PNN – Submarine cables are considered the most important infrastructure for data flows and transactions, but they lack strategic security and may become tools for espionage.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, citing Al Jazeera, today’s world is increasingly dependent on digital communications, and behind these dependencies lies a vital but invisible infrastructure that runs the global internet and enables the flow of data and financial transactions at an astonishing speed.
The dominance of submarine cables over the global digital economy
This infrastructure is represented by submarine fiber optic cables that carry more than 95 percent of international data traffic and support financial transactions estimated at approximately $10 trillion per day. This fundamental role of this vast and delicate network of communications, although it constitutes the true backbone of the world’s digital economy, has been largely forgotten and neglected in terms of protection.
These cables, less than 2 inches in diameter, stretch more than 1.2 million kilometers across the oceans and are made up of thin optical fibers surrounded by layers of copper, plastic, and steel to protect them from the enormous pressures and currents of water.
Thanks to this design, submarine cables can transmit data at speeds of up to several terabytes per second, making them ideal for speed-sensitive applications such as cloud services, live streaming, and financial transactions. This gives submarine cables a clear advantage over satellites.
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Despite popular belief, reliance on satellites for international data transmission is limited to a few percent, as submarine cables are more efficient, cheaper and more responsive. These cables are laid by specialized ships that launch them into the ocean depths on carefully planned routes to avoid earthquake-prone areas, strong currents and landslides.
Undersea cables serve US espionage purposes
Ironically, more than 70 percent of cable failures are caused by human activities such as overfishing and anchoring, not natural disasters or attacks by underwater animals. Despite the technical nature of the cables, there are complex political and security aspects to them and submarine cables are a strategic asset that must be protected very quickly in times of geopolitical tension.
Historically, submarine cables have always been damaged during times of war. For example, in 1959, five American cables under the Atlantic Ocean were cut under mysterious circumstances, and Washington accused Soviet ships of deliberately sabotaging these cables.
But recently, revelations by Edward Joseph Snowden, a former employee of the US Central Intelligence Agency, revealed that the country is eavesdropping on data passing through undersea cable passages, and has prompted some countries, such as Brazil, to build new cables that do not pass through the United States.
In recent years, concerns have increased about deliberate attacks on submarine cables, and in 2023 and 2024, submarine cables in the Baltic Sea and the Red Sea were damaged under circumstances considered suspicious.
Such incidents, some of which appear to be part of covert conflicts, highlight the fragility of submarine cables despite their technical strength. To address these challenges, companies like Google and Meta have resorted to building their own cables, such as the Dunant submarine cable that crosses the Atlantic Ocean and transmits data at 250 terabits per second. This represents a silent competition between global tech powers to have their own protected networks.
The importance of these cables is not limited to developed countries, but also extends to countries with sensitive geographical locations. For example, Egypt, with more than 16 submarine cables connecting Asia and Europe, is among the countries that use these cables extensively. This gives Egypt a very strategic position on the global communications map.
Undersea internet cables remain the digital lifeblood of the modern world, powering the global economy and enabling seamless transactions and data transmission, but they lack adequate protection and are often operated by private companies in the absence of a binding international framework.
Experts believe that in light of these challenges, although dependence on submarine cables will continue in the coming decades, maintaining the strategic position of these cables in transactions and information transfer in the world depends on the ability of governments and international organizations to develop their security systems.
Today, the world is entering a phase where data control will become the essence of power, and in this context, the depths of the oceans may become a new, silent but very effective battlefield. Today, submarine cables are not just data transmission lines, but the arteries of a new world that is literally being formed from under the sea.
Meanwhile, the presence of Arab countries in the governance of these infrastructures is marginal, if not completely absent; so that there is no single Arab strategy to protect these cables, nor is there a clear perspective for investing in them or participating in the development of security and operational standards.
In a world where power is exercised through control of data flow, ignoring the security of submarine cables is a grave oversight and will cause irreparable damage.