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Sweden has proof foreign submarine entered its waters
- bjornsing 12y agoThis is the "conclusive evidence": http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/siteassets/6-aktuellt/nyheter/2014/bildspel-fran-pressmote-141114.pdf http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/siteassets/6-aktuellt/nyheter/2...
- sicher 12y agoThat's not the claim. On the press conference they showed those images to give two individual examples to the public. They hold that the strongest evidence is classified.
- bjornsing 12y agoYea, sounds more reasonable. The quote was actually from the Swedish press (not the gov), and they seem to have gone a bit overboard with their description of the evidence.
- misnome 12y agoOr rather: > The submarine's presence was picked up by military sensors, Goransson said. Supporting evidence, he said, included a picture showing a bubble pattern typical of a diving submarine and a sonar image of tracks on the sea floor.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- cmdkeen 12y agoWhilst they may not be able to identify the nation responsible there's pretty good odds it was a Russian SSK. Everyone else operating in those waters isn't going to risk entering Swedish waters as they have an announced policy of using force against unidentified submerged contacts. Entering foreign territorial waters submerged, especially of a nation with counter-detection capability and a military that may fire on you, is the sort of decision that goes right to the top.
- lazyjones 12y ago> there's pretty good odds it was a Russian SSK. Everyone else operating in those waters isn't going to risk entering Swedish waters as they have an announced policy of using force against unidentified submerged contacts What kind of argument is this? Are Russians somehow notorious for being reckless and suicidal? Or how else does Sweden's policy as you describe it make the odds higher that it was a russian submarine? Please explain.
- jordanpg 12y agoI don't know how the classification was made, but the first picture suggests that the sub was operating in broad daylight, within a few hundred meters of the coast, with masts and possibly the sail visible to the naked eye from shore??? This was either an on-board emergency, some very, very careless submariners (not something submariners in any country are known for), or something else entirely. The incredibly short distance from the coast suggests the possibility of an unmanned submarine to me. Territorial waters start at 13NM; operating at the 12.75NM is like conducting military operations 12.75NM inside a country's sovereign borders.
- bojan 12y agoYou mean like 0.25NM inside a country's borders?
- jordanpg 12y agoNo, I mean 12.75NM. If you can take a picture of a submarine with your phone from the shore, it's within a few hundred yards.
- privong 12y agoI think the parent was confused due to your inconsistent/ambiguous use of reference points for distances (13NM away from the coast vs 12.75NM inside [apparently] of the maritime boundary). I experienced the same confusion, reading your original post.
- moron4hire 12y agoHow do they know it's a foreign submarine? If they know it's a small submarine, and the pilot was apparently clumsy enough to scrape the bottom, maybe it's an amateur engineer who has built their own submarine. It's not exactly unheard of: https://www.google.com/search?q=homemade+submarine&espv=2&biw=1680&bih=882&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QApmVIKoOMfksAT25IH4Ag&ved=0CCAQsAQ https://www.google.com/search?q=homemade+submarine&espv=2&bi...
- cmdkeen 12y agoBecause they can probably get accurate sizings of the fin from the photograph and scrapes in the sea floor, and no amateur will have built a submarine that big. "Small U-boats" are small in relation to SSNs, and especially SSBNs, they're not actually small.
- sicher 12y agoThey were clear that it was a military vehicle.
- seivui 12y ago_If_ it was an amateur engineer it must have been both a crazy and a skilled motherfucker. The bottom scrape did probably occur when the submarine did hide from the Swedish navy.
- jacquesm 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC3_Nautilus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC3_Nautilus
- moron4hire 12y agoExactly, that's all the point I was trying to make: not exactly unheard of for Scandinavians to be building crazy-awesome submarines in their backyards, essentially.
- ptr 12y agoI don't know that it was "scraping the bottom", some Russian subs are known to have caterpillar treads.
- spindritf 12y agoAnother round of whiskey on the rocks[1]? Russia is also conducting some pretty aggressive bomber "patrols"[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363 [2] https://ca.news.yahoo.com/russias-bombers-conduct-regular-patrols-ranging-arctic-gulf-140627703.html https://ca.news.yahoo.com/russias-bombers-conduct-regular-pa...
- mcv 12y agoThere have been some plane incursions into Swedish airspace in the recent past too, I believe. Looks like Russia doesn't really care about borders anymore, which fits right into how they treated Georgia, the Crimea and now eastern Ukraine.
- zer0c 12y ago"It is not possible to accept that the shelling of Tskhinvali during much of the night with GRAD multiple rocket launchers (MRLS) and heavy artillery would satisfy the requirements of ha ving been necessary and proportionate in order to defend those villages. It follows from the illegal character of the Georgian military assault that South Ossetian defensive action in response did conform to international law in terms of legitimate self-defence." (c) Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG) Volume I Don't trust everything from the mass scream media... and "believe" is something for the church. There is this thing called Google on the internets I "believe".
- FleshGordon 12y agoA good start is assume that ANYTHING published from russian channels will be propaganda. It's a bandit state.
- fsloth 12y agoMost official output from russia needs a really heavy filtering. But to use the word 'bandit state' - I think it's a bit more complicated than that. To me, a bandit state echoes a temporary institution that is held up mostly through the use and threat of direct violence. To my eyes elements of the current status harken to a russian tzardom hundreds of years back. Strong autocratic leaders have always been a part of the political apparatus and the fatalistic psyche of the population drive individuls to yield, survive and pour their energies to something else than politics. It is also notable that russia is a typical country suffering from the curse of oil which itself is empirically a really hard thing to avoid or heal from which twists the dynamics even further. I would suggest three brief bodies of text to explore the problem of russia to those who are not familiar with them: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse Kennan's long telegram: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-1/ke... And thirdly, a bit longer work that reads like an autobiographic surrealist version of Catch-22, a description of the soviet system which trained most of those now in power (Suvorov:"Inside the soviet military"): http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/index.html http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/index.html
- lbotos 12y agoI'm knowingly ignorant of international politics. Can someone who follows this speculate the meaning of this?
- glormph 12y agoI'm fairly ignorant about that too, but I like speculating. The only way I've been able to explain Russian military crossing borders like this is showing their muscles internally. Is there anyone here with more insight?
- amalag 12y agoThis gives a better explanation of the context http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/guardian-view-on-sweden-defence-nato-inevitable http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/20/guardia...
- lazyjones 12y agoSome top swedish officials have been closely working with the CIA, for example Carl Bildt. This is probably just a PR effort to sway the swedish public towards NATO partnership/affiliation. Perhaps there was no submarine, or it was a NATO one ... Always ask yourselves: cui bono? The Russians have nothing to gain from risking a submarine in swedish (of all) waters. Sweden as a NATO member would be extremely useful to NATO at this point.
- pavlov 12y ago
- honeybooboo123 12y agoHere are the ideas this propaganda piece is meant to sink into Swedes' heads: - Russians are scary and bad. We're on the good guys' side. (The good guys are NATO and the West in general, of course) - We need to increase our military spending. - We need to join NATO.
- mcv 12y agoI suspect recent Russian behaviour might make NATO membership a lot more popular all of a sudden.
- lazyjones 12y agoRussian behaviour such as ... ? There have been plenty of allegations, that's true - but zero proof. It's sad how western media have completely failed to ask for any proof and have just been blowing NATO's political horn.
- thrownaway2424 12y agoThere's no proof that Russia forcibly annexed Ukraine? What newspaper have you been reading?
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoWhat can you possibly mean? Russian troops and tanks entered the Ukraine by the thousands. Even after the 'withdrawal' some remain. What were they doing there, picking flowers?
- lazyjones 12y agoYou guys make me laugh. Such ridiculous statements that display complete ignorance for the situation in the Ukraine (which has not been annexed, perhaps you mean Crimea, which voted to become independent from Ukraine) speak for themselves, nothing more to add. It's sad that some of these people can downvote based on their "knowledge".
- Shivetya 12y agohonestly I want to know, just exactly what can they accomplish knowing this? If its Russian, why would they care other than an effort actually didn't work. In the grand scheme of things Russia isn't going to be overly worried about Sweden. So I figure at most, they will have to figure out some new tactics to avoid detection and keep doing it till they get it right, if ever
- jacquesm 12y agoIt's just playing to the home crowd.
- kbart 12y agoRussia isn't going to be overly worried about Sweden They are. The article even states the reason: The Nordic country has also drawn closer to NATO in the past few years although the current government has ruled out seeking membership of the U.S.-led alliance. Also, it would not be the first time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_S-363). Of course, that happened in the past era, but the recent events have shown, that history tends to repeat itself.
- lingoberry 12y agoSweden and Russia don't pose any direct threat to each other, but even though Sweden's military has been defunded in the past few decades after the cold war, it's still one of the biggest weapon exporters in the world.
- netcan 12y agoAside from joining the NATO alliance, Sweden could seek to create or strengthen some other alliance. The Baltic sea and the Danish straits are important waterways to Russia, St Petersburg's access to the North Sea and the Atlantic. Russia's access to the Mediterranean goes through Turkey's (NATO) internal waterway. Both routes could effectively be shut down by a hostile navy. Those are the conventional military-strategic concerns that are supposedly making Russia so nervous about NATO aggression. Crimea is (allegedly) important for Russia's naval security, so had to go back to Russian control. Actively driving a geographically strategic country, with resources into increasing it's naval power and seeking an alliance is losing at strategy. On the economic, Oil prices have recently dropped. They may drop further. Russia is very reliant on oil revenues for public funding. Europe and the US are nearing the point of sanctions. Foreign investment is taking a hit. New energy projects like gas pipelines are unlikely. They do not need some pointless costly conflict. IMO, it comes down to this. An direct NATO-Russia conflict is unlikely. The cost is too high for all parties. But tensions can rise and relations can deteriorate. Russia seems to think that's ok, borderline desirable.
- belorn 12y agoWhen I saw the news, my first thought was narco-submarines. They got to be designed, built, and tested somewhere, and the size of such submarines has been reported to be similar to those of military use. It also make sense to do so inside a larger city which has a large enough technical educated workforce. update: Once built, the submarines can be sold on the black market. Using it in Sweden make very little sense given the bridge in south and border in north.
- cmdkeen 12y agoWhy would you build one in Sweden in order to sail it to South America and then back again? Narco submarines are for getting drugs into jurisdictions, which for Europe is the Atlantic states, usually Spain or Portugal. Once within Europe drugs are easy enough to transport around, even into Sweden. Far more likely it was the Russians.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- exDM69 12y agoNarco-submarine doesn't sound plausible at all. Sweden has very little border control on land borders. You can drive a van from mainland Europe through Denmark and over a bridge. Or cross over from the Finnish border in the North. It doesn't make any sense to build a submarine for drug trafficking purposes when you can just drive a car or walk over the border. Typical narco-subs are not submersible at all, the bulk of the craft is below water but the conning tower is on the surface at all times. This unknown craft was under water apparently for several days. (edit: according to Wikipedia, newer narco-subs may be fully submersible, but still probably not for extended periods of time) Also, the Swedish military claims to have had "contact" and detected the craft with several sensors.
- peeters 12y agoAre subs still used to lay wiretaps on undersea communication cables? The submarine was spotted off the coast near Stockholm, and there are four undersea cables going through the area, according to submarinecablemap.com.
- conover 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)
- foz 12y agoPerhaps it was an extremely large narco-submarine [1] smuggling drugs into Sweden. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine
- desireco42 12y agoThis looks like hunt for Loch Ness monster :)
- ainiriand 12y agoYes! I've seen clearer Loch Ness's monster pictures :D
- mlvljr 12y agoAnd downvoted! (despite the comment being truly (y)) Hilarious :)
- ainiriand 12y agoI've read through the FAQ and I don't understand downvotes here. As I'm quite new, can you explain to me the reason of this particular downvote?
- mlvljr 12y agoNever read the FAQ, honestly, but I think this must be covered in the classified Cold War appendix :)
- privong 12y agoI did not personally downvote you, but you were likely downvoted because the HN community generally does not favorably view comments which only contain jokes/humor (or comments which complain about being downvoted).
- mlvljr 12y agoThere must be a huge overlap with this c-ty: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow-where-we-hate-fun/ http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow-where-w...
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
- ptr 12y agoBefore people start defending Russia too much and proclaiming NATO to be the aggressors, have a look at http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/world/russia-west/?hpt=hp_c1 http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/world/russia-west... (and that's just the last 8 months, doesn't include Russia's target practicing on Stockholm with nukes for example) There's a big propaganda war going on in Europe right now, against NATO, the West, and western ideas. Free media in Russia are being closed down. Not good signs. The former USSR Baltic states are afraid of getting invaded, like eastern Ukraine, but Sweden is probably "safe" from a direct invasion. Edit: also it might be good to know that the Armed Forces are very careful not to point to any specific country (they're clearly stating the facts), but we're already getting disinformation from Russian media.
- mlvljr 12y ago"But take a look at what CNN says before proclaiming anything about NATO aggressiveness!" okay, counsel :)
- netcan 12y ago"The Left." is in a weird place. Objection within NATO countries to Afghanistan and Iraq (coalition, NATO, whatever) has led to many leftists seeing their job as critics of their own country. A part of that is trying to cut through the propaganda where your country is always innocent and other other guys are always malevolent. Getting the US/Coalition to accept culpability for its role in the collapse of Iraq. Etc. A lot of those things are positive. Internal criticism is extremely important. But, there is a danger of going down an enemy-of-my-enemy route and turning yourself into a dumb reflection of the thing you are objecting to. In the UK, the parody hard left produced MPs actively supporting the Syrian Baathist party up until recently. Russia does feel threatened by NATO. They have for a while. But mores, Russia's objection to NATO is a nationalistic ego thing, and shouldn't be excused. Most of the "aggression" in Eastern Europe, of countries joining NATO and encouraging NATO presence in their territory is fear based. It's based on a terrible experience of Russian dominance a generation ago and a fear of Russian invasion now. Russia's neighbors are afraid of them. They are afraid of invasion, interference, stuff like that. They want NATO presence because they are afraid of Russia. At the same time the baseline political rhetoric in Russia is belligerent, democratic rights like free press are diminishing and human rights are receding.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- merrua 12y agoTo be honest, I don't think many people doubted that Russian submarines were in its water. China would have been a surprise. The USA, unsurprising except that its reported
- d0ugie 12y agoWell, it would not be the US's first time invading an ally's waters, presumably to spy, as we did to Israel in 2004 for whatever reason. http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-submarine-spying-off-coast-last-year-was-american-1.160437 http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-submarine-spying-off-coas... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Intelligence_relations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_re...