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Inside the Pentagon and the nation's spy agencies, the assessments of Russia's growing naval activities are highly classified and not publicly discussed in detail. American officials are secretive about what they are doing both to monitor the activity and to find ways to recover quickly if cables are cut. But more than a dozen officials confirmed in broad terms that it had become the source of significant attention in the Pentagon.
"I'm worried every day about what the Russians may be doing," said Rear Adm. Frederick J. Roegge, commander of the Navy's submarine fleet in the Pacific, who would not answer questions about possible Russian plans for cutting the undersea cables.
Cmdr. William Marks, a Navy spokesman in Washington, said: "It would be a concern to hear any country was tampering with communication cables; however, due to the classified nature of submarine operations, we do not discuss specifics."
In private, however, commanders and intelligence officials are far more direct. They report that from the North Sea to Northeast Asia and even in waters closer to American shores, they are monitoring significantly increased Russian activity along the known routes of the cables, which carry the lifeblood of global electronic communications and commerce.
Just last month, the Russian spy ship Yantar, equipped with two self-propelled deep-sea submersible craft, cruised slowly off the East Coast of the United States on its way to Cuba — where one major cable lands near the American naval station at Guantánamo Bay. It was monitored constantly by American spy satellites, ships and planes. Navy officials said the Yantar and the submersible vehicles it can drop off its decks have the capability to cut cables miles down in the sea.
See also a BBC story here.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday November 05 2015, @01:15PM
As other commentators have pointed out, remote operated mines could easily do the trick. There's plenty of submarine fibre in international waters. The hard bits are communicating with the mine; and ensuring it has enough power to monitor for communications to it and do its job when asked.
In the event of all-out war, it's the least you could expect. In the First World War, cutting the enemy's submarine telegraph cables was usual. Activities by Russian submarines now could simply be exercises to test readiness to lay such mines. I would not be surprised if other nations with submarine fleets have similar capabilites that may occasionally be tested without being reported upon.
This is why the military invest so much in satellite communications. Although China has demonstrated satellite killing capability. Killing geostationary and geosynchronous satellites is a bit more difficult becasue of the distances involved.
I would not be surprised if the space-able powers do not have plans drawn up for a significant number of rockets able to place low-orbit communications satellites in place at short notice. They may not have built them yet, but if international tensions grew significantly higher, I can image they would be built.
Non-military traffic that is reliant on submarine cables would have a problem. Organisations with overseas data 'in the cloud' would be somewhat challenged.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Thursday November 05 2015, @01:21PM
Here we go. I wasn't looking for this:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/4/9668734/strypi-rocket-launch-failure-department-of-defense-hawaii [theverge.com]
A small, experimental rocket meant to carry 13 communication satellites into space for the Department of Defense failed just one minute after launching from Hawaii last night,...
The launch was part of the US Air Force's Operationally Responsive Space (ORS)-4 mission. The ORS missions are aimed at testing out smaller, alternative launch vehicles, to see if they can get government satellites into space for much lower costs and with much shorter planning times.