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Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

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Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#961

Post by DiggyJohnson »

pelasaco wrote: post #558
ninjin wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reference for those of us unfamiliar with the incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newnew_Polar_Bear#Damage_to_un...

"In August 2024, an internal Chinese investigation indicated that the ship was indeed responsible for the damage, claiming it was an accident due to heavy weather rather than intentional sabotage.[23][24]" The internal Chinese investigation indicated that was an accident.. LOL

Dropping anchor in a channel is something a container ship (especially one without other mitigations like this Newnew, I mean look at it) might do to increase stability and reduce the risk of drifting out of the channel.

I don't care to convince folks in this thread one way or another, but yes, there are reason a commercial ship would drop anchor while underway, including bad weather and a narrow / shallow channel. The circumstances from last year had both.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#962

Post by DiggyJohnson »

stoperaticless wrote: post #540
Etheryte wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a misleading framing. The two cables last year were not taken out by an anchor as an accident, it was literally a ship putting down its anchor just before the cable and then dragging it over the cable. In other words, sabotage. There's no point in trying to color any of this with rose tinted glasses when it's clear who's done it and why.

Well, you never know 100%. There is a small (really small) chance it was an accident. Just like there is a small chance that Al Capone was innocent man. (But really, it clearly has “Russia” written all over it)

This is not nearly as obvious as this entire thread is making it out to be, unfortunately. I think it has to due with commercial shipping operations and procedures not aligning with our intuitions.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#963

Post by mrguyorama »

bell-cot wrote: post #40
toss1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it is not publicized does not mean it is not happening. Most military operations do not take along journalists, and are not reported to the press. Some are even secret. That said, there is a limited amount that can be done in international waters without creating an international incident. Law Of The Seas, Freedom Of Navigation, etc.. It is to our advantage for example, when we want to prevent CCP's from…

> They can field more "research" vessels than... Back during the cold war, there was very often a Soviet "fishing boat" trailing after any substantial US Navy fleet. Said fishing boat may have had far more antennas than any fisherman would expect, but far less interest in catching fish. Fast forward - what would be the cost of having cheap western drones hanging around nearby, when suspected Russian assets were close…

>Fast forward - what would be the cost of having cheap western drones hanging around nearby, when suspected Russian assets were close to undersea cables, pipelines, and such?

If the suspicion is high enough, it's pretty standard for a US submarine or surface group to shadow whatever it is. It's free practice for the submarine crew.

This happened when the Russian ships visited cuba earlier this year.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#964

Post by mrguyorama »

fuoqi wrote: post #138
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet NATO/EU just looks weak and pathetic in the process Really? Russia, with the 6th largest army in the world, had to pull in Iran and Pyongyang to not get invaded by the 13th largest [1][2]. Moscow is being a nuisance. That doesn't make NATO or Europe look weak, it makes Russia look pathetic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/world/europe/uk…

13th largest backed by the whole NATO and other US-aligned countries. They send almost everything they can outside of nuclear weapons, the most cutting edge military tech, and people (well, outside of a limited contingent of "advisors"). Let's be honest, without this backing the war would've ended in the first month as was drafted in Istanbul.

>They send almost everything they can outside of nuclear weapons, the most cutting edge military tech, and people (well, outside of a limited contingent of "advisors")

We sent a couple hundred tanks, out of 8k. We sent a couple hundred Bradleys, out of 6k. We sent literally expiring missiles. We sent the tanks missing it's best armor, because we are squeamish about giving away uranium I guess. We sent a few extremely dated F16s, instead of the thousand F35s we have. One of the main ways things were donated to Ukraine was former Soviet powers donating their old trash and getting IOUs from NATO to replace it.

With this sample platter of western equipment, Ukraine has dragged a supposed bear to its knees. With this smattering of 80s vintage, anti-soviet equipment, Ukraine has forced Russia to massively draw down their old soviet inheritance to replace the 2500 Russian tanks lost (plus several hundred essentially donated to Ukraine a couple years ago) and 1000 AFVs destroyed, and nearly 4000 IFVs destroyed.

Like it's not some bombastic victory of course because both sides are so short on equipment that it's basically 1 million men vs 1 million men, and Russia CAN build artillery shells in quantity, so they are advancing at a snails pace in some areas.

But the insane ROI on vintage NATO equipment is hilarious. The Soviets were always afraid of the West invading them, and it appears their opinion was accurate, they would have had a very very bad time. We built this stuff to mulch soviet equipment, and boy were we good at that.

The Patriot is old enough to have been embarrassed during the first gulf war by a SCUD missile. HIMARS/ATACMS is even older. The tanks and Bradleys we sent are the scraps that didn't get upgraded after Desert Storm.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#965

Post by mrguyorama »

rdtsc wrote: post #216
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's exactly how the Russians perceive the EU. They are perceived as weak Europe has been weak. The difference is Russia is weak while trying its hardest. Europe is weak because it can't bother to try. > That might look like a "power move" by Germany but it looks absolutely weak in the eyes of Putin Nobody considers condemnations power moves. Also, Putin's track record in reading who's too weak to do what doesn't…

> That might look like a "power move" by Germany but it looks absolutely weak in the eyes of Putin Calling and talking with Putin as acting as some kind of "power broker" or "decider" (Bush junior's classic). I think that's the context there. That's after years of hand wringing, should we help, or shouldn't help, maybe help, but not too much and so on. > Europe has been weak. The difference is Russia is weak while tr…

Poland at least seems awake. They are gobbling up Korean tanks and artillery. Poland has seen this story play out and they are tired of being the butt of the joke.

If Europe won't protect Poland, Poland will defend itself.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#966

Post by dralley »

hackandthink wrote: post #942
loandbehold wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who Caused the Ukraine War? https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/who-caused-the-ukraine-wa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVmmASrAL-Q&t=30m50s

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#967

Post by aguaviva »

blub wrote: post #941
matthewdgreen wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing armament manufacturing capacity is critical for Germany and European self-defense regardless of whether those shells go to Ukraine or just get stockpiled. Does anyone seriously think that Europe is going to avoid future warfare in a world where Russia achieves its military goals in this conflict? It's madness.

If it were critical, it would have already happened. But Germany and the EU know deep inside that this isn’t about ideology and conquest and Ukraine is a pretty unique case. On the other hand with Germany and the EU acting so tough, Russia might believe them, so some military investment is probably wise.

But Germany and the EU know deep inside that this isn’t about ideology and conquest

Looks like an attempt to project your own views onto people you don't know.

Meanwhile, to the extent that we do have a recent, official statement from the European hive mind -- it points in the exact opposite direction of the sentiment you are attempting to assign to it, saying that "Russia is systematically attacking European security architecture". And in terms of ideology, it specifically cites the Russian regime's "reckless revisionism".

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42182897

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#968

Post by mrguyorama »

johnisgood wrote: post #195
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which happened and kept happening for a long time now We've been drip feeding and hand tying Ukraine. Practically every military expert has said this is not the way to win a war.

I heard US sent so many weapons that even US' supply of weapons were running low if and when it came to defending themselves. Is it true? I have no clue.

It is not true.

The US has THOUSANDS of tanks and THOUSANDS of Bradleys. We have sent Ukraine 32 Abrams and 300 Bradleys. For reference, Australia was able to swing sending Ukraine 50 Abrams. The US has THOUSANDS of F16s, and is starting to build up thousands of F35s. We have full munition stockpiles for all missions for both platforms. We gave Ukraine about 1000 various "armored vehicles", like hundreds of M113s which are nearly useless on a modern battlefield except as glorified trucks. We sent Ukraine 200 "Strykers" that we considered a failure in the middle east. We sent a few hundred MRAPs. We sent 20 HIMARs systems, out of over 600 built. The US sent only a single patriot battery.

I encourage you to go look at the numbers the US put together for the various gulf wars. We sent a trickle of supplies.

The only substantial supply we offered was 3 million 155mm artillery rounds, which is a large fraction of our stockpile but the US (before Ukraine) did not care for tube artillery, preferring instead to lob JDAMs and other air launched munitions. This is also only a problem because American Industry refuses to invest in increasing production capacity unless we bribe them, you know, just like capitalism says it should work.

The people who said we were harming our weapons stocks were lying. Reconsider who shared that information with you.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#969

Post by mrguyorama »

libertine wrote: post #281
johnisgood wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which happened and kept happening for a long time now, including the US sending billions of dollars and weapons (among other things). That did not help, did it?

> That did not help, did it? I'm sorry, but this is the type of claim of someone who gets news from the Joe Rogan podcast. Ukraine managed to defend its capital from annexation, liberated thousands of miles of territory, and managed to improve its protection of civilians thanks to air defense systems, has lower casualty rates than Russia, and now is starting to create a buffer zone into Russian territory. How isn't t…

>But Ukraine needs to develop its deterrence.

The failure to protect Ukraine without it needing to develop nukes is the end of nuclear non-proliferation.

You either have nukes, or Russia will make up some bullshit to invade you.

Re: Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea disrupted

#970

Post by aguaviva »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #660
belter wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

English isn't my first language, but isn't "appears to be" inconclusive? It is or it isn't, "appears to be" is still too vague for my liking.

The phrasing is in any case that of the AP article, not the Defense Minister.

What the latter actually said was much stronger and less ambiguous.

As detailed in the helpful sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42187127

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