Under The Sea: Trouble Brewing Over Control Of Submarine Cables

By John Oncea, Editor

Submarine cables have been around since the Civil War. Today, they are responsible for 95% of international data and a battle for control between the U.S. and China.

I asked my colleague, Geoff Tecza, what should I write about today. “Cables, connectors, and interconnect solutions used in communications, defense, or space,” he replied. Uh, that narrows it down.

Then, it hit me: Pick one item from the first group of three, one from the second group, drop it in a search engine, and see if anything interesting comes up. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

So, without further delay, let’s jump into what Geoff’s suggestion led me to: the coldest depths of the ocean.

There’s A Cable, There’s A Cable, There’s A Cable At The Bottom Of The Sea

Fact: Over 95 percent of international data and voice transfers are currently routed through the many fiber optic cables that crisscross the world’s seafloors. But, much like Planet Money hosts Wailin Wong and Robert Smith, I thought this data traveled through space and was bounced off satellites before showing up on my phone or laptop.

But nope, submarine cables.

“Almost everything you see on the internet that comes from a different part of the world travels along the bottom of the ocean in undersea cables, down through the briny, deep, Davy Jones’ locker,” said Smith. “Down below the fish and the sharks and the coral reefs is the backbone of the world's economy, one of the most amazing technical achievements in one of the most ancient places on Earth.”

Five miles deep, well below where anything lives, is a garden hose-size cable. Inside that cable are about 200 human hair-sized fibers encased in metal strands and a petroleum jelly-like substance. These fibers carry gigabits of information, enough to probably have everyone in Singapore talk on the phone with someone in the U.S. simultaneously.

There you have it, our modern internet. And despite the internet being 12,461 days old* as of this writing, we’ve been putting data cables at the bottom of the ocean for about 150 years. “It was the 1850s, right before the Civil War,” Smith said. “And private entrepreneurs laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable between Britain and the U.S. And they didn't have to go down to the ocean floor because they just had the big spool of cable on the back of the boat, and they unspooled it, and it would just drop down to the bottom of the ocean.”

Spool after spool of cable was spliced together and eventually, many thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean were covered. “A little bit later, in the 1950s, there was another breakthrough,” said Smith. “Telephone communications started to go through cables. And then as we move into the modern era, this is where the internet data communication came from and this time in fiber-optic cable, so you can put just zillions of times more information through those fiber-optic cables than you could through the telegraph cables.”

Closer to shore the cable is bigger in diameter due to additional, protective coatings. It is also buried in parts to keep it from being broken by fishing trawlers whose nets drag over it, or a big container ship that drops an anchor right on it.

“And even if a cable were to get severed – this is very clever – there are multiple cables, and there are switching routing mechanisms,” Smith points out. “So, if one cable ever goes down, it seamlessly switches to another cable, and most people wouldn't even notice.”

Submarine cables play a critical role in global communications, connecting the world and supporting critical commercial, economic, and national security endeavors. As Smith said, when concluding his story, “You know, yeah, satellites are amazing, and beaming through space is crazy and blows the mind. But this humble cable is a miraculous achievement of human beings wanting to stay in contact with each other.”

* Assuming by internet we mean the internet as we know it today (the World Wide Web). If you want the number of days from the time the internet technology was made, that number is 19,535 days (again, as of this writing).**

** When I plug in my birthday to see how old I was when the internet came to be I get this message: The internet was launched 8,802 days after you were born! I’m not quite sure how to feel about that.

What Could Go Wrong?

A lot. For instance:

• Fishing Boats Keep Running Over Ocean Internet Cables
• ‘A Warning Sign’: Chinese Ships Accused of Cutting Off Internet to a Taiwanese Island
• Will Russia attack undersea internet cables next?

Let’s dive into another potential disaster: the competition between the U.S. and China to control the deployment of submarine cables.

“Chinese state-owned telecom firms are developing a $500 million undersea fiber-optic internet cable network that would link Asia, the Middle East, and Europe to rival a similar U.S.-backed project,” Reuters reports. “The plan is a sign that an intensifying tech war between Beijing and Washington risks tearing the fabric of the internet.”

The U.S. has already blocked several Chinese undersea cable projects over the past four years, as well as “licenses for planned private subsea cables that would have connected the U.S. with the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, including projects led by Google LLC, Meta Platforms, Inc and Amazon.com Inc.”

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said, according to Reuters, that “the U.S. supports a free, open, and secure internet” while Chinese officials said it was opposed to the U.S.’s "violation of established international rules" around submarine cable cooperation.

A Marketplace conversation between host Sabri Ben-Achour and James Kraska, a professor of International Maritime Law at the U.S. Naval War College, went deeper into this issue with Kraska pointing out that, regardless of what country deploys them, there are “very minimal rules” protecting submarine cables. “The rules were developed during the era of copper cables, and they only pertain to connecting bilateral cables connecting one country to another country.

“The problem today is that submarine cables are fiber optic. They are constructed through a consortium of companies, and these consortia will sublease part of their bandwidth to even other companies. And so, there’s no such thing really as a bilateral submarine cable that’s used by civilians today.” Kraska notes it’s hard to determine who owns divisible rights or indivisible rights in the cable, and it’s almost impossible to know if those companies have subleased their indivisible rights to other companies.

What protections exist, said Kraska, are “in the Law of the Sea Convention, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which is reflective of customary international law. The U.S. is not a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but because it’s reflective of customary international law, the U.S. adheres to it and virtually every country in the world regards this treaty as a constitution for the world’s oceans.”

Article 112 of that treaty rules all states can lay submarine cables on the deep seabed and continental shelves of other countries while Article 115 notes states can be indemnified for losses if a cable, for example, is cut. But there are no rules directly addressing damaging submarine cables during wartimes except that, in armed conflict, military objectives are lawful — may be lawful — military targets.

“The loss of the internet cables and the connectivity they provide has huge military implications, as Russia has shown by targeting internet infrastructure in its assault on Ukraine,” writes Voice of America (VOA). VOA quotes Joseph Hwang, an affiliate faculty member at George Mason University, as saying, “Taiwan, U.S., and Asian allies should strengthen undersea infrastructure by investing in cable armor, deeper burial, and decoy cables, and consider establishing legal frameworks that clearly explain the consequences of accidental or intentional underwater cable destruction.”

Summary

In today's interconnected world, submarine cables have become a key infrastructure for the smooth functioning of global communication networks. These cables are owned by a consortium of international companies, including telecom giant AT&T, and offer high-speed broadband connectivity and capacity to vast geographical regions that serve as hubs of trade and communications worldwide.

Any disruption, damage, or sabotage of these cables, even for a brief period, can endanger U.S. warfare operations that rely heavily on seamless battle space communications and awareness, as well as the stability of financial networks. The potential geopolitical and economic repercussions of such a disruption would be staggering, given the magnitude of the role these cables play in the digital age.