83
Russia is signaling it could take out the West's internet and GPS. There's no good backup plan.
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
83 points (92.8% liked)
Europe
1670 readers
233 users here now
News and information from Europe ๐ช๐บ
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
(This list may get expanded when necessary.)
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].
founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I really wonder about this too. If Russia destroys those undersea cables, would that get a direct response? I would like to think so, because that's a planet-scale disruption (I think?), but it really depends on the people in charge of the countries involved and their stomach for violence and escalation.
I'm passionate about minimizing war and I seriously hope we never fire nukes at each other again. But a country willing to inflict global damage as a kind of tantrum over their failures in a conflict they single-handedly started...I mean, we can't tolerate that as a species. There's gotta be a line somewhere.
I don't think an attack on undersea cables would spur aggressive/invasive action. I would expect more direct, obvious, and public military presence, observation, and possibly isolation of Russia on it's borders though.
Human, especially civilian lives are probably a line. Sabotage that would be inconvenience rather than disabling and cause direct suffering - I don't think it'd spur direct military action. Political - sure. The EU is already driving a hard sanctioning course, and would likely increase such political responses.
There are alternative internet routes, and we're not that dependent on them - in a fundamental, life or death or direct human suffering kind of way.
Sandboxing Russia likely won't happen without some form of reaction. Look at the conflict in the "Spratly Sea"; where Philippine ships literally get pushed from their territory, people died already; now imagine the scale of a whole country and not some WW2 ship turned to island fortress. The civilian reaction alone (aka smuggling) would put several continents into instability.
Realistically the writing is on the wall here. Either Russia comes to its senses, or it will be dealt with eventually. Yes that will be painful, but it will be less painful than letting a nuclear terrorist dictate global norms.
The reality is that if Russia was willing to walk down the latter path, they would have probably done it already.