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Underwater espionage refers to clandestine activities that involve gathering information, conducting surveillance,
or carrying out covert operations and underwater environments. Typically involves a use of specialized
equipment and techniques. Underwater espionage can take place in various settings, including ocean,
seas, lakes, or rivers, and may involve submarines, divers,
and unmanned water vehicles. The objective, of course, is to gather information
but enemy naval capabilities monitoring naval movements. It could also be conducting covert operations
to gather classified or sensitive and sensitive information related to underwater technologies, offshore resources.
Trade secrets also can collect dat on marine ecosystems, pollution levels, or
underwater activities that may violate international regulations or pose a threat to the environment.
And finally, it could also be used for protecting maritime assets such as parts,
harbors or underwater infrastructure. In recent history, we saw in two thirteen
where there have been more reported instances of intelligence agencies intercepting or tapping underwater communication
cables to gather information. We saw this and the documents that were leaked by
Edwins Edward Snowton revealed in the NSA had tapped undersea fiber optic cables as part
of their surveillance program. In addition, we see China, who have been
reports of underwater drones operated by nations engaging in activities that could be seen in
espionage. And in the most recent cases we saw it on how it traced
Titan. They have unfortunate disaster that underwater submarine that well I guess imploded under
the water, and that was tragic. Of all the categories of national secrets
the US government keeps, few have been as tightly guarded is how the military
uses sophisticated acoustic technology to keep an ear you can say on what its adversaries
are doing thousands of feet below. Driving the push for such capabilities are decades
of Cold War briingmanship and fears about Soviet submarines. Anything involving the nuclear triad
is super secret. Anything involving US censor capabilities is the same. One such
system. It couldn't be determined which heard what officials could thought could be the
implosion of the Titan submersible just hours after the vehicle began its voyage. The
US Navy report it's finding through the Coastguard commander on site. While the Navy
couldn't say definitively the sound came from the Titan, the discovery helped to narrow
the scope of the search for a lost craft. US efforts to develop underwater
surveillance capacities traced back more than a century ago. Sonar, which uses sound
waves to detect and locate objects, was using World War One by the British
and others to detect submarines. During World War Two, the US developed long
range son aren't to detect German U boats. German U boats, the danger
of nuclear war became a central fact of modern life. In the Cold War
history and fewous arms were furious. Arms race began, and so it was
detection, especially acoustic detection on the seas. The omitted goal of Soviet animals
was to achieve naval supremacy to use the Navy as a key element of Soviet
global strategy. The systems remained into the use today and likely detected the noises
made by the implosion of the Titan, but we'll never know for sure.
As soon as you start talking about anti submarine warfare systems, you immediately hit
top secret clearance. So if the Navy doesn't seem particularly forthcoming, it can't
be, at least not without presidential authority to declassify. So there's your story
of underwater espionage.