There’s a large cargo vessel stuck in the Suez Canal right now, the 200,000 tonne Ever Given. It might be deliberate (although it’s probably not) and it’s definitely disruptive. It may take weeks to clear. From VesselFinder’s recent update:
There are 14 gas carriers (LNG and LPG tankers) stuck south from the Suez Canal behind the marooned Ever Given and another 7 carriers from the north, and there are already signs the blockage is beginning to disrupt global gas flows.
Around 8% of the global supply of fuel passes through the vital waterway, and the only other option is a trip around Africa that would add 2 weeks more to the journey.
I do wonder about these points of vulnerability in global infrastructure.
We’re now semi-accustomed to the idea that deliberate, state-sponsored disinfo has been disrupting politics in the UK and US since the early/mid 2010s, having targeted the engagement algorithms in social media to sow division.
I don’t think the disinfo has had any other objective than disruption – and that’s enough. Disruption in one arena makes it hard for countries to act in others.
So when a new point of vulnerability is revealed - such as the Suez Canal - my thought process goes:
Could this have been purposeful?
If so, what did it achieve? What was learnt? What could it be a trial for?
If not, assume that others will learn from it. So what else do we now know is vulnerable?
e.g. the Panama Canal. e.g. any other supply chain bottleneck.
This idea of “disruption” is highlighted in this 2018 report from the RAND Corporation:
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now characterizes and understands modern warfare as a confrontation between opposing operational systems rather than merely opposing armies. Furthermore, the PLA’s very theory of victory in modern warfare recognizes system destruction warfare as the current method of modern war fighting. Under this theory, warfare is no longer centered on the annihilation of enemy forces on the battlefield. Rather, it is won by the belligerent that can disrupt, paralyze, or destroy the operational capability of the enemy’s operational system. This can be achieved through kinetic and nonkinetic strikes against key points and nodes while simultaneously employing a more robust, capable, and adaptable operational system of its own.
Long story short, I keep a note of vulnerabilities when I hear about them.
Here’s an old one, from the San Francisco Chronicle in 1977: CIA Link to Cuban Pig Virus Reported.
With at least the tacit backing of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971.
Especially relevant given the Covid-19 lab leak hypothesis refuses to go away. Wherever Covid sits on the scale from deliberate to Act of God, it’s now possible to quantify the level of disruption. In the next major international treaty negotiation, watch out for one of the teams going down with flu all at once at a critical moment. It would be simple to plant influenza in a hotel, and now everyone’s seen how viruses work.
Another: The 2018 Athens wildfires that killed 86 people. There is serious evidence of arson for the Athens wildfires in East and West Attica, the Greek government said during a press conference. It’s grim to contemplate, but worst case scenario: What could this be a prototype for?
Weather, generally, is a big one, as previously discussed. Climate change is in the interest of at least some countries – if you’re geographically less susceptible to flooding, for example. Or if your economy is already able to shift away from carbon quickly, you can distract everyone else for a couple of decades by ramping up the urgency faster. Climate change can also be regionally targeted: increased weather volatility would make it simpler to tip a food-producing region into drought for a few years using secret cloud seeding.
There was that Icelandic volcano in 2010 that knocked out European air travel for a little over a week. I bet there’s a cost-benefit study, somewhere, based on that event, that assesses the impact on Europe’s GDP versus the difficulty of an artificial ash cloud and the possibility of performing it with plausible deniability.
Technology is its own thing which I won’t even go into. But there was that weird period in 2019 where, in short order, there were major outages at Google/Google Cloud, Apple, Facebook, Cloudflare, Stripe, Slack, Twitter, and Galileo (the European GPS equivalent with satellite network and ground stations) was down for 4 days. It felt like a systems test, or the cyber equivalent of running “exercises.”
So I wonder how much of this is already happening. Or at least, how much already exists in the form of planning – perhaps we’re even now in the middle of World War V(irtual), lasting tens of years already, with project plans and not ICBMs being lobbed across the planet, nothing ever enacted but an intricate standoff of exchanged complex system exploit threats.
I know this gets into proper tinfoil hat territory, and I honestly don’t know why I devote so many of my clock cycles to thinking about it.
‘Yes, we’ll see them together some Saturday afternoon then,’ she said. ‘I won’t have any hand in your not going to Cathedral on Sunday morning. I suppose we must be getting back. What time was it when you looked at your watch just now?’ "In China and some other countries it is not considered necessary to give the girls any education; but in Japan it is not so. The girls are educated here, though not so much as the boys; and of late years they have established schools where they receive what we call the higher branches of instruction. Every year new schools for girls are opened; and a great many of the Japanese who formerly would not be seen in public with their wives have adopted the Western idea, and bring their wives into society. The marriage laws have been arranged so as to allow the different classes to marry among[Pg 258] each other, and the government is doing all it can to improve the condition of the women. They were better off before than the women of any other Eastern country; and if things go on as they are now going, they will be still better in a few years. The world moves. "Frank and Fred." She whispered something to herself in horrified dismay; but then she looked at me with her eyes very blue and said "You'll see him about it, won't you? You must help unravel this tangle, Richard; and if you do I'll--I'll dance at your wedding; yours and--somebody's we know!" Her eyes began forewith. Lawrence laughed silently. He seemed to be intensely amused about something. He took a flat brown paper parcel from his pocket. making a notable addition to American literature. I did truly. "Surely," said the minister, "surely." There might have been men who would have remembered that Mrs. Lawton was a tough woman, even for a mining town, and who would in the names of their own wives have refused to let her cross the threshold of their homes. But he saw that she was ill, and he did not so much as hesitate. "I feel awful sorry for you sir," said the Lieutenant, much moved. "And if I had it in my power you should go. But I have got my orders, and I must obey them. I musn't allow anybody not actually be longing to the army to pass on across the river on the train." "Throw a piece o' that fat pine on the fire. Shorty," said the Deacon, "and let's see what I've got." "Further admonitions," continued the Lieutenant, "had the same result, and I was about to call a guard to put him under arrest, when I happened to notice a pair of field-glasses that the prisoner had picked up, and was evidently intending to appropriate to his own use, and not account for them. This was confirmed by his approaching me in a menacing manner, insolently demanding their return, and threatening me in a loud voice if I did not give them up, which I properly refused to do, and ordered a Sergeant who had come up to seize and buck-and-gag him. The Sergeant, against whom I shall appear later, did not obey my orders, but seemed to abet his companion's gross insubordination. The scene finally culminated, in the presence of a number of enlisted men, in the prisoner's wrenching the field-glasses away from me by main force, and would have struck me had not the Sergeant prevented this. It was such an act as in any other army in the world would have subjected the offender to instant execution. It was only possible in—" "Don't soft-soap me," the old woman snapped. "I'm too old for it and I'm too tough for it. I want to look at some facts, and I want you to look at them, too." She paused, and nobody said a word. "I want to start with a simple statement. We're in trouble." RE: Fruyling's World "MACDONALD'S GATE" "Read me some of it." "Well, I want something better than that." HoME大香蕉第一时间
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There’s a large cargo vessel stuck in the Suez Canal right now, the 200,000 tonne Ever Given. It might be deliberate (although it’s probably not) and it’s definitely disruptive. It may take weeks to clear. From VesselFinder’s recent update:
I do wonder about these points of vulnerability in global infrastructure.
We’re now semi-accustomed to the idea that deliberate, state-sponsored disinfo has been disrupting politics in the UK and US since the early/mid 2010s, having targeted the engagement algorithms in social media to sow division.
I don’t think the disinfo has had any other objective than disruption – and that’s enough. Disruption in one arena makes it hard for countries to act in others.
So when a new point of vulnerability is revealed - such as the Suez Canal - my thought process goes:
e.g. the Panama Canal. e.g. any other supply chain bottleneck.
This idea of “disruption” is highlighted in this 2018 report from the RAND Corporation:
Long story short, I keep a note of vulnerabilities when I hear about them.
Here’s an old one, from the San Francisco Chronicle in 1977: CIA Link to Cuban Pig Virus Reported.
Especially relevant given the Covid-19 lab leak hypothesis refuses to go away. Wherever Covid sits on the scale from deliberate to Act of God, it’s now possible to quantify the level of disruption. In the next major international treaty negotiation, watch out for one of the teams going down with flu all at once at a critical moment. It would be simple to plant influenza in a hotel, and now everyone’s seen how viruses work.
Another: The 2018 Athens wildfires that killed 86 people. It’s grim to contemplate, but worst case scenario: What could this be a prototype for?
Weather, generally, is a big one, as previously discussed. Climate change is in the interest of at least some countries – if you’re geographically less susceptible to flooding, for example. Or if your economy is already able to shift away from carbon quickly, you can distract everyone else for a couple of decades by ramping up the urgency faster. Climate change can also be regionally targeted: increased weather volatility would make it simpler to tip a food-producing region into drought for a few years using secret cloud seeding.
There was that Icelandic volcano in 2010 that knocked out European air travel for a little over a week. I bet there’s a cost-benefit study, somewhere, based on that event, that assesses the impact on Europe’s GDP versus the difficulty of an artificial ash cloud and the possibility of performing it with plausible deniability.
Technology is its own thing which I won’t even go into. But there was that weird period in 2019 where, in short order, there were major outages at Google/Google Cloud, Apple, Facebook, Cloudflare, Stripe, Slack, Twitter, and Galileo (the European GPS equivalent with satellite network and ground stations) was down for 4 days. It felt like a systems test, or the cyber equivalent of running “exercises.”
So I wonder how much of this is already happening. Or at least, how much already exists in the form of planning – perhaps we’re even now in the middle of World War V(irtual), lasting tens of years already, with project plans and not ICBMs being lobbed across the planet, nothing ever enacted but an intricate standoff of exchanged complex system exploit threats.
I know this gets into proper tinfoil hat territory, and I honestly don’t know why I devote so many of my clock cycles to thinking about it.