每天，数万亿美元、石油和天然气，以及全球99%的网络流量，都要通过不受任何国家保护的海底管道输送。超级大国与企业竞相争夺控制权。面对这个新的“蛮荒西部”，我们是否应当感到担忧？
Every day, trillions of dollars, oil and gas and 99% of the world’s web traffic move through undersea pipelines that bear no state’s protection. With superpowers and corporations vying for control, should we be worried about this new wild west?
2024年圣诞节当天，距离爱沙尼亚、拉脱维亚和立陶宛原定脱离俄罗斯电网还有六周，一名芬兰工程师正要坐下吃午饭，手机却响了。他负责芬兰境内的海底电缆，这些电缆为芬兰和波罗的海国家供应电力，其中一条出现了故障。几小时内，当局得知，一艘名为Eagle S、注册于库克群岛的油轮曾在电缆故障的时间和地点上方驶过。
On Christmas Day 2024, six weeks before Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were due to disconnect themselves from Russia’s power grid, a Finnish engineer was just about to sit down to lunch when his phone rang. He was responsible for the Finnish side of the undersea cables that keep Finland and the Baltic states supplied with electricity, and one was malfunctioning. Within a couple of hours, authorities knew that a Cook Islands-ed tanker called the Eagle S, part of the shadow fleet carrying sanctioned Russian oil, in this case to Egypt, had sailed over the cable at the moment and location at which it had stopped working.
该船属于运送受制裁俄罗斯石油的影子船队，当时正将石油运往埃及。海岸警卫队向Eagle S号呼叫，询问他们是否已经起锚。对方回答已经起锚——但海岸警卫队似乎并未核实——随后继续航行。
The coastguard hailed the Eagle S. Were their anchors up? Yes, they replied – though they did not seem to check – and sailed on.
三小时后，该船又迅速连续刮上另外四条电缆，几乎令芬兰和爱沙尼亚的互联网服务陷入瘫痪；距离一条大型输电电缆和向两国供应天然气的波罗的海连接管也只有几分钟航程。芬兰紧急调遣边境警卫队，他们驶到油轮旁，要求船员收起船锚。然而，Eagle S号当时并不在芬兰领海内，当局无法强迫船长服从，也不知道谁——或什么力量——可能会前来援助他。
Three hours later the ship hit another four cables in quick succession, nearly hobbling internet provision in Finland and Estonia – and was minutes away from a major electricity cable and the Balticconnector, which supplies the two countries with gas. Finland scrambled the border guard, which pulled up alongside the tanker and demanded the crew take up its anchor. But the Eagle S was not in Finnish territorial waters: the authorities could not force the captain to comply, and they did not know who or what might come to his aid.