Is Red Sea cable sabotage a sign of next maritime security frontier?

Contractors helping to lay a fibre-optic cable on the Fujairah shore in 2009. A single cable can carry data for a number of nations and continents. Reuters

It is easy to forget that most of the world’s internet traffic does not traverse satellites or distant clouds, but rather lies beneath our oceans, coursing through thousands of kilometres of fibre-optic cables. These lines, laid across the seabed, are the unacknowledged arteries of the modern economy.

They transmit trillions of dollars in financial data daily, underpin critical infrastructure, and form the backbone of global commerce and statecraft. Submarine cables carry more than 95 per cent of global internet data traffic across nearly 1.5 million kilometres of the ocean floor. Just as ports and shipping lanes underpin global commerce, these digital supply chains form the essential backbone of our connected world.

Global vulnerabilities

This year’s series of incidents in the Red Sea has brought this hidden reality into sharp focus. Whether caused by sabotage or maritime accidents, the severing of multiple subsea internet cables caused ripple effects across continents – latency surged, services slowed and, in some cases, critical operations faced disruption. These outages underscored how fragile global connectivity is when chokepoints are hit.

According to the International Cable Protection Committee, between 100 and 200 subsea cable incidents are reported each year, highlighting how exposed and frequent such disruptions have become. Recent incidents show that when these assets are compromised, the consequences can cascade across economies, politics and societies.

The Red Sea handles a significant portion of Europe–Asia data traffic. While risks to undersea cables are not new, recent events highlight their growing exposure and the need to elevate their protection within maritime security frameworks. It reflects a threat landscape where non-traditional actors test the boundaries of infrastructure protection, security co-ordination and geopolitical preparedness. The cables that connect us digitally are increasingly becoming targets in the physical world, where conflict, instability and strategic calculation intersect. This challenge demands far greater attention than it has received.

Chokepoints and complexities

The Red Sea, and specifically the Bab Al Mandeb strait, is a critical node in global maritime flows. This strategic concentration makes the region especially vulnerable to instability on land and often mirrors threats below water. When hostile actors seek leverage, they often go for high-value, low-visibility targets. Subsea cables offer precisely that profile.

Subsea cables are critical not just to one nation’s connectivity, but to entire regions and global systems. A single cable can carry data for a number of nations and continents, from India and East Africa to Europe and the Gulf. If a major sabotage effort damaged several cables simultaneously, the result could be prolonged outages, degraded internet speeds, financial delays and disrupted cloud-based operations for millions.

These cables can take weeks or even months to repair due to the specialised vessels, complex seabed recovery operations, splicing procedures and global co-ordination involved. Preventing future disruption means investing in route redundancy, enhanced monitoring technologies, shared threat intelligence and new frameworks for public-private maritime infrastructure co-operation that treat these cables as essential to national security, not just commercial utilities.

The threat landscape is evolving and so must our approach. It is time to frame subsea cable protection as a central issue of maritime security. A recent UK parliamentary report reinforces this mindset, describing subsea cables as no longer just telecoms infrastructure, but a frontline national security concern. This means integrating infrastructure protection into the broader architecture of maritime awareness, resilience and collaboration.

Big financial stakes

Submarine cable projects require 24 to 36 months to complete from initial planning to full deployment. Timelines are often influenced by permitting processes and deep-water surveys among other factors. Depending on the route and configuration, new systems can cost anywhere from $200 million to $250 million or more, underscoring the strategic and financial stakes involved in protecting these investments.

Technological innovation will also be a vital part of any long-term solution. Early-warning systems, advanced sonar monitoring and AI-powered analytics for vessel activity can offer new layers of prevention. Yet technology alone cannot resolve what is ultimately a human and strategic problem. The maritime industry will need to cultivate a more robust shared operating picture across sectors and borders, one that includes subsea infrastructure in the very definition of critical maritime assets.

Security imperative

The events in the Red Sea have exposed the strategic importance of the infrastructure that binds our digital societies together. Today, these cables are geopolitical assets as critical as shipping lanes or energy corridors and should be protected with the same foresight.

Building resilience requires diversified landing points, real-time monitoring, stronger cross-border frameworks, and a mindset that places digital connectivity at the heart of national and regional security. The real challenge now is foresight, how governments, private operators and international bodies can work together before the next disruption strikes.

Carl Sykes, chief executive of Neptune P2P Group, an international private security company specialised in maritime security