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Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

(www.cnn.com)
577 points mooreds | 3 comments | 18 Nov 24 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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staplung ◴[18 Nov 24 20:22 UTC] No.42176496[source]▶
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...

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belter ◴[19 Nov 24 11:42 UTC] No.42182377[source]▶
"Germany’s defense minister says damage to 2 Baltic data cables appears to be sabotage" - https://apnews.com/article/germany-finland-baltic-data-cable...
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cwassert ◴[19 Nov 24 16:15 UTC] No.42185086[source]▶
He just wants more funds for his department.
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dralley ◴[19 Nov 24 16:59 UTC] No.42185582[source]▶
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.

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coldtea[dead post] ◴[19 Nov 24 17:34 UTC] No.42186044[source]▶
[flagged]
dralley ◴[19 Nov 24 17:51 UTC] No.42186247[source]▶
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.

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loandbehold ◴[19 Nov 24 19:08 UTC] No.42186987[source]▶
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.
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hackandthink ◴[20 Nov 24 07:02 UTC] No.42191418{6}[source]▶
Who Caused the Ukraine War?

https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/who-caused-the-ukraine-wa...

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dralley ◴[20 Nov 24 17:40 UTC] No.42196353{7}[source]▶
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q&t=30m50s
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1. hackandthink ◴[20 Nov 24 23:29 UTC] No.42199251{8}[source]▶
"Shut Up About NATO Expansion" is a fun video, well made.

But Mearsheimer's arguments are convincing.

We may find it ridiculous to be afraid of NATO or the USA. Others do not.

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2. dralley ◴[20 Nov 24 23:48 UTC] No.42199411[source]▶
It's not convincing. It's a man wrapped up in defending a worldview he's held for 5 decades against real world experiences that directly contradict it.

Putin's actions do not line up with this portrait of him as a hyper-rational long-term strategist acting on the interests of the Russian state. They line up very well with what you would expect from an aging, deeply conspiratorial cold warrior with widely publicized nationalist beliefs [0], a desire to have a legacy that compares against the likes of Peter the Great [1], and the type of delusional thinking that is the near-inevitable result of not having anyone that is willing (due to brownnosing) or able (due to corruption) to tell you hard truths [2].

Even when someone like Tucker Carlson sits down with Putin and practically tees him up to blame the war on US, he goes on ridiculous historical tangents to try to justify why Ukraine isn't real, as opposed to saying anything related to NATO. And that's not a fluke. Russian internal narratives are vastly more focused on nationalism than on anything resembling "NATO made us do this".

You also just have to look at the assassinations carried out on NATO soil - including using chemical and radiological weapons - blowing up Czech ammunition depots, etc. Years and years of unilateral kinetic escalation directly against the west. And then no response whatsoever when Finland and Sweden joined NATO.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/world/europe/putin-ukrain...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/10/putin-compares...

[2] There's far too many instances of this to even count.

3. aguaviva ◴[21 Nov 24 00:52 UTC] No.42199893[source]▶
But Mearsheimer's arguments are convincing.

They're not all, and are in fact easily debunked.

One just needs to read between the lines a little bit.

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42197501

We may find it ridiculous to be afraid of NATO or the USA

Russia isn't "afraid" of either -- it just considers them to be annoyances.

Its regime pretends be "afraid" of both, for the benefit of its internal and external propaganda, and of course to entice its people to sign up for the meat grinder. But that's just its delusion, which we are under no obligation to honor or validate.