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Russia a 'risk' to undersea cables, defence chief warns
The UK's most senior military officer has warned of a new threat posed by Russia to communications and internet cables that run under the sea. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the chief of the defence staff, said Britain and Nato needed to prioritise protecting the lines of communication. He said it would be an "immediately and potentially catastrophic" hit to the economy if they were cut or disrupted.
The cables criss-cross the seabed, connecting up countries and continents. [...] Speaking to the Royal United Services Institute defence think tank, Sir Stuart said the vulnerability of undersea lines posed a "new risk to our way of life".
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 16 2017, @10:54AM
One of the things US Navy T-AGOS class cable repair ships were/are tasked with is the detecting and mapping of possible undersea mines in proximity to cable paths, primarily SOSUS-related cables but also civilian comms cable too.Much cheaper and less tedious than sending fancy attack subs to do it.
Most Soviet-era submarines were perfectly capable of deploying deep-sea "sleeper" mines at depths beyond the ability of non-destructive countermeasures. Unconfirmed rumors had it that some of said mines were fission weapons, but they were too easy to detect.
There is no reason to believe that any nation with a submarine couldn't lay whole baskets of explody easter eggs around undersea cables.
Child's play, really.