't quickly return. The USA didn't get any oil from the deal, but returned ALL the oil and the territory captured to it's original owners. The SECOND trip into Iraq was for different reasons, but again, even though we had thoroughly and completely conquered ALL of Iraq including it's oil fields, the USA returned them to Iraq along with all the territory taken.
So tell me again how the Americans are all about war? Because if we where, the earth would be paying taxes through the IRS.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Ukraine had no legal process to remove an elected president involuntarily prior to the end of his term.
Which does not apply in this case since Yanukovych ordered his Berkut security forces to open fire and murder dozens of protestors.
At that point the Ukrainian parliament abandoned him because of his criminal acts. His next step was to flee into the arms of Putin.
Since a), Yanukovych committed a crime (the order to murder civilians who were protesting his actions) and b) he fled the country, there was no need to remove him from office. He willingly removed himself by his actions.
As to the supposed undue American influence, I guess letting people know living under freedom is better than living under the boot heel of Russian oppression might, in some twisted fashion, be considered undue influence.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
God, the same tired old comments from Russian trolls and those that have bought into their sophistry.
The US took almost no part in the Ukrainian uprisings. And your Mexico analogy clichéd and tired as it is, is just wrong. Ukraine was pivoting to the EU. You know that economic alliance almost literally right next door to Ukraine.
When I read news about Tsarnaev brothers bombing in Boston in New York Times, I have seen many comments about "Chechen terrorists", instead of "rebel" I have seen before. Do the people change their mind when the shit happens to them!?
And, about "secret wars", no one can beat the U.S.
Fun fact:
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on CIA terror database, and Russia warned U.S. about the brothers years before, but ignored.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/t...
http://www.foreignpolicyjourna...
https://www.corbettreport.com/...
Uncle of Tsarnaev, Ruslan worked with State Department and CIA connected USAID, and was married to the daughter of Graham E. Fuller - former high-ranked CIA official, who has served 20 years in the Foreign Service, mostly the Muslim World.
About Syria, U.S funded FSA, in fact, terrorist groups. They are terrorists as in definition in dictionary:
Longman dictionary:
someone who uses violence such as bombing, shooting etc to obtain political demands
or, by their actions: "Insurgent" Eats Heart of Syrian Soldier, or Free Syrian Army allegedly trafficking in human organs. They are just like the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which U.S supported before.
Moreover, U.S official admitted that they has trained only 'four or five' Syrian fighters against Isis, top general testifies, and it's cost about 500 M, and the U.S funded groups frequently desert or handed armors, weapons to the Al Qaeda.