Submarines cables are critical to U.S. national security communications

From a global and national security perspective, submarine communications cables also play an essential role. For example, “a major portion of the [U.S. Department of Defense] data traveling on undersea cables is unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) video, essential for war preparation.”⁴⁹ As one scholar observed, “without ensured cable connectivity, the future of modern warfare is in jeopardy.”⁵⁰ A further example of the importance of cables to the military is the development of the Global Information Grid (GiG) by the U.S. Department of Defense.⁵¹ The GiG is the “globally, interconnected, end-to-end set of infor- mation capabilities for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating and managing information on demand to warfighters, policy makers and support personnel.”⁵² The Grid utilizes portions of the international telecommunications systems and has been described as a “global network that can be used to control a global battlespace.”⁵³