site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1235 thread views

Transnational Thursday for August 15, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

So is it safe to say that at the start of the next big war a bunch of important submarine cables/pipelines all get cut simultaneously? A bog standard chinese container ship "accidentally" cut a baltic sea pipeline last october, the houthis managed to fuck up some cables in the red sea, it clearly isn't that difficult.

Anyways in this case it was always blatantly obvious the ukrainians did this, they had something to gain, and the americans weren't going to give germany a slap in the face like this.

Simultaneously? Probably not, and possibly not at all depending what level of tit-for-tat one wants in the conflict. Not all big wars start with the intent of being big wars, and not all forms of disruption are tried, and while it's not hard to do it's not impossible to mitigate either.

But cables are notoriously vulnerable, and I can remember reading about fears of terrorists targetting undersea cable landing stations to break inter-continental network connections back in the 2000s.

So is it safe to say that at the start of the next big war a bunch of important submarine cables/pipelines all get cut simultaneously?

That’s been safe to say for a long time now. Russia has tested their capacity in the North Sea and Baltic Sea by doing exactly that several times.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats