An Underwater Shadow War Is Raging

It was with boyish excitement that I clambered down the narrow stepladder and into the control room of FNS Pori, one of four fast attack crafts in the Finnish navy. The commander explained the latest missile systems to our small group: Sailors are taught to operate the ship not just from state-of-the art sensors, but also from paper, in the event of GPS denial. All eventualities are being rehearsed in the gray zone of almost-war. These vessels spend most of the time patrolling the Gulf of Finland and the archipelago of small islands that straddle the Russian, Estonian, and Finnish…