Russia Has The Capability To Take 95% Of The West's Internet Capability Offline

 

     Our beloved family member, German Shepherd Alfred, passed away last night just before 21:00 Pacific time. The house seems sad and empty without him. He succumbed to cancer after a battle lasting several months. We estimate that Alfred lived until 13 years of age.

    Regardless of the grief, as the old saying goes: "The show must go on." We have a couple of mysteries from the last few weeks that I want to make you aware of. Two cables providing internet services to the Shetland Islands in far north Scotland were cut. When this happened, a Russian research ship was nearby. Likewise, when the Nord Stream pipeline was blown in three areas, Russian vessels are nearby.

     Each day some $10 trillion US dollars in financial transactions are sent over the internet. 95% of internet activities go through undersea cables. There are some 200 cables around the world. There are 10 choke points around the world where internet traffic could be disrupted or turned off. Russia has research ships and special nuclear submarines that act as mother ships to smaller submarines tasked to cut international internet service. We do not have a similar capability. We have not spent the money to defend these vulnerable cables.

      China and Russia, in contrast, use land-based internet cable to send most of their internet traffic. Putin has a powerful tool to threaten the west with. Policymakers in the West are going to have to find a way to defend these sensitive and vulnerable cables.