I think the proper way to handle the Chinese/Russian shadow fleet would be to sink them as soon as possible.
If they don’t register on AIS and don’t respond when called on radio first time, just send a torpedo without any further warning.
See who responds afterwards, and if they don’t, just wait and see how many more they want sunken.
There’s little point in arresting them just to listen to their lies. If they had any legitimate reason to sail around there, they’d have answered the call the first time.
There is a reason why western countries care about maintaining maritime law and it is to maintain freedom of navigation for themselves.
Same reason why the Tor network isn’t being hacked - everyone need millions of users’ traffic to hide the footprints of their spies. It’s crucial to maintain a pathway for one to achieve their main goal.
That’s a violation of international maritime law.
If you want to enact a full naval blockade of a country, then that’s an act of war.
Starting a direct war against Russia is what Europe has tried to avoid.
Doesn’t look like they can avoid it for much longer - global tensions are rising fast, and they all understand the principle of “striking while the iron is hot”
How quickly we go from “bombing venezuelan boats is a war crime” to “just send a torpedo without any further warning.”
Holy shit.
Except that any country with the capability of doing that also operates their own shadow fleet that would be equally vulnerable.
I don’t think calling the western fleets shadow fleets is really accurate, but you are right about the issue: in lawlessness everyone is an outlaw.
The West absolutely has entire fleets of covert trawlers and cargo ships performing various roles in service if national intelligence.
There have been some notable incidents that prove their existence as well as the ramifications when they get attacked like the USS Pueblo and the USS Liberty and a thousand that we don’t know about because they never got attacked by anyone, but which you can bet other intelligence services are aware of.
Oh. I don’t doubt that, I was taking the shadow fleet as a commercial fleet like the Russian one is. I have zero doubt about all non landlocked countries using civilian registered vessels for at least signal intelligence and special operations forces.
Seize it and block any Russian boats from the Baltic. If that starts a war with Russia then so fucking be it, a world war will break out anyways, might as well have it on our terms.
Man, 2026 is turning out to be great so far!
Finns are badass.
There is a significant amount of steps that happen, in order for a large ship anchor to drop… On one previous occurence. The ship dragged anchor underway for a significant amount of nautical miles.
China has a patent for a special anchor for cutting such cables
https://splash247.com/chinese-anchor-like-device-to-cut-cables-makes-headlines/
Of course they would…
Think the Americans and Russians don’t?
The Americans kinda invented attacks on undersea cables:
Whatabout it? Not a very good comparison since Ivy Bells was minimally disruptive (by design since disruption raises likelihood of discovery). That’s like saying the USA invented surgery so it’s totally cool for
RussiaShadow fleet to keep doing chainsaw amputations.
University of China dedicating it’s resources on innovating new ways to terrorize rest of the world. Sweet.
Scientific capacities directed towards war or other international dominance purposes is nothing new, but it’s getting increasingly frustrating to see and wonder how much more good all those resources could do for civil improvements, if only we as a species could shed our age-old compulsion to kill each other for power.
Russia and their loose anchors.
I did. I decided a couple of weeks ago that nothing would stop Rubio from doing this.
I took some emergency savings and bought XOM (Exxon Mobile shares).
I netted a cool couple of hundred today.
Don’t get me wrong. This is illegal and Trump must be impeached, but I will continue to pick the low hanging fruit.
Wrong article mate
Pretty sure you meant this for one of the Venezuela threads…
Dunno how that happened. I never saw this article.
Glitch in the system! 😉
