
Sweden has proof foreign submarine entered its waters - bjornsing
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-sweden-submarine-idUSKCN0IY0U720141114
======
ptr
Before 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...](http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/world/russia-
west/?hpt=hp_c1) (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.

~~~
foobarqux
You don't need to defend Russia to say that the CNN data is distorted to
present a particular message. Most of these actions (flying in international
airspace, military exercises) are routinely performed by NATO but never
similarly criticized, or as this infographic shows, even mentioned.

~~~
alkonaut
I read just this weekend about a huge number of unmarked NATO tanks just
rolling in to a neighboring sovereign country seemingly oblivious of borders
and international law.

No, wait...

~~~
foobarqux
Have you forgotten the last decade of wars where "NATO" tanks rolled into a
sovereign country, seemingly oblivious of borders and international law?

~~~
alkonaut
No, and I did not approve of a few of those (Iraq2 for example). Most
importantly in those cases, those nations did it under real flag, and had to
answer questions. People on the countries who helped overthrow Saddam could
vote their politicians out of office. Parents of those soldiers could openly
scream in free press.

The last time a NATO or EU country blatantly annexed a whole or part of
another country I cannot remember.

------
spindritf
Another 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-
pa...](https://ca.news.yahoo.com/russias-bombers-conduct-regular-patrols-
ranging-arctic-gulf-140627703.html)

~~~
mcv
There 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
"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
A good start is assume that ANYTHING published from russian channels will be
propaganda. It's a bandit state.

~~~
honeybooboo123
Dude, what Western people are completely missing, is that _we 're_ being
bombarded with propaganda too! The Ukraine crisis starts and suddenly Russians
turn out to be massive homophobes, huh?

Putin is evil and Obama is good, right? Nevermind that the US is still
torturing people in the very Guantanamo Obama promised to close.

It's just not as simple as choosing to side with "the good guys" (=The West).
In reality, it's a game of politicians vs us little folks, ie. rulers vs
subjects.

~~~
mcv
> The Ukraine crisis starts and suddenly Russians turn out to be massive
> homophobes, huh?

Suddenly? They'd been widely criticized for their new homophobic laws well
before the Ukraine crisis.

Also, the US torturing people doesn't make other atrocities okay. I keep
hearing countries and their fanboys say "yeah, but that other country also
does bad things", or "but China is even worse!" Yeah, but that doesn't mean
it's okay for your country to do the same. It means that the other country
should stop. Can we stop making this a race to the bottom?

~~~
honeybooboo123
> They'd been widely criticized for their new homophobic laws well before the
> Ukraine crisis.

I'm not so sure about that.

> Also, the US torturing people doesn't make other atrocities okay. I keep
> hearing countries and their fanboys say "yeah, but that other country also
> does bad things", or "but China is even worse!" Yeah, but that doesn't mean
> it's okay for your country to do the same.

I'm equally against _all_ "countries" (=governments, in practice). You may
have noticed they all do bad things, either currently or eventually.

~~~
mcv
> I'm not so sure about that.

It's easy to verify by looking up some dates. The law against homosexual
propaganda stems from June 2013, and has been widely criticized ever since,
including calls to boycott the Winter Olympics at Sochi, in February 2014. The
protests that led to the Euromaidan revolution started in November 2013, the
actual revolution took place in February 2014, and was soon followed by
Russian intervention.

If you didn't start to pay attention to Russia until after the crisis started,
I can imagine you might think the homophobia criticism came only after the
crisis, but it actually started half a year earlier.

~~~
honeybooboo123
There's been such a massive propaganda campaign over Ukraine that it's
difficult to verify anything.

But what we do know is that it's all a geopolitical power struggle. The US
wants Kiev under its control, but that control has been slipping.

------
cmdkeen
Whilst 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
> _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
I 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
You mean like 0.25NM inside a country's borders?

~~~
jordanpg
No, 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
I 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.

------
peeters
Are 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
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_\(SSN-23\))

------
belorn
When 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.

~~~
exDM69
Narco-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.

------
foz
Perhaps 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)

------
merrua
To 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
Well, 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-
coas...](http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-submarine-spying-off-coast-last-
year-was-american-1.160437)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_relations#Intelligence_relations)

------
moron4hire
How 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&bi...](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)

~~~
seivui
_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
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC3_Nautilus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC3_Nautilus)

~~~
moron4hire
Exactly, 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.

------
Shivetya
honestly 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

~~~
netcan
Aside 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.

------
lbotos
I'm knowingly ignorant of international politics. Can someone who follows this
speculate the meaning of this?

~~~
lazyjones
Some 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
Objectively Russia may have nothing to gain from short military intrusions
into neighboring countries, but these decisions are driven by more indirect
goals.

There is plenty of evidence that Russia is actively testing the military
readiness of countries close to their borders. For example, intrusions by
Russian military airplanes into Finnish airspace have increased tenfold
compared to previous years.

Dismissing the submarine reports as a NATO ploy looks like a conspiracy theory
when it's clear that Russia is actively doing this stuff all over their
European border.

~~~
noste
Finnish Ministry of Defence has reported five airspace violations by Russian
airplanes this year, and there were three in 2013.

~~~
pavlov
Sorry, I misremembered the numbers. There were none in 2008-2012, and eight in
the past 18 months. So that is a significant increase in activity, but it
can't be described as "n-fold" since there wasn't any before :)

------
desireco42
This looks like hunt for Loch Ness monster :)

~~~
ainiriand
Yes! I've seen clearer Loch Ness's monster pictures :D

~~~
mlvljr
And downvoted! (despite the comment being truly (y)) Hilarious :)

~~~
ainiriand
I'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?

~~~
privong
I 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
There must be a huge overlap with this c-ty:
[http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow-
where-w...](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/01/stack-overflow-where-we-
hate-fun/)

------
bjornsing
This is the "conclusive evidence":
[http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/siteassets/6-aktuellt/nyheter/2...](http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/siteassets/6-aktuellt/nyheter/2014/bildspel-
fran-pressmote-141114.pdf)

~~~
sicher
That'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
Yea, 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.

------
honeybooboo123
Here 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
I suspect recent Russian behaviour might make NATO membership a lot more
popular all of a sudden.

~~~
lazyjones
Russian 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
There's no proof that Russia forcibly annexed Ukraine? What newspaper have you
been reading?

~~~
lazyjones
You 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".

~~~
zer0c
Upvoted. Ministry of Truth is doing its job very well (on the other part of
the world).

