The Pentagon launched a serious warning. The Russians could sever the oceanic submarine cables that connect the global communications network. But everything seems to come from an episode of little significance.
The New York Times was the first to spread the news. Last month, the alarm bells in the Pentagon triggered when the Russian vessel Yantar launched two submarines – of which is equipped – near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, just where the undersea backbones of the world’s communications lye. The sources cited by the NYT say that “the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea.” “While there is no evidence yet of any cable cutting,” says the NYT, “the concern is part of a growing wariness.” Again, “I’m worried every day about what the Russians may be doing,” Admiral Frederick J. Roegge said, commander of the Pacific submarine fleet. To a direct question on possible Russian plans for cutting the undersea cables, however, the admiral did not answer.
So, what are we talking about?
Nothing strange
The Yantar is not a military vessel. It is a research vessel that is more like a floating laboratory. However, it belongs to the Northern Fleet, under the Ministry of Defense, that ordered its construction to Kaliningrad shipyards in 2009. It was launched in 2012. “The Yantar is equipped with a unique onboard scientific research complex which enables it to collect data on the ocean environment. It has capabilities superior to those of all other research vessels. There is nothing like it anywhere,” Alexei Burilichev, head of the deepwater research department at the Russian Defense Ministry, said.
Nevertheless, it serves Russian navy interests.
Nothing strange.
The most famous case, at least in Russia, is the Norwegian intelligence vessel Marjata. A concentration of technology that is at home off the coast of northern Russia and always and everywhere shadows the Northern Fleet. It is so familiar to the Russian sailors, that they call it “Masha”.
Espionage
Back to the cables and to the internet, there even is less to wonder. It is always the NYT that, between the lines, goes backs to basics, saying that there are “raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.” Well, should anyone be surprised if, in the event of war between the US and Russia, the latter tries to cut enemy’s flow of information?
However, the Yantar could be also pursuing a different target, like simply tapping the communications. It would not be nothing new, especially for Americans.
In 1971, the US submarine Halibut found a Russian communications cable on the bottom of the Sea of Okhotsk, between the Russian far east coast and the peninsula of Kamchatka, north of Japan. It stayed there for ten years listening.
The NSA, in addition, can use the Jummy Carter submarine that, among its many functions of espionage, has the ability to tap communications through submarine cables, including fiber optics.
So, for now we can all be assured that no one will cut undersea cables that carry data and communications directly into the ears of spy ships.
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The Pentagon launched a serious warning. The Russians could sever the oceanic submarine cables that connect the global communications network. But everything seems to come from an episode of little significance.
