The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have taken a major step towards tackling the growing threat to the undersea pipelines and cables that carry vast amounts of energy and data around the world.
The three governments plan to develop new unmanned undersea vehicles as part of the trilateral AUKUS defense agreement.
The agreement was announced at a trilateral defense ministers’ meeting in Singapore, with handover scheduled for next year.
Western governments see an increased risk of Russian and Chinese sabotage of submarine cables, and are also concerned that Iran may seek to exploit the many data networks that run through the Persian Gulf’s shallow waters.
“The ocean floor is a battlefield,” Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said in Singapore, calling for tougher action against ships in the so-called shadow fleet.
US President Donald Trump has harshly criticized European allies for spending too little on defense and not helping restore freedom of navigation in the Gulf. But the United States continues to work with governments in Europe and Asia on new defense technologies, particularly drones.
The plan will improve the three countries’ reconnaissance and attack capabilities, as well as strengthen their “anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare superiority” and mine countermeasures, AUKUS said.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the vehicles are highly adaptable and will “support undersea operations and maintain collective superiority in the maritime domain.”
British Defense Secretary John Healy said the new AUKUS project would strengthen the three countries’ ability to respond to threats, including those targeting undersea cables and pipelines, through a range of “state-of-the-art sensors and weapons systems for undersea drones”.
Mr Marles said undersea internet cables, the “artery of modern civilization”, were being cut at an unprecedented rate, leaving island nations like Australia deeply vulnerable.
“Over the past 18 months, we have witnessed a series of attacks on critical undersea infrastructure at a scale and frequency unprecedented in history,” he said.
The UK government has also highlighted the vulnerabilities of the world’s digital highways.
Telecommunications Secretary Liz Lloyd said on Friday: “Every international payment, every cross-border transaction carried out in milliseconds, every flow of data between businesses here in the UK and overseas markets all travel along the ocean floor.”
Approximately 570 cables (80 more are planned) carry 95% to 99% of the world’s intercontinental telecommunications data. Fiber cables can transmit terabits per second. Satellites can handle much less.
A network of green energy cables carrying electricity is also beginning to spread across the ocean floor around the world.
Last month, Britain announced it had tracked three Russian submarines secretly inspecting submarine cables in the North Atlantic.
Healey warned Russian President Vladimir Putin: “We are watching your activities through our country’s cables and pipelines, and you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences.”
A parliamentary inquiry last year warned that Britain’s infrastructure could be targeted by the crisis, adding: “We have no confidence that the UK will be able to prevent such an attack or recover within an acceptable period.”
The Royal Navy is already considering creating a hybrid force that would incorporate extensive use of underwater drones to counter the Russian threat in the Atlantic.
According to a previous CNN report, Russia’s Deep Sea Research Directorate has developed a specialized submarine for such surveillance missions.
CNN previously reported on European intelligence concerns about sabotage and espionage by Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there have been several incidents in the Baltic Sea involving damage to gas pipelines and internet cables.
Huge AI data centers are emerging around the world, and submarine cable networks are becoming increasingly important.
Some of these centers are being developed in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It requires physical security and a way to deliver vast amounts of digital services to customers outside the region via a series of undersea fiber optic cables.
The Gulf conflict has disrupted plans by US tech giant Meta and its partners to develop the 2 Africa Pearls project, which would extend a 45,000-kilometer undersea cable system in the Gulf.
Approximately six major submarine cables run under the Strait of Hormuz, carrying vast amounts of global internet traffic, including e-commerce, cloud services, banking, and telecommunications.
Iranian state media has highlighted the vulnerability of the corridor, with the semi-official Tasnim news agency recently publishing a map of the undersea cables that pass through the Strait of Hormuz, describing them as highly vulnerable.
All fiber optic cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz should be subject to supervisory permits and sovereign tolls, Iran’s semi-official media outlet Khabar Online wrote on Saturday.
Almost all undersea cables pass through the Red Sea, carrying the majority of data traffic between Europe, Asia, and Africa.
As in the case of the Strait of Hormuz, any disruption to shipping, submarine cables, or both would have rapid and far-reaching economic consequences.
