John Foreman’s recent article on the Yantar incident highlighted the Russian threat to Britain’s economically vital data cables. Data cables are, however, only part of a disturbing picture. The UK is almost the only large country whose critical national infrastructure is so heavily coastal or underwater. All of our gas comes by sea, either through pipelines from Europe, from the North and Irish Sea, or through delivery of LNG to our ports. Most of the rest of our electricity sources are coastal too: undersea cables bring offshore wind and carry power from the Continent, and every British nuclear power station has a vulnerable outflow to the sea.
Yet few ports have been designated as strategic and are thus given protection from our small and over-stretched Navy.
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