James Bond's creator said that it was happenstance. It's coincidence twice. It's enemy action three times. European politicians and security agencies may find the adage of Ian Fleming helpful in resolving their doubts about who was responsible for the three explosions that happened on Monday.
The strange thing about Putin is that he didn't consult Valery Gerasimov, the man who changed the military doctrine of the Russian army. Gerasimov had a big idea that warfare in a networked age should include non-military activities. Before firing a shot, you should use social media and other network tools to misinform, confuse, and demoralise your opponent. It would be more difficult for democratic regimes to get their citizens to fight.
Gerasimov might not have been part of the inner circle of trusted cronies that Putin relied on. Black and white was not used in the assault, instead it was in a 1940s style. It didn't work. It is possible that the Russian leader has talked to Gerasimov. Their conversations will quickly turn to topics such as deniability, asymmetric warfare and identifying the critical weaknesses of their western adversaries if that is the case.
They will be more focused on the undersea fibre-optic cables that now constitute the nervous system of our connected world. Almost all of the data traffic on the global internet is carried by 475 of them. There is an up-to-date map of them all on the Telegeography website.
There are some strange things happening here. Keeping our data in the cloud is something we talk about casually. Most of the internet is submerged. When uploading a photograph from your phone to the cloud, it may first go to an air-conditioned shed on terra firma, but is then transferred or backed up via undersea cables to another shed on the planet.
The western world depends on these cables. Poorly protected entry points on remote ocean coastlines funnel them into the sea. For the first few miles, they look fairly substantial because of the protective coating needed to protect them from the buffeting tides, rocks and shallow water, but once out to sea a cable might be just the thickness of a garden hose.
Rishi Sunak concluded that the vulnerability of the undersea cable network was ‘nothing short of existential’
Up to now, the cables have mostly been neglected or ignored by the governments. Facebook is the owner and developer of the longest cable of them all, the 2Africa cable, which will connect Africa, Europe and Asia. When cables are in international waters, maritime law doesn't give much for their security. The barriers to interference on the open sea are low.
The cables are lying on the ocean floor. About 100 breaks a year are caused by fishing boats, according to one industry source. Malicious attacks were rare until last year. There were two cables, UK to US and France to US, which were not reported at the time, but which may have been the catalyst for a study written by Rishi Sunak.
Russian submarine forces have undertaken detailed monitoring and targeting activities in the vicinity of the North Atlantic deep-sea cable infrastructure according to the report's author. For two reasons, it's interesting. The conversations that are happening in the Kremlin are one of the things. The co-author of the novel, 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, is also the author of the book. I don't think President Putin has seen it. General Gerasimov probably has.
The biography of Dostoevsky was reviewed by Christopher Sandford.
Gladwell has found out that Princeton could charge no tuition fees. On his website, you can read the article.
When the English fens were drained, Annie Proulx wrote an essay about what was lost.
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