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How About We Bomb the Undersea Cables?
I’m thinking about Tom Bethell’s comment:
But our military seems to be organized to deal with the Hitler scenario rather than the Islamist threat. Germans took orders, Islamist terrorists are self starters.
And I’m thinking about Peter’s question:
Even if we had a president utterly determined to destroy ISIS — posit, for the sake of argument, that Ted Cruz will take office a year from January — just how would he instruct the Pentagon to go about doing so?
I’m trying to think outside the box a bit. Undersea fiber optic cables carry 99 percent of transoceanic digital communication. The military is accustomed to thinking in terms of protecting them:
Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.
Perhaps we should think about this entirely differently. What would happen if we destroyed the cables?
Published in Islamist Terrorism, Military
Hmmm. Just when I thought I’d found something the Islamists don’t frown upon. Thanks, Tenacious D!
Perhaps the terrorists are being too hasty in their condemnation of carrier pigeons. Pigeon-use would reduce “chatter” considerably.
It’s not their ability to communicate, it’s their receptiveness to a horrible idea.
Here’s why it’s a bad idea to cut the cables- if they could do it to us, they would in a heartbeat. It throws our society into chaos far more than theirs.
Let’s go ahead and pull down the communication satellites too. We can leave the ones necessary for our military, but everything else has got to go. We have tried to spread peace and prosperity and freedom to an ungrateful world and have gotten nothing but grief.
It is time for America to go John Galt.
We’re dealing with an Islamic civilization that is breaking down, in crisis, and Isis, al queda, whatnot, are the garbage that crisis is throwing up on the shore. A purely military response to a 4th generation war scenario ain’t going to work. It’s like nailing jello to the wall. I think a limited military response that consists of providing arms, etc to Kurd and Christian communities there, would help some. But solving the Sunni and Shia split, that’s not going to happen. We can defeat Isis and there will be another Isis like group right after it. Tim
…they’re not going to like this in Bangalore…
I think you mentioned this topic before to deal with Russia – to me, it’s like blowing up the Buddhas before ISIS gets there – why should we destroy something that benefits everyone because the companies that are allowing the communications are not doing their part – or even governments – i.e. intercepting threats, cutting off Facebook and Twitter accounts, taking down info that fuels their cause, take out their funding resources – it seems with the rest of western civilization on board, we could do that much – too much fumbling.
Shame on you for calling [somebody] a race of terrorists.
Well, depends whose cultural weapons of mass destruction move faster. It’s a two-way street. I’d basically bet on the West, but just to be sure, why don’t we give the world a little pause — just let everyone settle down and have a good, quiet think on their own.
Not at first, I reckon. But they’ll be up and running faster than anyone.
For the sake of the thought experiment, I’m assuming Tom Bethell may be right that a traditional military response ain’t going to work — although I don’t know. But let’s assume this is, fundamentally, not a conventional war but a war of ideas. Our military is capable of shutting down the movement of ideas.
Biggest source of soldiers? No way.
Yes, that’s the counter-argument. But going to war involves costs: These include money, troops, and distractions from other issues. Are we willing to shift resources from the Pacific, from containing Russia, from containing Iran? Wars aren’t free: Do we pay for it with higher taxes, increased debt? What’s the extent of the war — just Syria and Iraq, or anywhere ISIS has a presence? In the end, will the costs be higher — strategically and economically — than the idea I’ve suggested?
I’m not seeing how our military could stop the movement of ideas. While I think the best solution to Islamism is to cordon it off and let the infection burn out like the mother of all Thirty Years Wars, that’s not going to happen either. So I say wall ourselves off from Islam to the degree we can , let Isis develop into a caliphate if it does, and if they transgress, inform them that while our military is not so good at dealing with insurgencies, it is really good at standard military stuff like wrecking another state. Tim
Claire,
My dear Dr. Berlinski, don’t you think you have been working too hard. Perhaps with the stress of family matters and the Paris attack you are overwrought.
I recommend that you buy an adequate supply of popcorn and rent this nice “action” movie from the early 60s. This is sure to relax you.
Regards,
Jim
I’m curious what the pundits (and Ricochetti) reaction would be if Trump had suggested the same thing as Claire. “Just bomb their internet cables!”.
I’m not convinced IS in Syria and Iraq pose an imminent physical threat to the west . If it’s a war of ideas why are we using the military at all? Why don’t we fight the war with…. ideas?
Our cultural weapons of mass destruction travel all over the globe but are always pointed back at us. Let’s stop cultural marxism and multiculturalism. Lets defend the roots of our civilization, namely our Judeo-Christian ethos and classical philosophy. Let’s point out the fact that Mohammad told people to read the Gospels but himself had no idea what was in them; we can highlight that and other contradictions and errors. If they fight in the spiritual theater, fine: engage them with evangelization and not ecumenical dialogue.
Also, there’s a beeping outside my window and it’s driving me nuts. If you want to bomb something please bomb that first.
It’s an interesting idea to me simply because ISIS is able to use the Internet to recruit disaffected kids throughout the world.
I do not know how that can be stopped except to shut off the Internet. However, I wonder if television and radio would take its place. The kids are used to the constant entertainment that the Internet provides them. I imagine they would restlessly and quickly find something else to fill the void, and that would be television, radio, and telephones. Unfortunately, I don’t think they would head to the local library. Sigh. Or maybe they would.
It’s an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’ve had a sense for a long time first that the Internet is more easily exploited by malign political forces than democratic ones, and second that it’s dangerously politically polarizing even in democratic societies. The way ISIS uses it is only the most obvious example of the former; the flood of Russian propaganda washing not only through Europe but into the US is in many ways more worrying to me. (Interestingly, Iran doesn’t seem to be particularly good at exploiting the Internet for propaganda in Europe.)
As for the latter, I don’t think it’s the only reason for American political polarization, but I certainly think it’s a part of it. Instant, global, nearly-free communication is a huge historical revolution, and the techno-Utopians who were sure the Internet would be a democratizing force don’t seem to be right: The world has become less democratic, not more, with greater Internet usage. (Correlation and causation of course aren’t the same thing.)
Destroying the world’s ability to communicate would be a devastating act of destruction, and as John points out, the economic consequences would be terrible. They’d be borne most acutely by the developing world, but every single one of us would be hurt by it — not least me, to begin with, I’d immediately be out of a job. It would shock the world senseless.
But I agree with Eliot Cohen: we’re now looking at the early stages of what he calls “a vicious cycle of violence,” but that’s not strong enough; “a vicious cycle of genocide” has already begun. Massive regional nuclear proliferation seems, at this rate, highly likely. Even absent that, the extraordinary pile-up of air forces and navies now in the East Mediterranean and the Black Sea — combined with a major civil war, the operation of an apocalyptic terrorist organization, and near-outright superpower-conflict — creates an environment where any kind of accident could happen.
Shutting down global communications would certainly be a very extreme thing to do. But compared to other options, including “doing nothing,” it doesn’t sound so extreme.
And what a spectacular gesture it would be. It would have the psychological impact of dropping a nuclear weapon, I suspect. But no one could accuse the United States invading and occupying a foreign country. (And even if they did, they’d have to put the message in a bottle and throw it in the sea.) Maybe it would shock the world back to its senses and remind them what “superpower” means.
We’d all suffer from it, but we’d suffer more equally than we would if we put the burden of invading and occupying half the world on our military.
And we can rebuild it, because we live in the 21st century. Good luck to anyone who doesn’t.
Yikes. Ok, little dull brained last night, and not understanding the intent of your post…. Thinking about it, there probably isn’t a way to ring fence the craziness/genocide, is there….short of bombing the Internet. Tim
I agree with that, and I’ve wondered about it for a long time.
There is something emotionally rousing about Internet-based communication–and I include e-mail–that is not there in television, pen-and-paper, and radio communication.
I have some theories as to why that is happening. For example, it has something to do with the way we experience Internet communication. We do it at personal conversational distance as opposed to the way we view television. We read books the same way, but there is not the ever-present opportunity for interacting with the speaker or author.
The biggest factor, however, in Internet communication being more emotionally powerful is more elusive I think. I began to notice this when we started using e-mail for the first time. I saw a lot of emotional disasters between people because of e-mail, things that would not have happened with pen and paper. It was a new communication pathway. It was different from anything we had ever used before.
Part of the explanation for the emotional charge that comes with Internet communication is in its speed. We allow or encourage ourselves to become emotionally engaged because we have the sense that we can act on those emotions immediately. Instead of ignoring our impulses, we act on them.
My point is that there are aspects of the interaction between online computers and our inner selves that we don’t understand fully.
When ET came out, a reviewer wrote that Steven Spielberg “knew where all my buttons were.” How true. I think he was the first producer to really understand the movie medium as an art form and a form of communication. It was different from other communication forms. He really understood how it worked within the human psyche.
Shakespeare understood the stage and the theater and its interplay with the human psyche. He understood it better than anyone did at that time or still does now.
The Internet similarly is a communication medium that is different from any other. The person who understands that–ISIS these days–will gain control of it and people.
Claire,
I’m really not sure the effects would be that profound on the jihadist culture. It would continue to be propagated in well-funded extremist mosques, through family members (that’s a big one), and through other media. Slowed, perhaps, but not extinguished.
Interrupting enemy communications is a long-established military tool, but I think it would best be done selectively and in the lead-up to to ground invasion. Perhaps your idea would be most effective on “lone wolf” type terrorist attacks. But I’m not convinced more refined intelligence tools wouldn’t be a better option in these cases. The internet hosts our “propaganda” as well as theirs, not sure I want to lose that – and a Tower of Babel 2.0 situation would be, as previous comments said, pretty catastrophic for the weaker economies.
I am in agreement.
The theory seems implausible on its face, but I agree with your cause-and-effect analysis.
When President Bush went after the leaders of the terrorist groups, people said it was an ineffective strategy: “There will just be another leader in his place!”
But it did work, for a while at least. Because even though those nutcases were still there and had always been there, without those leaders to organize them and give them tools and weapons and money, they were a nonevent.
The Internet provides the means for a lot of evil to happen.
Claire, your book Menace in Europe foretold much of what we see today – what have we not learned since WWII, that history is literally repeating missed lessons in so many ways, to the point that we are facing WWIII as we speak? You have a different picture, being in Europe, than we do in the states.
On that note, this subject has been front and center for weeks and rightly so……but for relief’s sake this weekend, maybe some pictures of Paris holiday scenery, favorite French foods and pastries – recipes? Not kidding – we want to know if Paris is rebounding from terror – are the winos back? How’s your dad?
Indeed. I even wrote a novel about it in the early days of the Internet, so struck was I by the phenomenon of people “falling in love” with people they’d never met.
Yes. Wow. Me too.
I’ve been pondering this emotional thing with the Internet and e-mail for years–to the extent that I am very careful with e-mail.
I do not understand the Internet yet and why it is so emotionally charged. But it is.
Thanks for asking about my dad. He’s doing very well, thank God.
Paris is eerie: The police presence is like nothing I’ve seen since I lived in Istanbul. I went out for a drink with one of our Ricochet members last night. She was a bit late, and I was worried she might not be able to find the cafe. So I stood in front of it for about ten minutes to be sure she’d be able to see me. From the way the cops were looking at me, I began to think, “They’re about to start asking me questions. I’d better either go home, or go in and order a drink.” One definitely has the sense that it would be best not to do anything that would attract the police’s attention, even including standing in front of a cafe for too long.
The food is still great, though.
Perhaps “slowed” would be worth it.
As I’m sure you can tell, I’m not entirely serious about this idea — I’m just wondering about it, and thought it would be interesting to think it through.
If I’m not mistaken, he did say something to that effect today, although I don’t think he realizes that “going after their Internet” means going after ours, too.
I’ve decided to stop paying attention to what he says, though, so I glossed over it.
Claire,
You tease you! Tell me about the food.
Regards,
Jim