Undersea Cables Emerge as a New Front in Global Security Competition

Vast amounts of global commerce, energy supplies and internet traffic depend on undersea cables and pipelines that lie largely outside the direct protection of any single state, a vulnerability drawing increasing attention from governments and corporations alike, according to The Guardian.

The report cites an incident on Christmas Day 2024, when a Finnish engineer responsible for undersea cables connecting Finland and the Baltic states was alerted that one of the cables supplying electricity had malfunctioned. Authorities determined that a Cook Islands-registered tanker, the Eagle S, part of a so-called shadow fleet carrying sanctioned Russian oil, had passed over the cable's location at the time it stopped functioning.

According to the report, the Finnish coastguard hailed the Eagle S and asked whether its anchor was raised; the crew said it was, though officials did not verify this, and the vessel continued on its route. Several hours later, the ship struck four additional cables in quick succession, narrowly missing a major electricity cable and the Balticconnector pipeline that supplies gas to Finland and Estonia.

Limits of Enforcement

Finland's border guard intercepted the tanker and demanded that the crew raise its anchor, but because the Eagle S was outside Finnish territorial waters at the time, authorities lacked clear legal authority to compel compliance, and could not be certain whether other vessels might come to the ship's assistance, The Guardian reported.

The episode illustrates the broader vulnerability of undersea infrastructure, which carries the overwhelming majority of global data traffic and substantial volumes of energy and financial transactions, yet falls outside the clear jurisdiction or protection of any single nation, raising questions about how governments and international bodies might better safeguard this infrastructure going forward.