Report - Cutting the Lines: Hybrid conflict and the battle for global connectivity

July 26, 2025

Global connectivity relies on a hidden yet indispensable layer of infrastructure: undersea fiberoptic cables. These cables, which carry more than 99% of intercontinental data traffic, form the backbone of the digital economy and global communications. Every day, over $10 trillion in financial transactions depend on their uninterrupted operation. Yet in recent years, this critical system has faced an alarming rise in disruptions—some accidental, others increasingly suspected to be deliberate.

Across Europe, especially in the Baltic Sea, a dense web of cables and pipelines has become a focal point for suspicious maritime incidents. While some outages stem from routine fishing or anchoring activity, a growing body of evidence suggests coordinated sabotage by state-linked actors, masked as normal maritime operations. These patterns signal a shift toward hybrid tactics—where physical infrastructure is quietly targeted below the threshold of open conflict. Intelligence agencies, NATO, and regional governments have taken notice, but institutional responses remain fragmented.

In parallel, the Asia-Pacific—home to one of the world’s most concentrated submarine cable networks—faces its own vulnerabilities. Slow repair times, regulatory bottlenecks, and limited maintenance capacity have created a dangerous gap between infrastructure growth and operational resilience. Some island nations, like Tonga or Taiwan’s Matsu Islands, have endured prolonged outages with major economic and security consequences. As geopolitical rivalries intensify, concerns over ownership, access, and sabotage risks are driving new alignments and infrastructure strategies.

Meanwhile, the global financial sector—the most data-dependent industry of all—remains critically underprepared. While there are playbooks for cyberattacks and financial crises, no equivalent framework exists for managing extended cable outages. Market volatility, transactional delays, and systemic risks loom large if multiple disruptions occur simultaneously.

This report analyzes the escalating risks to undersea infrastructure through a regional and sectoral lens. It maps the technical, political, and economic fault lines emerging across Europe and the Indo-Pacific, highlights the strategic motivations behind suspected sabotage, and assesses the readiness of financial and regulatory institutions. As cables become contested terrain in both geopolitical and economic terms, strengthening their resilience must become a global priority—before the next outage triggers a crisis that can no longer be dismissed as hypothetical.