In the near future we might find ourselves living in a world where ‘Internet A’ only links countries that belong to one military or economic bloc, while ‘Internet B’ only links countries in the opposing bloc
In my previous two articles I looked at how important it is for governments to control their corporations’ private undersea internet cables, and why nations don’t want their cables to make landfall on the territories of non-allies. At the heart of the issue is the fact that it is too easy for a nation to “tap” modern fiber-optic cables that make landfall on its territory, while it is extremely hard to tap optical cables on the seabed — something that was done with relative ease on Cold War-era copper-core cables.
Reuters reports that undersea internet cables have become an integral part of the U.S.’s competition with China for technological dominance. These expensive and very vulnerable backbones of the global internet are getting caught in a growing war between the two superpowers over technologies that could determine who achieves economic and military dominance in the coming decades.
That is one of the main reasons why the U.S. government recently forced U.S. tech giants like Google, and Meta (Facebook) to take a big hit by canceling undersea data cable projects that had already been partway completed, simply because the cables would be manufactured and laid by Chinese companies, or would involve Chinese-made hardware.
One of these projects is the SeaMeWe-6 cable that will transport data at super-fast speeds between Singapore and France via Africa and the Middle East over 12,000 miles (19,300 kilometers) of fiber-optic cable lying on the seafloor. That project is now being built by America’s SubCom cable company.
However, when the project was originally launched by a consortium of global cable operators, China’s HMN Tech was poised to be selected as both the manufacturer and layer of the cable. As the renamed version of Huawei Marine Networks, HMN Tech has historic links to China’s Huawei Technologies and was originally able to enter a bid of $500 million for building the cable, around a third cheaper than SubCom’s original bid. HMN Tech’s lower bid was partially made possible by large subsidies from the Chinese government.
Washington then threw a spanner in the works because it feared that HMN Tech’s involvement could enable China to spy on these sensitive communication cables. A senior U.S. State Department official confirmed to Reuters that the department had advocated through its embassies to help SubCom win the contract, and that it had warned other countries about the security risks posed by HMN Tech. The official said that, even though the SeaMeWe-6 cable wouldn’t come ashore in Chinese territory, Washington believed HMN Tech could build remotely operated surveillance equipment into the cable.
In the end, the pressure applied by the U.S. government managed to flip the contract from HMN Tech to SubCom. Reuters reports that the U.S. similarly intervened in at least six private undersea cable projects in Asia-Pacific over the past four years. In these cases, Washington either intervened to keep HMN Tech from getting the contract, or forced the companies to reroute or abandon cables that were designed to directly link U.S. territories to Chinese territories.
The fact that the U.S. is now openly acting to keep the world’s undersea cables free of Chinese eavesdroppers is indicative of how central these expensive, high-tech and vulnerable cables have become in the tech war between the U.S. and China. It also explains why China is now planning to build its own undersea cable between itself, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This cable would be installed parallel to existing undersea cables owned and operated by Western companies — including the SeaMeWe-6 cable.
Industry insiders told Reuters that China’s still-in-design-phase cable would be built by HMN Tech for $500 million, and it would link Hong Kong to China’s island province of Hainan, from where it would link to Singapore, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France. Four people involved in the project told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that the construction of parallel U.S.-backed and Chinese-backed cables between Asia and Europe is unprecedented. Two security analysts told Reuters the planned project is a sign that global internet infrastructure like cables, data centers, mobile phone networks could become divided in the near future.
Timothy Heath, a defense researcher at the U.S.-based think tank called the RAND Corporation, told Reuters the situation could lead to countries being forced to choose between using Chinese-approved internet equipment or U.S.-backed networks. This would entrench divisions across the world and make the tools that fuel the global economy, like online banking and global-positioning satellite systems, slower and less reliable. “It seems we are headed down a road where there will be a U.S.-led internet and a Chinese-led internet ecosystem,” Heath said. “The more the U.S. and Chinese disengage from each other in the information technology domain, the more difficult it becomes to carry out global commerce and basic functions.”
It is clear that having two different “global internets” operating side by side would make very little sense from an efficiency viewpoint. It makes little economic and environmental sense to build two separate networks of undersea cables and overland cables and infrastructure. The internet works so well today because it is designed to be one seamless system that’s optimized to deliver superfast data transmissions across the globe. Two analysts told Reuters that if data has to stay in one internet, separate from the other internet, users would suffer a degradation of service and it would become more difficult to interact with or do business with people around the world.
So, in the future we might find ourselves living in a world where “Internet A” only links countries that belong to one military or economic bloc, while “Internet B” only links countries in the opposing bloc. Currently there are more than 100 “accidental” breaks in undersea internet cables all around the world every year. In a two-internet world there would be many more incentives for unscrupulous actors to intentionally create “accidents” that cut the undersea cables of the opposing bloc — and then the operators of a damaged cable would have to wait many weeks for a specialized repair ship to become available to sail to the break coordinates and start the long process of raising and fixing the cable.
One example of such a possibly “intentional accident” happened in February when two Chinese commercial vessels “accidentally” broke both cables that link Taiwan’s Matsu island group to Taiwan’s main island. The two “accidents” happened a few days apart when the seafloor-scraping net of a Chinese trawler cut one of the cables before the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship cut the other. These incidents left the island group’s people without internet for more than a month.
The strategic importance of undersea internet cables becomes critical in a time of war. During World War I, for example, the U.K. cut Germany’s undersea telegraph and telephone cables that linked it to the outside world. It is highly likely that China would be very tempted to cut the 14 undersea cables that link Taiwan to the world, if it ever launched an invasion of Taiwan.
This all means that in future conflicts we would see nations investing billions in ways to tap fiber-optic cables on the seafloor, while also perhaps “accidentally” cutting undersea cables with fishing nets, ship anchors, or specially designed submarines. In turn, this would lead to nations spending billions to create new machines to patrol their undersea cables.
As the scale of the U.S.-China conflict around undersea data cables is only now becoming apparent, little is known about what kind of war machines are currently being designed to fight this war. We can only speculate that any theoretical physical cable war — as differentiated from the current commercial cable conflict — would require each bloc to patrol vast distances under and above the ocean’s surface. Each bloc would also have to react very quickly to perceived threats. Based on that assumption, we can only speculate about the type of machines and units that might be created to fight such a war. That is why what follows below is mere speculation based on current military trends.
It is important to note that surveillance satellites would be one of the primary ways to spot signs on the ocean surface that a cable is being threatened. The most obvious sign would be an unknown ship loitering over a spot where a friendly cable crosses the seafloor underneath. The missile-armed patrol ships mentioned below would act as rapid-response platforms to get to such suspicious vessels as soon as possible, after being warned by satellite operators. In case fast-response satellites (high-tech satellites that send updates at short intervals) get taken out in the beginning of a large-scale war, surface and submarine vessels would be the primary way to spot ships that might be tapping or sabotaging a cable.
The machines that would fight a theoretical future cable war would most likely come in the shape of specialized manned or unmanned submarines (AI drones) that would be small, fast and nimble while also being able to fire small torpedoes with high accuracy. In some situations, these underwater AI machines would be battling other AI machines with torpedoes, or battling human divers with something akin to spearguns — as bullets and shells simply don’t work underwater.
As a countermeasure, we might see “underwater warrior” divisions of undersea soldiers being created. These divers would require high-tech diving equipment, mini-subs, and a way to carry and fire small torpedoes at drones that are trying to kill them with spearguns.
Nations would require large numbers of underwater killer drones to patrol the thousands of kilometers of fiber-optic cabling that criss-crosses the floorbeds of the planet’s shallow waters and deep oceans. On the surface, we could see large numbers of manned or unmanned missile boats patrolling the space above each cable, looking for suspicious behavior by commercial ships. These surface vessels would either carry their own team of combat divers, or would call in quick-reaction teams of airborne combat divers who would be able to drop into the ocean with their equipment and immediately descend into the depths to engage in underwater combat.
As jet airplanes can fly at much higher speeds than helicopters and even propeller planes, it is likely that most of these theoretical quick-reaction forces would be equipped with large jets with rear cargo doors that would allow them to parachute with bulky equipment once they reach their insertion point. Their equipment would have to be highly specialized and tailormade, to avoid the 1983 fiasco when four Navy SEALs drowned after parachuting with their gear into the ocean during a rain squall. The four warriors died when their transport plane missed its drop zone after their mission was delayed and pushed back into nighttime, when a squall happened to hit the area. The accident happened during the U.S.’ operation Urgent Fury in 1983, which was designed to restore government in Grenada after an insurgent uprising.
To avoid this kind of disaster, quick-response teams would have to parachute with deep-diving equipment already strapped on. A simpler solution might be to carry an expensive high-tech killer submarine drone on each patrolling missile boat. A more cost-effective measure might be to fly such a drone in via a quick-reaction jet airplane.
Probably the fastest way to respond to a possible cable tap or sabotage is to use a supersonic bomber that’s similar to the B-1B Lancer but a version that can fly at Mach 2 or faster. Such a high-speed bomber can then drop miniaturized AI attack drones via parachute. Such underwater AI drones would be equipped with sensors that would feed data back to satellites and drones via a thin cable attached to a comms module that would detach from the drone and drift on the ocean’s surface. This would allow humans to remotely control the drone and give the kill command, if required by the situation. These drones could carry small torpedoes or warheads that would destroy the drone and the target.
Special agreements would have to be drafted for how opposing underwater killer drones would react when they would meet at the points where the cables of opposing blocs cross. During wartime, these agreements could however be nullified or ignored, leading to multiple incidents of sabotage and anti-sabotage warfare on the seafloor.
So, every way you look at it, the world’s expensive undersea fiber-optic internet cables are extremely vulnerable and extremely hard to protect. Any attempts to patrol the seafloor around the cables and the ocean surface above the cables would be extremely expensive, and might become useless during a war, especially during a global war.
All these warfare scenarios are complex enough in the current situation where we have only one global internet. They would become even more complex in a world where two undersea networks exist side by side, and where their respective blocs are just waiting for a spark to light the dynamite that would cause a global war.
One way to avoid a destructive and expensive cable war might be to formulate non-proliferation agreements designed to ensure that each side leaves the other side’s cables alone during any conflict. A sort of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) agreement where each side stops short of destroying the other side’s cables — because if they don’t, both sides would probably have to live without internet for as long as the conflict lasts.
Image: U.S. National Archives, Public Domain
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