CDR SALAMANDER: Nord Stream’s Tap on the Shoulder.

Outside everyone’s interest in knowing “who’dun’it” in the blowing up on the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic Sea, there has yet to be a full appreciation of the larger meaning of its destruction.

1937’s bombing of Guernica gave a preview of what would befall Europe’s cities just a few years later. The Russo-Ukrainian War is giving hints of what has changed over the last few decades that should give everyone pause to review their assumptions and critical vulnerabilities. Small and medium wars are good for that – they give hints to issues that will arise in future large wars.

While it is easier to understand, even in the face of “sea blindness,” the importance of the trade that arrives by ship, food and fuel at the top of the list, from the man on the street to policy makers in nations’ capitals, the importance of what lies on the sea bed is lost to most. . . .

As we covered in a FbF back in 2009, attacking undersea cables dates back to the 19th Century – but the modern reliance on what is on the sea bed is orders of magnitude greater than just telegraphs were back then.

Getting to them is not easy … but life once they are cut is even less easy.

Time to think about what is needed to keep them secure, especially in any time of heightened tensions…but in an era of international terrorism, is there really a time of peace for vulnerable targets?

No.