A map of the (major) submarine cables connecting the United States and the rest of North America, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Pacific. Much of global commerce is dependent on this network.
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The New York Times reports that US defense and intelligence officials have been expressing increased concern about the "aggressive" activities by the Russian Navy's submarine and spy ship fleet in the proximity of critical undersea communications cables, perhaps assessing them for potential attack in the event of a crisis. There's no evidence that the Russians (or anyone else) have cut cables yet, but the intelligence agencies of the US and its allies have observed increased activity by the Russian fleet along cable routes, even close to the United States.
The US has long been known to have tapped undersea cables for intelligence collection. One early example is a US program in the 1970s called Operation Ivy Bells, which attached a listening device to Soviet communications cables in the Sea of Okhostsk linking facilities in the Kuril Island chain, recording unencrypted communications on tapes that were retrieved by divers monthly. The program ended in 1981 after a National Security Agency employee sold information about the program to the Soviets for $35,000.
While no US Navy or intelligence officials would go on the record regarding their concerns, the Navy's Commander of US Naval Forces Europe and US Naval Forces Africa, Admiral Mark Furguson, noted that Russian submarine patrols have risen in number by nearly 50 percent in the last year. Unnamed military and intelligence officials told the Times that much of the activity is happening along cable routes. A European diplomat, unnamed by NYT, was quoted as saying, "“The level of activity is comparable to what we saw in the Cold War.”
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