Russia may crash the Internet by severing the West’s subsea communication cables only if there is a war, says a political commentator.
“I’m sure the Russians are interested in that (in disrupting the undersea communications), but there is no way that they’re going to cut any cables unless there’s war. Because to do so would be practically an act of war,” said journalist and political commentator Fred Weir in a Monday interview with Press TV.
The remarks follow a New York Times report detailing American military and intelligence officials’ concerns about Russia’s purported increase in naval navigation around undersea fiber-optic communication cables in the North Sea, northeast Asia and off the US coast.
Weir said the report got prominence “just because US intelligence decided to give a briefing or issue a report,” noting elsewhere in his comments that in case of a global war, the Internet would be a lesser worry for people around the world.
According to the NYTimes report, the ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the subsea fiber-optic cables at some of their most difficult locations to halt the instant communications on which the Western governments, economies and citizens widely depend, it added.
It puts the economic chaos from a possible rupture in the West’s telecommunication cables in the limelight, pointing to its dependence on the Internet.
It says over 10 trillion US dollars worth of business transactions are carried out through the underwater cables each day, noting that the Russians may also be after America’s secret military cables.
Russia is yet to react to the latest worries raised in Washington.
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