Executive Intelligence Snapshot

The strategic vulnerability of global submarine cables networks is increasingly moving from a contingency scenario to an operational concern in hybrid warfare.

Essential for over 99% of transoceanic data traffic, these seabed conduits face compounding risks of state-sponsored sabotage, signal interception, and collateral disruption within contested maritime choke points, most notably the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.

Consequently, the convergence of Sino-American competition over infrastructure deployment with asymmetric regional threats necessitates a re-evaluation of national digital resilience and maritime security frameworks.

Background

Between 8-9 August 2026, two separate cables in the Submarine Cable Protection Zone off Perth, Australia, had both experienced faults straight after each other and in close proximity to each other. A vessel was reportedly observed nearby, with movements considered suspicious by some industry experts.

On 9 August 2026, a Chinese-flagged research vessel was observed loitering directly above an undersea cable system, the Pacific Light Cable Network, an 8,000-mile fiber-optic system linking Taiwan, the Philippines and the United States.

Between 2024 and 2025, several Red Sea cables were damaged after a vessel struck by a Houthi missile dragged its anchor.

In May 2026, media outlets close to the IRGC claimed that undersea cables traversing Iranian-controlled Persian Gulf waters should be subject to Iranian regulation. The reported proposals include: licensing requirements for companies that own the cables; annual fees; mandates for major tech companies to operate in accordance with Iranian legislation; greater Iranian control over maintenance and repair activities.

This does not establish an Iranian intention to physically sabotage the cables. It does, however, demonstrate Tehran’s recognition of subsea connectivity as a potential instrument of strategic leverage.

Seventeen submarine cables pass through the Red Sea alone, carrying the majority of data traffic between Europe, Asia, and Africa.

While, at least seven commercial submarine cable systems transit through the Strait of Hormuz. These include systems connecting Asia to Africa to Europe (AAE-1) and Southeast Asia to the Middle East to Western Europe (SEA-ME-WE 5). Another two systems, FALCON, which connects India and Sri Lanka to Gulf states, Sudan, and Egypt, and the Gulf Bridge International Cable System (GBI), which connects all Gulf countries, also run through Iranian territorial waters.

Intercontinental data transmission relies almost entirely on approximately 500 active submarine fibre-optic cables, which carry over 95% of global communications, cloud traffic, and financial transfers. Historically financed by international telecom consortia, ownership has shifted significantly over the past decade, with major US technology firms (namely Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon), funding and controlling around 90% of new transatlantic capacity. Notably, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google spent years building data centres across the Gulf, betting the region would become the world’s next great hub for artificial intelligence.

Concurrently, the United States government has systematically restricted Chinese infrastructure providers, such as HMN Tech, from landing cables on allied territories, prompting Beijing to establish alternative submarine routes connecting Asia, East Africa, and Europe via the Red Sea corridor.

Why Does It Matter?

Physical security risks have escalated as commercial and non-state vessels have repeatedly severed key subsea links in strategic maritime choke points. Recent incidents involving vessels dragging anchors over prolonged distances across seabed corridors, have disrupted high-capacity systems.

These disruptions highlighted operational vulnerabilities stemming from limited global repair vessel capacity, complex maritime jurisdiction frameworks, and the challenge of distinguishing accidental maritime damage from deliberate infrastructure interference. In response, multilateral bodies including NATO and the European Union have introduced dedicated surveillance missions and regulatory frameworks aimed at hardening subsea network resilience.

Subsea telecommunications cables can represent high-value, low-cost target for asymmetric warfare (shallow or relatively accessible waters, deep-sea sabotage is not necessarily cheap). From a tactical perspective, disrupting a fibre-optic bundle requires minimal kinetic expenditure, such as a commercial trawler or shadow-fleet tanker dragging a modified anchor along known seabed corridors.

This method can create significant attribution ambiguity, particularly when the damage can plausibly be presented as accidental. Because international maritime law, primarily defined under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), was framed around accidental civilian damage, it lacks robust mechanisms for attribution, jurisdiction, or pre-emptive interdiction against state-directed civil proxies in international waters.

At the micro-tactical level, adversary tactics do not require the catastrophic physical destruction of entire cable spans. Targeted, localised severance within narrow, shallow waterways, such as the Bab el-Mandeb or the Strait of Hormuz, achieves disproportionate operational impact. The primary vulnerability lies not merely in the initial data blackout, but in the repair bottleneck. The global repair ecosystem is itself a strategic bottleneck, with limited repair-vessel availability and increasingly complex regulatory and security constraints capable of extending restoration times.

In May 2026, for instance, only one cable-repair vessel was operating in the Persian Gulf, owned by UAE-based e-Marine. In active military zones, high war-risk insurance premiums, naval escort demands, and protracted permit negotiations effectively can transform a temporary physical fault into a prolonged connectivity disruption.

The ongoing conflict in the Persian Gulf has once again laid bare the fragility of these digital superhighways. On one hand, US military pressure in the Gulf is simultaneously increasing the security exposure of infrastructure in which major US technology companies have invested heavily; on the other, it provides Iran with yet another form of asymmetric leverage, afforded by its favourable geographical position.

Iran could exploit its control over portions of the territorial waters surrounding the Strait, its ability to restrict or complicate access to Iranian ports and coastal areas, and the broader security environment to delay or obstruct cable-repair operations.

Beyond immediate economic disruption, the exposure of these maritime chokepoints accelerates the structural fragmentation of the global internet. As the Red Sea and Gulf corridors become high-risk zones, sovereign states and private consortia are forced to re-route digital traffic overland (e.g., through terrestrial routes via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey) or seek alternative maritime paths.

Such is the case with European actors currently backing the development of Arctic submarine connectivity designed to provide an alternative Europe–Asia route. The Polar Connect project, for instance, specifically aims to build a resilient connection between Europe and Asia via the Arctic Ocean.

Nevertheless, this shift carries major geopolitical consequences. Terrestrial rerouting increases the importance of sovereign transit states, potentially exposing data flows to additional jurisdictional, regulatory and surveillance risks. Simultaneously, the heightened risk profile of Western-backed maritime routes incentivises developing nations across the Global South to adopt state-subsidised Chinese digital infrastructure, accelerating the emergence of two distinct, geopolitically aligned global data ecosystems.

Outlook

Cable geopolitics is increasingly coming to resemble that of pipelines: whoever controls the routes controls the chokepoints, and consequently dictates the overall resilience of the network.

The Persian Gulf case is emblematic. Over the past decade, major US technology conglomerates (hyperscalers) have poured billions of dollars into subsea infrastructure and AI data hub expansion across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Kinetic confrontation in the Gulf effectively weaponises the very geography these corporations rely upon. By destabilising the corridor, US geopolitical pressure risks undermining the asset security of its own corporate sector, creating a strategic friction between Washington’s defence posture and the global infrastructure architecture of US hyperscalers.

The strategic consequence is that subsea connectivity can no longer be treated as a purely commercial infrastructure issue. As geopolitical competition increasingly extends into the seabed, the resilience of digital networks will depend not only on the number of cables deployed, but on the ability of states and private operators to protect, repair, and reroute them under conditions of conflict. In this environment, control over maritime corridors, repair access, landing stations, and alternative terrestrial routes will become an increasingly important component of national power.

For the Gulf, this creates a paradox: the same geography that makes the region attractive as a global hub for energy, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence also concentrates its digital infrastructure around some of the world’s most contested maritime chokepoints. The strategic question is therefore no longer whether submarine cables can be disrupted, but whether the states and corporations that depend on them can maintain connectivity when the geography itself becomes contested.

Still, modern networks are designed around redundancy and traffic rerouting. A cable being cut does not necessarily produce an outage. The real vulnerability is geographical concentration, insufficient route diversity, simultaneous faults and limited repair capacity. The strategic threat emerges when several apparently independent routes share the same chokepoint.