Ukraine War Stokes Concerns in Taiwan Over Its Fragile Internet Links (wsj.com) 48
The war in Ukraine is reviving concerns in Taiwan and some Asia-Pacific nations about the fragility of their internet connections because they rely on undersea cables that could be severed in a Chinese attack. From a report: Ukrainians have used the internet to rally resistance to Russia's invasion, counter Moscow's propaganda and win international support, including through President Volodymyr Zelensky's appeals for weapons. Ukraine has extensive internet connections across its land borders and most of the country has remained online despite Russian attacks on internet infrastructure.
In contrast, Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims, receives and sends about 95% of its data-and-voice traffic via cables that lie on the seabed. Currently officials say about 14 cables -- bundles of fiber-optic lines about the thickness of a garden hose -- are in operation, and they reach land at four locations on Taiwan's coast. If the cables were to be cut at sea by submarines or divers, or if military strikes were to destroy the lightly protected landing stations, most of the island would be thrown offline. "We're very vulnerable," said Kenny Huang, chief executive of Taiwan Network Information Center, a government-affiliated cybersecurity and internet-domain-registration organization.
In contrast, Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims, receives and sends about 95% of its data-and-voice traffic via cables that lie on the seabed. Currently officials say about 14 cables -- bundles of fiber-optic lines about the thickness of a garden hose -- are in operation, and they reach land at four locations on Taiwan's coast. If the cables were to be cut at sea by submarines or divers, or if military strikes were to destroy the lightly protected landing stations, most of the island would be thrown offline. "We're very vulnerable," said Kenny Huang, chief executive of Taiwan Network Information Center, a government-affiliated cybersecurity and internet-domain-registration organization.
Starlink (Score:2)
Ship a bunch of starling terminals there asap.
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Enough for military coordination with allies such as the US? OK. Enough to suddenly replace all the load on the cut fiber for civilian such as all the streaming video? Impossible.
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You mean appeasement? Didn't work well for the Ukraine when they handed over their nukes in return for a peace deal. Didn't work for Europe before WWII either.
Re:If Ukraine had the same policy with Russia (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called strategic neutrality and it's working for Taiwan. They haven't been invaded yet because they haven't declared independence and officially allied themselves with the US.
It's not possible to appease tyrants. China is creating artificial islands and building out military capabilities likely to be intended squarely at Taiwan. If Xi stays in power he will eventually attack.
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They've been saying that China was going to attack my entire lifetime (60 years), and I'm sure well before that. It gets them a bunch of free weapons and a blind eye to their civil rights abuses, but it's doubtful that China is any more likely to attack today than it was when I was born.
China could not invade Taiwan today (Score:2)
They do not have the landing craft. A huge army is no good on the other side of the water.
But the Chinese military is growing quickly. But so is Taiwan's anti ship capabilities.
I think that the Ukraine experience is good for Taiwan. Firstly to show Xi that wars are not predictable, and you need overwhelming superiority to be sure of victory, and secondary to show Taiwan that defense is possible, and important, provided you build up the right military capabilities.
Re:If Ukraine had the same policy with Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
They haven't been invaded because of the US policy of strategic ambiguity. Beijing can't be sure what the US response will be; whether it will just walk away, or whether it will involve itself in the conflict. That's the advantage of ambiguity, the would-be belligerent can at best guess at a response. The problem with strategic ambiguity is that it isn't very satisfying. NATO has no ambiguity. An attack on one member is viewed by the rest of the Alliance as an attack on all members. With Taiwan, it's pretty much up to the President what the response looks like.
Ukraine has never been protected in that way. All along NATO has made it clear that Ukraine is not a member, and thus any security guarantees had a very hard ceiling: "We'll help you up to the point where there's any risk of NATO and Russian forces exchanging bullets." In other words, Russia had a pretty good idea of what the worst case scenario was; which is a bunch of Western weapons getting shipped in, and economic sanctions. Thus, if Russia was willing to put up with the economic and diplomatic pain, Ukraine pretty much had an unbolted door just waiting for Russian troops to smash through.
And technically Taiwan isn't neutral. It can't be, it's not even recognized by the US as an actual sovereign state. It's sovereignty is de facto, rather than de jure. That being said, the US has armed the island to the teeth, and not just in the last five years or so, but pretty much since 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists were shoved off the mainland by the Communists. That's a strategic policy that even normalization of relations with Beijing didn't alter. The fact that Taiwan has bought an enormous amounts of defensive weaponry from the US, and the US has been willing to ship the goods, demonstrates that neither Taiwan or the US are at all neutral, it's just that no one, not China, not Taiwan, nor even the US, has actually made a definable limit on the kind of response the US would have to an invasion, is exactly what keeps China in check.
And frankly, looking at how badly the invasion of Ukraine has gone for Russia, one wonders whether China's military planners are asking whether they even want to go down the road of invasion and annexation. The invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated one singular fact; you can think you can win a war, but even where there is a seeming numerical and strategic advantage, one can never be sure. It's the blunder the Umayyad Caliphate made when it marched on Tours, only to discover the strength and determination of the Franks under Charles Martel. It's the mistake Napoleon made when he invaded Russia, and pretty much the identical mistake Germany made when it invaded Russia a century later. Eisenhower overcame the particular problem when he basically threw so many bodies at German-occupied Normandy that numerical supremacy was sufficiently great that the strategy was basically "take very bullet the Germans can fire at us, and still have soldiers on the beaches, paratroopers penetrating deep into German occupied territory, and bomb the living shit out of everything."
Russia, as it turns out, doesn't have the resources of the Soviet Union (which, of course, heavily relied on US resources coming through the North Atlantic and via the Trans-Iranian Railroad). Nor, apparently, does it have the military expertise. There are no Pattons or Zhukovs in the Russian Army, it seems. Nor any Eisenhowers, for that matter. Their command and control structure is absolute shit, they can't even seem to achieve air superiority, which basically means a few guys with decent tank busters can shut down their convoys. And let's not even get started at how appalling the Russian Black Sea fleet has been, apparently literally sailing right into the crosshairs.
An invasion of Taiwan would be entirely sea and air-based, and Taiwan is one of the most formidably armed pieces of turf on the globe. There's no land borders at all, so the tactical problems are enormous, and that's before Beijing has to even consider what strategic am
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Russian propaganda rides again!
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The odds still favor Russia, but Ukraine has a chance to survive if they can blunt Russia's supply lines and keep the Black Sea open. The Russian army doesn't have to be good or smart or especially competent to win. They just have to keep shelling, bombing, and keep their supply lines open.
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Although I agree that Russia's performance has been lack luster, we also need to understand that the experience and expectations of war for most people in the West has been based on conflicts that were very lopsided with respect to military technology. This is the first time since WWII that we have a war between two peers (or near peers) in terms of military capability.
Sure Russia can't obtain air superiority, but it's fighting an adversary with basically the same tech. You gave several examples in WWII wh
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My understanding is that until two weeks ago there was no centralized commander for the Ukraine invasion, rather a bunch of generals each with their own area and troops who barely communicated with each other. The only reason that I can imagine for that scenario is a bunch of Kremlin glory hogs, each trying to outdo the other. Now that there is a commander there are large troop movements going on, targets are being re-prioritized, and supposedly friendly fire incidents have dropped. We'll see if it reall
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They started with 300,000 troops, the largest army in Europe after Russia.
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It looks more like the "re-prioritization" is to cement Russia' control of Donbas. They're still taking pot shots at Kiev, but if the objective was to conquer all of Ukraine, it's been a miserable mistake. If there's a proper command and control structure governing operations, it looks like that centralized control is shifting to a much more achievable set of objectives. But the damage has already been done. Europe may not be able to wean itself off of Russian gas as quickly as anyone would like, but they a
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The original "justification" was to protect the ethnic-Russian majority in Donbas, which for a nationalist like Putin made sense as an objective. I was shocked by the general invasion, since it made no sense. That's the origin of my suspicion of a bunch of cowboy generals running wild, and some of what I've read since seems to confirm it. Under the Soviets they would have just been executed, but today they'll probably just be cashiered.
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I don't believe that for a second. First of a, Belarus was involved at some level, so clearly the general invasion went very high up the chain of command, and second of all, Putin went on record with all kinds of bluster about how Ukraine is part of Russia. I think command of the invasion was a military catastrophe, and I also think Putin ordered it, although I wouldn't put it past him and his supporters to turn some of those generals into patsies to try to salvage his reputaiton.
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Putin is Commander in Chief of the military, **but** it's not an equivalent position with a US president. Shrub could order the Pentagon to invade Iraq and they had to do so, but in Russia the entrenched bureaucracy stands between department heads and actual operations. Putin could order the Kremlin to invade Alaska tomorrow, but if the generals in the Kremlin disagree they could stop it. Shrub could also say, "Put Tommy Franks in charge" and they did so. Putin does not have the same power, those decisi
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The Chinese military seems to have serious problems [youtube.com].
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The power structures are quite different in Russia and China, and while Xi has been handed powers unprecedented since Mao during the Cultural Revolution, the prestige of the Chinese state doesn't rest solely on Xi's head like Russia's does on Putin. That's not to say you're wrong, but there are also significant strategic differences. Ukraine shares a long land border with Russia, which at least on paper, makes an invasion far simpler. For Beijing, taking Taiwan means a sea-based operation, where they would
Isn't this the nature of being an island? (Score:1)
How are they different than anywhere? (Score:2)
In a case of attack, if the enemy knows where the country cables are (sometimes this information is wide available), it takes a bunch of well-aimed missiles to cut all connections, except for satellite links.
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"except for satellite links"
And shortwave radio. Message in a bottle is too slow and unpredictable. Smoke signals. Again, not too practical except under ideal conditions. Coded sonic messages could be broadcast through the ocean. C'mon people, get creative!
Re: How are they different than anywhere? (Score:2)
Sneakernet works too. The bandwidth of a station wagon full of tape backups is amazing!
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You will, however, need to find a station wagon that floats.
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If we learned anything from Ukraine it is better to be prepared than put in arms after the fact. If Nato had sold Ukraine 25,000 anit armor rockets, anti air systems, anti missile systems prior to the attack then Russia would not have attacked. (Pretty provocative to Russia however in terms of NATO and Russia does not trust Nato or the US with good reason.) The US cannot b
I am sure (Score:2)
they could also receive satellite there assuming the Chinese don't block it.
I see (Score:2)
Soon Elon will send 2 rockets with Starlink satellites up per week instead of just 1.
What are you going to do about it? (Score:2)
Add more undersea cables?
Would have to be fast to get them all (Score:3)
Nevermind the fact that Taiwan also has satellite links and in the event of a hot war with China would also gain access to US military comms as well, even if they lose general internet. Would suck for the major populace but I doubt Taiwans military or strategic command would be in the dark.
Also China in this scenario would need to cut pretty much a majority or all the cables, which are also interlinks with other nations in the region so China would be disrupting internet traffic for them as well.
https://www.submarinecablemap.... [submarinecablemap.com]
Looking at a cable map also most of them are on the opposite end of Taiwan in relation to China and in the event of war they would have a short time to get it all done before a few US carrier strike groups are rolled into the area, meaning they could likely provide a fair amount of cover for a repair vessel to start repairing them.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "opposite end of the island to China", it looks to me like the longs sides of Taiwan is roughly paralell to the Chinese mainland coast.
When I look at the map I see the largest landing point being Tanshui which appears to be on the China-facing coast, though there also seems to be a landing in TouCheng which is facing away from mainland china.
Also aside from physical attacks there is also the possibility of economic/business attacks. It seems many of the cable systems serving Ta
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I meant that that to control those cables China will have to expand naval control out past the Straight of Taiwan and really work more on an encirclement of the island, which leaves them in a much more vulnerable and spread out position if they deem controlling those cables a strategic objective for any length of time. If it's just Taiwan it's probably easy, but in an invasion of Taiwan it's pretty much assured the US Navy and military is involved directly.
choose between serving Taiwan and Serving mainland China which will they pick?
If it's a Chinese operator it's obviously China,
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Strait of Taiwan.
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I think this is a bigger problem than you make it out to be, and one with military and diplomatic consequences. Having stable widely-available internet means that news and reports can move freely and be distributed widely. This can strengthen the resolve of defenders (my comrades are winning / the world's with us / look at what those monsters did / ...) and pushes the world to put political pressure on the aggressor, as we're seeing happen in Ukraine.
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I would be very surprised if all of those cables don't have some sort of limpet attached offshore that could be triggered to cut them at a moment's notice. The Chinese are not stupid.
Starlink (Score:2)
Period. Next problem?
Backup solutions (Score:2)
If I were a Taiwan security expert I would think installing backup solutions, like covert cables, or having a secret agreement with an allied country to use space based solutions to be deployed in case of emergency.
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Covert cables probably won't work. By the time China invades, they'll have inserted a lot spooks into China and will know where everyone's grandmother lives. Just look at what they do to their own people since the CCP has no respect for them.
Business Opportunity! (Score:2)
Wideband LEO satellite Internet links!
And cue the naysayers in 3, 2, 1, ...