Underseas cables are vital to global economy
Undersea cables are a valuable commodity in the 21st century global communication environment. The undersea consortium is owned by various international companies such as ATT, and these companies provide high-speed broadband connectivity and capacity for large geographic areas that are important entities of trade and communications around the globe. If undersea cables were cut or disrupted outside of the U.S. territorial waters, even for a few hours, the capability of modern U.S warfare that encompasses battle space communications and awareness, protection, and the stability of the financial networks would be at risk.
Quicktabs: Arguments
Submarine cables represent critical communications infrastructure, as they form the backbone of the Internet and global e-commerce. Such cables, typically consisting of optical fibers laid along the ocean floor in a bundle no larger than a garden hose, carry over 95 percent of transoceanic voice and data communication. U.S. telecom companies have worked rapidly to meet exploding consumer appetite for data, increasing the total circuit capacity of transoceanic cables landing in the U.S. by more than 1,000 fold since 1995.
There is no substitute for these underwater cables in case of damage. The earth’s satellites can carry no more than seven percent of U.S. international voice and data traffic. But worldwide, nearly 100 cable outages occur each year. The vast majority of cable outages are caused by bottom trawling fishing, dredging, and ship anchoring. Occasionally, cables are taken in an act of piracy, as occurred in 2007 when individuals in commercial vessels from Vietnam stole over 100 miles of cables on the high seas. Cable outages may disrupt governments, financial markets, and business operations and require costly repairs.
Ambiguity, coupled with our extreme reliance on undersea infrastructure, was on display in late January and early February 2008. Four undersea telecommunication cables were mysteriously cut within the course of two days, crippling Internet access across wide swaths of the Middle East and India.59 Two cable breaks were in the Mediterranean--one near Alexandria, Egypt, and the other in the waters off Marseille, France.60 The third break was thirty-five miles off the coast of Dubai and the fourth was along a cable linking the United Arab Emirates to Qatar.61 Most telecommunication experts and operators deemed sabotage unlikely, believing instead that ship anchors had severed the cables when heavy storms swept through the region.62 Nevertheless, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications refuted the presence of any ships near the Mediterranean cable cuts.63 Moreover, the improbable incidence of four cuts in 48 hours fueled speculation about military involvement.64 Sabotage theorists seized on reports of stifled Internet traffic through Iran,65 while traffic to Israel, Lebanon and Iraq was apparently immune from chaos.66 At the very least, this episode highlights how relatively small damage to undersea cables can instantly affect millions of people, and how a stealthy underwater attack- ambiguous and non-attributive in nature-could deal such a crippling blow.
Submarine cables and pipelines are vulnerable assets in the global commons.182 Their protection from undersea attack is a real prescriptive and enforcement challenge because of our extreme reliance on this critical infrastructure; its multi-jurisdictional span beyond territorial seas; the availability of precise locational coordinates; the opaque environment below the waterline; and the accessibility to commercial-grade vehicles that can exploit this environment and inflict disproportionate harm.
The opaque environment and the accessibility to UUVs set this challenge apart from challenges above the water's surface to flagged vessels and platforms. As with cyber threats, this necessitates an effective deterrence policy to compensate for an inability to pinpoint suspected culprits. Not only do legal shortcomings in jurisdiction and security enforcement float above the surface, but arguably more sinister shortcomings lurk below. These threats also require an even more delicate balance between disclosure and secrecy, and between freedom ofnavigation and reasonable restraints for collective security.
In the end, whatever vigor is applied towards cyber security, and whatever balance is struck for internet freedoms should be matched by securing the very cables that transport this life-blood of commerce. Likewise, investment in energy independence should correspond to the security of the very arteries that enable and spur offshore energy exploration.
Canals, tunnels, and bridges over straits, submarine pipelines for oil and gas,28 as well as cables serve communication and transport purposes in the widest sense. These types of marine infrastructure can easily suffer from natural disasters or become targets of terrorism.29 It may be recalled that millions of telephone, telex, TV, and data links are made across the world at every moment. They may travel on radio waves or via satellites, but the majority are transmitted by submarine cables,30 which form a network over the world's seabeds. Cables are special because they provide the privacy and security that radio and satellite lack. They are reliable and long lasting and have an excellent capacity and transmission quality. Cables are vitally important to the global economy, to national security, and to the safety of life.31 The modern version of these arteries of data flow is fiber-optic cables running through oceans, straits, and across land bridges. For example, the bulk of data flow between Europe and the Far East goes by fiber-optic cables that run from the Mediterranean through Egyptian territory into the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. A high concentration of cables can be found in the South China Sea, Red Sea, and Mediterranean Sea. Likewise, a growing number of subsea cables for the transport of electricity are or under construction or in the planning process. Building up redundencies or back-up solutions will add to the picture, create additional intrusion on the environment, and offer a target for terrorists. Thus, the protection of “critical” marine infrastructure is part of the agenda.
Over 70% of our country's international telecom traffic, which includes voice, data, and video, is carried on these cables, each of which is only about the diameter of a garden hose. Not counting Canada and Mexico, over 90% of the country's international voice, video, Internet, and data communications are carried on these cables. The disproportionate importance of these cables to the nation's communication infrastructure can be seen by the fact that if all of these cables were suddenly cut, only 7% of the United States traffic could be restored using every single satellite in the sky. Modern fiber optic cables are the lifeblood of the world's economy, carrying almost 100% of global Internet communication. This underscores the revolutionary5 capacity of modern fiber optic submarine cables. By any standard, they constitute critical infrastructure to the United States, and indeed the world.
Fiber-optic submarine cables are the lifeblood of U.S. carriers’ global business. Aside from our land-based connections with Canada and Mexico, more than 95 percent of U.S. international traffic – voice, video, Internet and data – travels over 38 submarine cables, each the diameter of a garden hose. Without these cables, current satellite capacity could carry only 7 percent of the total U.S. international traffic.
Fiber-optic submarine cables are the international digital trade routes of the 21st century. And thus, any disruptions to the submarine cable global network can have significant impact on the flow of digital information around the world, with severe consequences for the world economy. As one official from the Federal Reserve noted in referring to submarine cable networks, “When the communication networks go down, the financial sector does not grind to a halt, it snaps to a halt.”i
The importance of modern fiber-optic cables to the global economy and the Internet cannot be overstated. In the case of the United States, about 36 submarine cables, each the diameter of a garden hose, carry more than 95 percent of the nation’s international voice, data, and video communications.
Every day the Society for Worldwide Interbank Fi- nancial Telecommunications transmits 15 million mes- sages over cables to more than 8,300 banking organiza- tions, securities institutions, and corporate customers in 195 countries. The Continuous Linked Settlement Bank located in the United Kingdom is just one of the critical market infrastructures that rely on those transmissions, providing global settlement of 17 currencies having an average daily equivalent of approximately $3.9 trillion. Similarly, the U.S. Clearing House Interbank Payment System processes in excess of $1 trillion a day to more than 22 countries for investment companies, securities and commodities exchange organizations, banks, and other financial institutions.
The popular belief that international communications are carried largely by satellite is false. The tremendous volume of data carried on less expensive, modern fiber- optic submarine cables dwarfs the limited capacity of the higher-cost satellites. Additionally, the technical transmission delays and other quality limitations inher- ent in satellites make them marginal for continuous transmission of high-speed voice, video, and data traf- fic. If the cables connecting the United States to the world were cut, it is estimated that every single satellite in the sky combined could carry only 7 percent of the current total traffic volume.
Referring to the submarine cable networks, the Federal Reserve’s staff director for management, Ste- phen Malphrus, observed that “when the communication networks go down, the financial sector does not grind to a halt, it snaps to a halt.” The same can be said for most sectors enmeshed in the global economy through the Internet, including shipping, airlines, and manufacturing.
As the amount of cable disruptions increases (i.e., more cables are cut), on the other hand, the amount of data traffic that is lost increases exponentially.33 For example, an analysis was done of possible disruptions of the cable lines connecting Europe and India.34 It found that although "India is fairly resilient in the case of one or two cable disruptions," nearly seventy percent of traffic to and from India would be lost with just three concurrent cable disruptions.35 Actual data exists that supports similar predictions.36 In 2006, an earthquake along the coast of Taiwan triggered undersea landslides and broke nine undersea cables.37 This event had repercussions extending beyond the country of Taiwan.38 Internet telecommunications linking Southeast Asia were seriously impaired.39 More than six hundred gigabits of capacity went offline, and trading of the Korean won temporarily stopped.40 Even a week after the quake, an Internet provider in Hong Kong publicly apologized for continued slow Internet speeds.41
As a result, companies, governments, and individuals can send and receive more data than ever before. In 1993, Internet users transmitted around 100 terabits of data in a year; today, they send about 150 terabits every second. And this number is expected to exceed 1,000 terabits by 2020, fueled in large part by the expansion of cellular networks in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Nearly all that data will travel along the seabed. Imagine, then, how damaging a determined attack on undersea infrastructure could be. One need only consider the destruction possible from natural causes and inadvertent interference. In 2006, an undersea earthquake near Taiwan snapped nine cables. It took 11 ships 49 days to finish repairs, while China, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam lost critical communication links, disrupting regional banking, markets, and trade. In 2007, Vietnamese fishermen seeking to salvage copper from a defunct coaxial cable pulled up active lines instead, disrupting Vietnam’s communications with Hong Kong and Thailand for nearly three months and requiring repairs that cost millions. Given the scarcity of equipment and personnel, it could take months, if not years, for the United States to recover from a large-scale, coordinated assault. Attackers wouldn’t even need to target U.S. assets, since U.S. traffic flows through more than a dozen other countries that serve as major hubs for the global undersea cable network.
Much of this infrastructure allows the global economy to function. Every day, SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, transmits some 20 million messages to more than 8,000 banking organizations, security institutions, and corporate customers in nearly 200 countries, reconciling trillions of dollars’ worth of assets across global financial markets. Intercontinental Exchange, which operates a global network of currency exchanges and clearing-houses, typically processes over ten million contracts each day, covering the energy, commodity, financial, and equity derivatives markets. Without the undersea fiber-optic network, this type of electronic banking and commerce simply could not happen. And in the event that the cable system shut down, millions of transactions would be cut short.
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The U.S. and its NATO allies have warned that an uptick in Russian submarine activity near undersea fiber optic cables means Moscow may be plotting to disrupt or intercept sensitive or other critical internet communications in the event of a confrontation with the West.
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