The Dangerous 2nd Cold War

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IDNeon357

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There is an underwater perspective here, eventually, but first some background and why this thread.

I'm fascinated with certain things and it has led me to a conclusion the world is about to enter a much more dangerous Cold War than the previous one. It will be more dangerous because the previous Cold War's principal antagonist was geographically isolated, and stonewalled at various choke points. But today's Cold War will include a more robust China that is more attractive to 3rd World partners than just "democratic/free-world idealism." China's overt communism is not an ideological hurdle to the 3rd world/developing world, unlike the USSR that preceded it, because the USSR was almost exclusively idelogically motivated, but also offered nothing to the 3rd world at the time.

The 3rd world did not need the USSR for expanding markets and capitalization, and so the USSR was hamstrung into an ideological conflict.

While today's Russia is mercantilist, and today's China is the largest market in the world.

This new cold war will create massive opportunities for deep-sea espionage and sabotage, as the Russians are already working toward, and will include an expanding theater of operations, the Arctic, as it melts due to Global Warming.

Russian submarine Losharik - Wikipedia
Russian Divers Reach Record Depth

And Russia is driving this cold war principally because of their Quasi-Nazi state.
Silovik - Wikipedia

Russia is currently ruled by what would have been the Soviet KGB, or, given its pseudo-fascist and ethnically pure nature, the Gestapo might be a better analog. The Russian state requires '1984' levels of control of media, including a black box in every home that records everything you do, especially on the internet, before encryption technologies such as a TOR can be implemented: Inside the Red Web: Russia's back door onto the internet – extract

Red Web is an amazing book by the way.

But, US containment strategy of the USSR was largely global in nature before, most of the world was on board with isolating the USSR, eventually, even China when the Sino-Russo relations collapsed under Chairman Deng.

Today, there's a unique reason there are opportunities for undersea activities in a new cold war. Emphasis goes to the growing ability of countries to completely go 'dark' in communications to unprecedented levels. Eventually leading to a need to get closer to shore, through undersea capabilities, to listen in.

1) almost 99% (you heard that right) of the world's internet is sub-sea cable.
10 Facts About the Internet's Undersea Cables

2) Directional Antennae are a reality. Previously in the old Cold War, omnidirectional antennae dominated the border lands, leading to jamming stations such as the infamous Korean jammers: Radio jamming in Korea - Wikipedia

The reason this is important is during the 1st Cold War, the world was largely "interconnected".

The world of radio was omnidirectional and on a good day, an Amateur radio enthusiast in Kansas could pick-up Soviet Military communications in Khazakstan.

There were attempts in the cold war to jam these signals, to quiet the borderland (or rather, drown them out with noise), but these attempts were largely failures, and listening stations on both sides were constantly listening in beyond the veil.

Fast forward to today, and directional arrays are becoming common place and are starting to be pushed even into tactical military communications: Tactical Communications Antennas

The problem this creates is that the world is becoming more opaque.

Where in the past Cold War, at least what wasn't kept clandestine could be analyzed or even broke into (as with Radio Free Europe), today's 2nd Cold War will have greater issues in breaking into the other side.

2-i) the radio stations of opposing countries will become inward facing, instead of global.
2-ii) the jamming stations therefore will be more powerful in blocking inbound radio signals, further isolating the antagonists.
2-iii) the internet is already becoming largely shaped/propagandized in a way mass communications has never before been controlled. You can see this already in China/Russia where their view of the internet might as well be another planet, compared with the "western" view.

3) Undersea therefore becomes extremely important, especially the sabotage of China's Undersea Great Wall.
China's "Underwater Great Wall"

Here's where the fun stuff will happen from a Diving perspective such as with
Operation Ivy Bells - Wikipedia

As nations in this 2nd Cold War further isolate each other from exposure to the other's media/internet, breaking into that nation's media/internet will require penetration of their undersea defenses.

Diving/Submarine/ROV technology will need to meet the challenge of getting closer to the coasts in order to listen in to the antagonist's communications.

A whole new world of listening methods will need to be implemented, land, air and sea, and even space though one might wonder how capable space intelligence might be in listening in to radio.

If history is an example, getting a submarine, or diver crew, close to enemy shores, is the most practical way. Followed by Electronics aircraft like the EWAC that was taken down by China not too long ago.
EP-3E ARIES II in China
Hainan Island incident - Wikipedia
 
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