Sure, some might call me irresponsible, but the ninja theory is at least as credible as some of the others floating around out there right now attempting to make some sense of the suspicious rash of undersea cable disruptions which have plagued the Middle East and India over the past week.

As originally posted here, the problems started on January 30th. The initial reports suggested damage by a ship's anchor, which seemed a little suspicious considering both the generally well-marked landing points, the fact that two cables were involved, and the general vastness of places on the ocean floor where an anchor might drop. However, those of us who go down to the sea in ships know that mates don't read charts, anchors drag, and that the ocean can be a damn small place when there are any two things in it which might potentially collide, so it didn't seem wholly improbable.

But with additional news coming in over the weekend that no ships had been in the area of the initial cable damage, and that two more cables had been damaged subsequently in the region, it suddenly become much more difficult to attribute all of it to coincidence.

Of course we've known for quite some time that certain major powers with submarine technology have had the capability to muck around with undersea cables and it's remotely possible this is the case, but it seems unlikely... US and Israeli military planners seem competent enough to ensure that they associate disruptive actions with actual military actions, and so far, at least, we aren't seeing any of those.

More likely is the possibility that certain private enterprises have developed similar capabilities. They may not have nuclear powered subs but modern robot submersibles are quite flexible and substantially cheaper (not to mention less noticeable). The agency or motives remain obscure, however.

Most likely, of course, is that this is simply a coincidence, or perhaps a cascade of subtly related issues kicked off by the initial failures. I, however, am sticking with the ninja theory until proven wrong.

Ninja photo by Rparle, used under Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution License.