Yeah, time to start applying sanctions. Can we get some strong Admiralty Lawyers around here to help us figure out who has the authority and what the remedies may be.
Perhaps mandatory pilotage through certain waters, or enhanced observation of traffic. An issue, though, ends up in the Russian and Chinese PR machine, that would state harassment or undue burden placed on their traffic.
I didn't think of that, but that is valid. Why Biden withheld the higher lever arms for years - squandering Ukrainian fighters lifes has me asking. Why the hell do Americans continue to elect lawyers into political office. Lawyers are risk adverse and tend to look for the easy a win-win scenario. That is what we Americans sent to negotiate with the Soviets during the Cold War for the SALT and START treaty agreements. The problem was that while the US favored sending attorneys to negotiate, the Soviets sent most all hardcore strategists. We Americans got our *ss handed to us each and every time.
The best example is we limited launchers, while the Soviets accepted this. Unfortunately, the Soviet launch vehicles for their ICBM's could carry many times the payloads. Right after one of the major arms controls agreements was signed, the Soviets became producing MIRV technologies, and their missiles could carry many times more nuclear weapon payloads into orbit. Washington DC always been behind Moscow's advantageous curve, specific to strategic nuclear weapons.
There are about 200 nations, and the jaw-jaw is in large part reserved for the United Nations. I don't disagree that it is important to talk. Talking allows one to determine and gauge if the other parties are rational or more importantly irrational. Yet, when a few of those nations governed by irrational men, they tend to do their own war-war even going it alone. When this happens, it impacts major alliances operating rationally. So the question becomes does the irrational actor better understand those like themselves, irrational or those rational?
A cargo ship is NOT a ship controlled by the military. Few rational people would ever go to war, over the loss of civilian assets. In this case, a lost ship that was intentionally sunk or run a ground (as I advocate) is a commercial loss, thus nothing more than an insurance claim for its owner.
My understanding from Twitter news is that this time, the Finns were ready, and SOF forces dropped on the ship while it still had the anchor lowered, more or less catching them with the pants down. If this is true, then hat off to the Finns.
To summarize that in english the Finnish officials had an idea of possible suspect very early and the ship was intercepted by Coast Guard OPV Turva. It was then escorted to Finnish territorial waters where the Police and the Coast Guard boarded the suspect vessel. The tanker in case, Eagle S, is now achored off Porkkala. You can find It from MarineTrafick
I don't think there is any doubt but that the Yi Ping 3 deliberately dragged its anchor breaking the two communications lines in question. An embarrassing amount of evidence has been disclosed to the public. So the question is, why did the Danes allow the ship to go on its way ?
.Read NATO for Danes. This was not a law enforcement decision. .This was not a Danish Navy decision, nor even Defense Ministry. Ditto Sweden and Lithuania. This was a decision made by politicians at the highest levels of government in several NATO countries in consultation with one another.
The act was like most recent, flagrant. It was meant to be discovered, indeed watched, and to thus convey a message. A "what are you going to do about it" provocation.
So why did they let the ship go ? Because of Danish shopping interests and those of NATO countries generally. Because it was the understood that Chinese leadership was challenging Sweden and or Denmark -the NATO alliance to seize s Chinese flagged vessel in supposedly "international waters".
Why ? Obviously so that the PLAN will have an excuse to stop any ship in the SCS. NATO is not prepared for that. So the Danes got the message and bowed to intimidation.
This brings us one step closer to war in the North Atlantic and South Pacific simultaneously
I think the overthrow, was to ensure that during the coming war with China, the Russians would have been neutered. This best high command and its troops are dead, their best equipment is either destroyed or rarely used, NATO is on high alert and ramping up to replace their old stores given to Ukraine, their Navy is in hiding, their top aircraft have been shown to fail with engaged by western weapon systems, their satellite network's, the Nordic undersea pipelines are no more, they have lost their bases in Syria, and the Russian economy is in shambles. Moscow will be little to know use once Washington DC and its alliance engages Beijing. Means the assets designed to fight two concurrent wars, can be redirected into the West Philippine Sea.
Yes, for good reason. Truman was the worst leader ever. He was a dolt.
He missed a colossal opportunity to take out both the Soviets with Patton, and Chinese with MacArthur. Had Truman not dropped the ball, both of those nations today would be speaking English today and the latch on nuclear weapons would have stayed with the British, French, and USA.
The Chinese are suspected in this article, but I read the Russian shadow fleet tanker Turbo Voyage was to blame as damage was reported to 3 additional cables too. Also, the Shadow "S", one of about 600 off books tankers moving oil for Russia was seized, and ti was found it was missing its anchor.
No, this could be totally done by a pair of rich guys and their girlfriends (in the boat). It's at the kind of depth that recreational rebreather divers go to all the time. You need to find it, then you need to place a cutting charge on it. Like a diamond or a heavy duty FSLC. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0479244.pdf
So you need to be able to source explosives (easy for a government, certainly not impossible for someone wealthy) and you need a side-scanning sonar to find the pipeline and you need some basic skills in working at depth.
And then you need to STFU.
The fact that they cut the same pipeline twice and left one uncut suggests to me they were not US/UK military.
And a few oil companies and multiple commercial diving companies. Plenty of experienced divers out there, of various nationalities. The deepest SCUBA dive with compressed air was 512 ft., deeper than that pipeline. As the saying goes, "It ain't rocket science", although these days even rocket science isn't "Rocket Science".
Other than the majority half being the Soviets I doubt many Finns would have considered it a problem free relationship by any remote stretch of the imagination..
Why do I get the feeling we the American people are about to get another Gulf of Tonkin and Iraq has WMD excuses for staring a war? And of course Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinformation or so said 51 intel officers.
If we didn't have a fall of Saigon '75, carving up Yugoslavia, the Arab Spring, Libya, Syria and 2 decades of the GWOT and Afghanistan where the pull out produced a fragrance of a Saigon 2.0 ... then perhaps some "wag the dog" stunt might fly. But I suspect those days are gone and the credibility of the national security industrial complex has taken a few hits lately.
Finland and the rest wanted in NATO? NATO is at war as is Europe, Canada and above all the USA with Russia. Not just as Proxies but participants and puppet master of Ukraine.
This is nothing, except a hint that there’s more to war than virtue signaling.
The next few months will be interesting. If Trump does try and put an end to the war where does this leave the EU and NATO? And who wants to bet this sabotage doesn't stop?
Is Trump concerned with the preservation of the original territorial integrity of Uk? Rather doubtful I suspect. Is he engaging in a chin-tugging exercise as to the root cause(s) for the conflict? I serious doubt that as well. Does he see risks of escalation and the equivalent of $ billions flowing to a region where the battle lines are largely staked to the same ground after 3 years of conflict? Yeah I'm going with a most definitely on that one.
Then there is multi-decadal lopsided U.S. role in NATO and NATO members content to pay lip service to their defense obligations. So yeah I'm going to go with Trump settling things and not being terribly concerned about pearl-clutching by EU elites & Neo-Con dipsticks here in the U.S. plus his likely his last nerve as regards NATO's lip service to their own national security outlays. And as for sabotage continuing? Should there be any expectation of it stopping since it doesn't appear to come with a "price tag" the participants are unwilling to play?
On first glance I was wondering what year we would pick for the "original territorial integrity of [the United Kingdom]" and why President Trump would be overly concerned with restoring it.
We can have extended and lively "discussions" about the "original territorial integrity" of just about every square foot of the Earth's surface. Take California, for example (please). Heard of Aztlan?
I think the war will continue. NATO cannot abandoned Ukraine to be taken my Moscow. Possibly Trump makes his same old demands that NATO members pick up more of the tab, but he will be told that he must keep his eyes on China, and tow the line in Europe.
Happy Boxing Day
Yeah, time to start applying sanctions. Can we get some strong Admiralty Lawyers around here to help us figure out who has the authority and what the remedies may be.
Perhaps mandatory pilotage through certain waters, or enhanced observation of traffic. An issue, though, ends up in the Russian and Chinese PR machine, that would state harassment or undue burden placed on their traffic.
Why not seize the tankers, take all the petroleum and cargo, then sink the ship or run it aground inside Russian territories?
Because there needs to be options that won't immediately start a war.
Jaw-jaw is preferable to war-war.
If your adversary sees all you have is jaw-jaw, war-war is more likely.
I didn't think of that, but that is valid. Why Biden withheld the higher lever arms for years - squandering Ukrainian fighters lifes has me asking. Why the hell do Americans continue to elect lawyers into political office. Lawyers are risk adverse and tend to look for the easy a win-win scenario. That is what we Americans sent to negotiate with the Soviets during the Cold War for the SALT and START treaty agreements. The problem was that while the US favored sending attorneys to negotiate, the Soviets sent most all hardcore strategists. We Americans got our *ss handed to us each and every time.
The best example is we limited launchers, while the Soviets accepted this. Unfortunately, the Soviet launch vehicles for their ICBM's could carry many times the payloads. Right after one of the major arms controls agreements was signed, the Soviets became producing MIRV technologies, and their missiles could carry many times more nuclear weapon payloads into orbit. Washington DC always been behind Moscow's advantageous curve, specific to strategic nuclear weapons.
There are about 200 nations, and the jaw-jaw is in large part reserved for the United Nations. I don't disagree that it is important to talk. Talking allows one to determine and gauge if the other parties are rational or more importantly irrational. Yet, when a few of those nations governed by irrational men, they tend to do their own war-war even going it alone. When this happens, it impacts major alliances operating rationally. So the question becomes does the irrational actor better understand those like themselves, irrational or those rational?
A cargo ship is NOT a ship controlled by the military. Few rational people would ever go to war, over the loss of civilian assets. In this case, a lost ship that was intentionally sunk or run a ground (as I advocate) is a commercial loss, thus nothing more than an insurance claim for its owner.
" Germany sank ten US merchant ships from February 3, 1917, through April 4, 1917,"
The US declared war on Germany April 7, 1917.
British interference with US merchant shipping was also a cause for the US declaring war on GB in 1812.
Then there is my favorite, the "War of Jenkins' Ear", 139-1748, GB vs. Spain.
The world is markedly devoid of rational people.
Mandatory pilotage was my suggestion to the group on 12/4, so in my opinion you are nothing short of brilliant. ;-)
Perhaps the ship registrars can strip registrations too. Eagle S is a Cook Islands flagged ship! Doesn't New Zealand have some control over that?
Well..... we know how easy it is for Russian tankers to sink on their own.
If a certain Eastern European nation engaged in combat with Russian forces would be given assistance in helping a few more sink....
What happens when Russian ships start defending themselves?
Which kinds of ships Pete? Are you talking about these civilian owned freighters? If they are armed, are they still considered non-combatants?
Don't sail river vessels on to seas in conditions they were not designed for.
My understanding from Twitter news is that this time, the Finns were ready, and SOF forces dropped on the ship while it still had the anchor lowered, more or less catching them with the pants down. If this is true, then hat off to the Finns.
If you find that source, please post it.
https://instapundit.com/692630/#disqus_thread
Can the Finnish use the last plot of the ship prior to the cable being cut, and retrieve the ships missing anchor?
Wow.
Finnish SOF defeated unarmed seamen.
What’s their next target? The Girl Scouts?
How did they know it was just unarmed seamen?
The lack of 50 calibre machine guns might have been a clue.
Is that all you got? Arms do not have to be visible to be there. Did you get that response from a TV show?
So? What were they supposed to do, go unarmed and challenge them to arm wrestle for the ship? Send the local Rotary Club instead?
Here is a short summary of events in Finnish: https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000010926910.html
To summarize that in english the Finnish officials had an idea of possible suspect very early and the ship was intercepted by Coast Guard OPV Turva. It was then escorted to Finnish territorial waters where the Police and the Coast Guard boarded the suspect vessel. The tanker in case, Eagle S, is now achored off Porkkala. You can find It from MarineTrafick
As Brandon said, "Don't" .... (before his diaper change).
I don't think there is any doubt but that the Yi Ping 3 deliberately dragged its anchor breaking the two communications lines in question. An embarrassing amount of evidence has been disclosed to the public. So the question is, why did the Danes allow the ship to go on its way ?
.Read NATO for Danes. This was not a law enforcement decision. .This was not a Danish Navy decision, nor even Defense Ministry. Ditto Sweden and Lithuania. This was a decision made by politicians at the highest levels of government in several NATO countries in consultation with one another.
The act was like most recent, flagrant. It was meant to be discovered, indeed watched, and to thus convey a message. A "what are you going to do about it" provocation.
So why did they let the ship go ? Because of Danish shopping interests and those of NATO countries generally. Because it was the understood that Chinese leadership was challenging Sweden and or Denmark -the NATO alliance to seize s Chinese flagged vessel in supposedly "international waters".
Why ? Obviously so that the PLAN will have an excuse to stop any ship in the SCS. NATO is not prepared for that. So the Danes got the message and bowed to intimidation.
This brings us one step closer to war in the North Atlantic and South Pacific simultaneously
Maybe it was not a good idea for Obama to overthrow the pro Russian government in Ukraine back in 1914 - I mean 2014.
I think the overthrow, was to ensure that during the coming war with China, the Russians would have been neutered. This best high command and its troops are dead, their best equipment is either destroyed or rarely used, NATO is on high alert and ramping up to replace their old stores given to Ukraine, their Navy is in hiding, their top aircraft have been shown to fail with engaged by western weapon systems, their satellite network's, the Nordic undersea pipelines are no more, they have lost their bases in Syria, and the Russian economy is in shambles. Moscow will be little to know use once Washington DC and its alliance engages Beijing. Means the assets designed to fight two concurrent wars, can be redirected into the West Philippine Sea.
If NATO can't defend undersea cables and pipes, what makes them think they can fight a war?
Oh wait, they aren't. They are letting Ukrainians die.
Vessels have to be impounded and seized. The owners forfeit their ship.
We share the same sentiments, especially taking their cargoes.
You really lust for WWIII.
Yes, for good reason. Truman was the worst leader ever. He was a dolt.
He missed a colossal opportunity to take out both the Soviets with Patton, and Chinese with MacArthur. Had Truman not dropped the ball, both of those nations today would be speaking English today and the latch on nuclear weapons would have stayed with the British, French, and USA.
MacArthur had his chance and he blew it.
The Chinese are suspected in this article, but I read the Russian shadow fleet tanker Turbo Voyage was to blame as damage was reported to 3 additional cables too. Also, the Shadow "S", one of about 600 off books tankers moving oil for Russia was seized, and ti was found it was missing its anchor.
.
Source:
https://gizmodo.com/finland-seizes-russian-oil-tanker-suspected-of-cutting-underwater-cables-2000543312
Maybe it was not a good idea to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline.
It depends on who did it. It's in the interest of the Ukrainians to widen the war...
Only the US and the UK have the ability to pull that off.
No, this could be totally done by a pair of rich guys and their girlfriends (in the boat). It's at the kind of depth that recreational rebreather divers go to all the time. You need to find it, then you need to place a cutting charge on it. Like a diamond or a heavy duty FSLC. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0479244.pdf
So you need to be able to source explosives (easy for a government, certainly not impossible for someone wealthy) and you need a side-scanning sonar to find the pipeline and you need some basic skills in working at depth.
And then you need to STFU.
The fact that they cut the same pipeline twice and left one uncut suggests to me they were not US/UK military.
Sure.
And Jeffrey Epstein hung himself.
A powerful argument in a below high school education. You may now skip to the triple dog dare.
Have to say, the sail theory is outlandish... but, as one who has some experience with bottom cables (seismic) and also sail...it's not unbelievable.
And one helluva bar story!
You could freely do so because no one will take you seriously!
And a few oil companies and multiple commercial diving companies. Plenty of experienced divers out there, of various nationalities. The deepest SCUBA dive with compressed air was 512 ft., deeper than that pipeline. As the saying goes, "It ain't rocket science", although these days even rocket science isn't "Rocket Science".
Who do you think was responsible, I have arguments that it was either the USA or the Ukrainian? I am unsure.
US and UK
Maybe it wasn’t very smart of Finland to join NATO after not having had any problems with Russia for 70 years.
Other than the majority half being the Soviets I doubt many Finns would have considered it a problem free relationship by any remote stretch of the imagination..
They're still waiting to get East Karelia back from the Soviets, er Russians.
That claim went down the drain after their alliance with Germany during WWII.
And NATO membership is going to help them do so?
Why do I get the feeling we the American people are about to get another Gulf of Tonkin and Iraq has WMD excuses for staring a war? And of course Hunter’s laptop is Russian disinformation or so said 51 intel officers.
I was momentarily worried when my mother in law arrived today and I found a big red box in my office that just said "Hunter" on it. https://hunterboots.com/collections/boxing-day?utm_source=google&campaign_id=20534003007&ad_id=726769528052&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=HB%20Brand%20Term&utm_content=156945001081&utm_term=hunter%20boots&filter.v.availability=1&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAmrS7BhBJEiwAei59i1yY-M8HOJV1sOZSEFlafyZM8yldMUmEwoqlx3OowNhTXKIptepGKxoCyjAQAvD_BwE
If we didn't have a fall of Saigon '75, carving up Yugoslavia, the Arab Spring, Libya, Syria and 2 decades of the GWOT and Afghanistan where the pull out produced a fragrance of a Saigon 2.0 ... then perhaps some "wag the dog" stunt might fly. But I suspect those days are gone and the credibility of the national security industrial complex has taken a few hits lately.
If we rewind the tape back to 1945, Korea and all that you referenced could have with a high probability been avoided BT.
Take the war you find.
The Enemy has a vote.
Finland and the rest wanted in NATO? NATO is at war as is Europe, Canada and above all the USA with Russia. Not just as Proxies but participants and puppet master of Ukraine.
This is nothing, except a hint that there’s more to war than virtue signaling.
It’s easy to start a war.
But the war doesn’t always go the way you think it will.
How often has the party that started a war come out on top, or at least broke even with the antebellum status?
I can't think of any offhand, but I'm not an historian and I'm pre-caffeine.
First of all, you are going to have to decide who started a war, which may be a bit controversial. Might even provoke a rematch in some places.
The next few months will be interesting. If Trump does try and put an end to the war where does this leave the EU and NATO? And who wants to bet this sabotage doesn't stop?
Is Trump concerned with the preservation of the original territorial integrity of Uk? Rather doubtful I suspect. Is he engaging in a chin-tugging exercise as to the root cause(s) for the conflict? I serious doubt that as well. Does he see risks of escalation and the equivalent of $ billions flowing to a region where the battle lines are largely staked to the same ground after 3 years of conflict? Yeah I'm going with a most definitely on that one.
Then there is multi-decadal lopsided U.S. role in NATO and NATO members content to pay lip service to their defense obligations. So yeah I'm going to go with Trump settling things and not being terribly concerned about pearl-clutching by EU elites & Neo-Con dipsticks here in the U.S. plus his likely his last nerve as regards NATO's lip service to their own national security outlays. And as for sabotage continuing? Should there be any expectation of it stopping since it doesn't appear to come with a "price tag" the participants are unwilling to play?
On first glance I was wondering what year we would pick for the "original territorial integrity of [the United Kingdom]" and why President Trump would be overly concerned with restoring it.
Unfamiliar with what you are referring to?
We can have extended and lively "discussions" about the "original territorial integrity" of just about every square foot of the Earth's surface. Take California, for example (please). Heard of Aztlan?
I think the war will continue. NATO cannot abandoned Ukraine to be taken my Moscow. Possibly Trump makes his same old demands that NATO members pick up more of the tab, but he will be told that he must keep his eyes on China, and tow the line in Europe.
"Money, Money changes everything" >The Brains< 1978
EU will pay money to allow China to attack them and get away with it.