Borders: Between wars and hardship
Tonight at 9.00 pm, on channel 63 of digital terrestrial television, the episode ‘The dividing line between military clashes and hybrid attacks involving civilians’ will be broadcast. It is the eleventh instalment of *Il Sole 24 Ore*’s TV programme dedicated to a ‘journey through the invisible lines that define power’. Europe is increasingly exposed to acts of sabotage by hostile actors
by 24Ore NextMed
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During the American Civil War, both the Confederate cavalry and Union troops engaged in sabotaging telegraph lines and railway lines. In 1862, a group of Northerners led by the civilian agent James Andrew infiltrated enemy territory and, at Kennesaw, in Georgia, managed to seize a locomotive, hijack it, cut the tracks, damage the telegraph line 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 cut off 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 have taken on a dual dimension: physical and cyber. In 2010, an attack using the Stuxnet virus struck the Natanz nuclear power station in Iran; 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 one to make use of this system. They are petty criminals willing to do anything, recruited via social media and paid in cryptocurrencies.
