Borders: Between wars and hardship
In the episode ‘The dividing line between military clashes and hybrid attacks involving civilians’, the eleventh instalment of *Il Sole 24 Ore*’s TV programme dedicated to a ‘journey through the invisible lines that define power’, the programme discusses a Europe that is increasingly exposed to acts of sabotage – some overt, some covert – by hostile actors. Watch the episode
by 24Ore NextMed
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During the American Civil War, both the Confederate cavalry and Union troops engaged in sabotaging telegraph and railway lines. In 1862, a group of Northerners led by the civilian agent James Andrew infiltrated enemy territory and, at Kennesaw, in Georgia, they managed to seize a locomotive, hijack it, cut the tracks, damage the telegraph lines and demolish two bridges. The train literally vanished right under the Confederates’ noses. Andrew and half the group were captured after seven hours, tried and hanged. But the raid had the desired effect: the flow of ammunition and spare parts was interrupted for several weeks.
It was one of the first acts of sabotage against civilian infrastructure. During the Second World War, this tactic became standard practice. A famous operation took place on 28 February 1943, when a Norwegian commando unit trained by the British destroyed the heavy water production plant at the Vemork hydroelectric power station.
Energy became a key issue. From the 2000s onwards, acts of sabotage took on a dual dimension: physical and cyber. In 2010, an attack involving the Stuxnet virus struck the Iranian nuclear plant at Natanz; in 2015, a cyberattack knocked out part of the Ukrainian power grid. In 2021, Saudi Aramco was once again the target of a cyberattack.
Today, this phenomenon also affects Europe. Why? To bring the front line into people’s homes, even thousands of kilometres away from the actual war.
On the nights between 20 and 22 July 2024, three parcel bombs exploded in three different cities: Leipzig, Warsaw and Birmingham. It is one of the most dangerous incidents in the destabilisation campaign that Russia is alleged to have launched in Europe through arson, sabotage and political provocations. The perpetrators, however, are not trained agents: and Russia is not the only country to use this method. They are petty criminals willing to do anything, recruited via social media and paid in cryptocurrencies.
