Chinese military researchers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have warned that submarine cables, which carry 99% of intercontinental data traffic and support daily cross-border financial transactions estimated at US$10 trillion, are increasingly vulnerable to attacks from low-cost unmanned drones and vessels.

Shi Guanglei and Shi Haiming of the National Defence University wrote in Science and Technology Daily that the seabed, long considered a strategic "blind spot" due to exploration difficulties and high control costs, is becoming a new arena for great power rivalry. They pointed to the Aukus pact between Australia, Britain, and the United States as a key factor lowering the barrier to entry for undersea warfare.

The researchers noted that underwater military operations previously relied on expensive, crewed submarines with significant personnel risks, limiting such activities to major powers. However, the emergence of small and medium-sized unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) offers a low-cost, batch-deployable alternative that poses no risk to human life, enabling more countries to assert control over the seabed.

The PLA scientists warned that underwater pipelines and optical cables have become "easy targets," citing incidents such as the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines transporting natural gas from Russia to Germany and disruptions to internet services caused by cable cuts in the Red Sea last year.

These developments raise concerns about the security of the global digital economy, which heavily depends on these submarine cables for data transmission and financial transactions.

Sources