Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

It's worth mentioning that cable breakages happen quite often; globally about 200 times per year [1] and the article itself mentions that just last year, two other cables and a gas pipeline were taken out by an anchor. The Gulf of Finland is evidently quite shallow. From what I understand, cable repair ships are likely to use ROVs for parts of repair jobs but only when the water is shallow so hopefully they can figure out whether the damage looks like sabotage before they sever the cable to repair it. Of course, if you're a bad actor and want plausible deniability, maybe you'd make it look like anchor damage or, deliberately drag an anchor right over the cables.

Cable repairs are certainly annoying and for the operator of the cable, expensive. However, they are usually repaired relatively quickly. I'd be more worried if many more cables were severed at the same time. If you're only going to break one or two a year, you might as well not bother.

1: https://www.theverge.com/c/24070570/internet-cables-undersea...

"Germany’s defense minister says damage to 2 Baltic data cables appears to be sabotage" - https://apnews.com/article/germany-finland-baltic-data-cable...

He just wants more funds for his department.

Reflexive cynicism about the military isn't as warranted in 2024 as it might have been a decade ago. And it wasn't really warranted a decade ago either, when Russia was blowing up Czech ammunition depots, airliners full of Dutch people, conducting assassinations in the center of Berlin, and sending "little green men" to Ukraine.

It could be an accident, sure, but suspicion of sabotage is not paranoia.

And also, like, the German government (and European governments generally) DOES need to spend more on their military. They underinvested for decades and are now stuck needing to catch up very quickly.

Russia and Russia alone is responsible for "kick-starting" this war.

And providing Ukraine with aid so that they don't get steamrolled is not morally wrong. Nor is refusing to do so so that Russia can more quickly get around to torturing and repressing the population a moral right.

Russia is responsible but not alone. This war could have been prevented by not pushing Ukraine into NATO. It's THE reason for the war.

Ukraine wasn't a candidate for NATO membership in 2014 or 2022, and this was agreed to in all major treaties/agreements with Russia. It's still not a candidate, and can't be while it's actively engaged in war.

NATO membership has never had anything to do with it. Note how Finland has joined NATO since 2022, and faces no repercussions from Russia, despite a third of their land-based nuclear missiles within 400 km of the Finnish border.

ChatGPT disagrees with you:

Was Ukraine candidate for NATO?

Yes, Ukraine has been a candidate for NATO membership. In 2008, during the Bucharest Summit, NATO members agreed that Ukraine would eventually become a member of the alliance. However, no formal invitation was extended at that time. COMMONS LIBRARY

In 2010, under President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine adopted a non-aligned status, halting its pursuit of NATO membership. This policy shifted after the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, leading Ukraine to renew its aspirations for NATO integration. In 2019, Ukraine amended its constitution to enshrine the goal of joining NATO. NATO

In September 2022, following Russia's annexation of parts of southeastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine had applied for NATO membership under an accelerated procedure. WIKIPEDIA As of November 2024, Ukraine remains a NATO partner country and has not yet achieved full membership.

Nothing ChatGPT said disagrees what I wrote.

Between 2010 and later 2022 (i.e., not in 2014 or in February 2022) Ukraine was officially not pursuing membership, and France, Germany and the US were all unofficially making it clear that NATO membership was not being pursued and would not be offered.

Ukraine applied for NATO membership after Russia's invasion. It cannot therefore be a cause of Russia's invasion. At the time Russia sponsored and supported internal revolt in Crimea and Donbass, it was 2014 and Ukraine was officially and unofficially not in or applying to NATO--so how can that be the cause of Russian intervention then?

Thank you, though, for using ChatGPT to support my contention that NATO membership had nothing to do with Russia's invasion.