On Christmas Day 2024, a Finnish engineer received a startling phone call while preparing for lunch. His task was to manage the Finnish portion of undersea cables that connect Finland and the Baltic states to power grids, right before those nations were scheduled to sever their ties with Russia’s electrical infrastructure. The situation quickly escalated when a vessel struck multiple cables, nearly disrupting internet access for Finland and Estonia and coming perilously close to hitting a primary gas pipeline, the Balticconnector. The Finnish border guard eventually intercepted the ship, exposing the fragility of these submerged lifelines. Six weeks before Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were due to disconnect themselves from Russia’s power grid, a Finnish engineer was just about to sit down to lunch when his phone rang, o n Christmas Day 2024. Which pulled up alongside the tanker and demanded the crew take up its anchor, finland scrambled the border guard.
Elisabeth Braw, a specialist in national security and grey-zone threats, describes this vulnerability as a significant geopolitical concern. Having interviewed numerous undersea engineers and coastguards, Braw observes that these essential assets are essentially unmonitored. While the world relies on the “undersea spaghetti bowl”—a complex web of internet fiber optics, electricity cables, and oil and gas pipes—these systems are often left exposed, vulnerable to accidents or malicious intent. According to “It makes no sense,”, Swedish security expert Elisabeth Braw, leaning over a table in a well-upholstered corner of a private members’ club steps away from the Bank of England. Rootling through accident investigation documents and court transcripts and Zoom-calling the small, specialised crews who have to go out and repair the damaged cables, often under extremely challenging conditions, asking them to show her what they are doing out there at sea, she has spent the last couple of years talking to undersea engineers and coastguards about this and other similar incidents. Now she has written it all up into a book bristling with enough incident to supply several action movies. “It makes no sense that you would drag your anchor across five cables, dozens of kilometres.
These networks form the backbone of modern society. Approximately 95% to 99% of global web traffic, alongside electricity supplies and an estimated $10 trillion in daily financial transactions, rely on this seabed infrastructure. Braw highlights a dangerous paradox: we assume our data lives in the “cloud,” but in reality, it resides on the ocean floor. Taking out just a few cables near major hubs like New York or New Jersey could potentially paralyze financial sectors like Wall Street almost instantly.
The protection of this infrastructure is complicated by a reliance on the 1994 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). Braw warns that this framework assumes countries will follow the rules, but the current climate is shifting toward what Emmanuel Macron described at the UN as a “new order of impunity.” There is no singular global authority capable of enforcing maritime security, leaving critical conduits at the mercy of state actors and corporations.
The role of tech giants in owning this infrastructure has further complicated the landscape. During a House of Commons Defence Committee hearing, MP Mike Martin noted the precarious nature of having essential national infrastructure managed by private entities. Braw points out that while these companies operate for profit, their reliance on these assets in a volatile geopolitical environment creates immense vulnerabilities. She posits a scenario where a political figure might pressure a corporation to disconnect services to a specific nation, illustrating how business interests have become inextricably linked with national security.
Geopolitical hotspots further heighten the risk. Certain areas, such as the waters off Japan, the eastern US, and Ireland, serve as critical pinch points for global traffic. Roughly 75% of transatlantic internet traffic moves through Irish waters, a region recently monitored for the presence of Russian vessels, despite Ireland’s limited naval capacity. Braw emphasizes that these nations have bet their security on an era of globalization that is increasingly under threat. Authorities knew that a Cook Islands-registered tanker called the Eagle S, part of the shadow fleet carrying sanctioned Russian oil, in this case to Egypt, had sailed over the cable at the moment and location at which it had stopped working, within a couple of hours. Yes, they replied – though they did not seem to check – and sailed on.
Beyond cables, Braw examines the broader undersea environment, which she calls an “undersea kingdom.” Even deep-sea mining remains a contested issue, with 31 exploration licenses issued despite a push from a 40-country bloc, including the UK, for a commercial moratorium due to environmental risks. Braw suggests that rather than exploiting fragile ecosystems, the focus should remain on recycling technology to reduce the demand for rare earth minerals. Ultimately, she argues that countries committed to a rules-based maritime order must unite to protect the “blue commons” before these hidden, vital systems are compromised.
