On Christmas Day 2024, a major catastrophe was narrowly averted in the Baltic Sea. An oil tanker named the Eagle S—part of a shadow fleet transporting sanctioned Russian oil—dragged its anchor across five crucial undersea cables linking Finland and the Baltic states. Despite warnings from the Finnish coastguard, the Cook Islands-registered vessel continued its destructive path, coming within minutes of severing a vital electricity line and the Balticconnector gas pipeline. Because the ship was outside territorial waters, authorities were legally powerless to force the captain to raise the anchor.
This bizarre and alarming event highlights a massive vulnerability in global infrastructure, according to Swedish security expert Elisabeth Braw. In her new book, The Undersea War, Braw explores the fragile web of submerged cables and pipelines that power the modern world. She argues that dragging an anchor over multiple cables across dozens of kilometers defies all basic seafaring logic, though proving deliberate sabotage in such "grey zone" attacks remains incredibly difficult under current maritime law.
The "undersea spaghetti bowl" of fiber-optic lines, gas pipes, and power grids is the literal lifeblood of the global economy. Braw points out that between 95% and 99% of all international internet data, alongside $10 trillion in daily financial transactions, flows through these submerged pathways. As one U.S. senator warned her, severing just a handful of cables off the American East Coast could instantly cripple Wall Street. Yet, this vast network remains largely unprotected, relying entirely on a fragile global honor system tied to the 1994 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, notes that governments are only just waking up to this reality. Lawmakers are often shocked to learn there is no straightforward or heavily funded solution to physically protect thousands of miles of deep-sea cables from hostile actors. As global trust erodes, world leaders have warned of a "new order of impunity," where nations and rogue actors can disrupt critical networks without fear of military or economic retaliation.
Adding another layer of geopolitical complexity is the creeping privatization of the ocean floor. Historically, undersea cables functioned as public utilities shared by the international community. Today, tech behemoths like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google are funding their own exclusive networks. Meta, for instance, is planning a record-breaking 50,000-kilometer cable called Waterworth that will essentially encircle the globe.
This corporate takeover has sparked severe national security concerns among lawmakers. Braw raises the alarming hypothetical of tech giants or political leaders leveraging this privately owned infrastructure as a geopolitical weapon. In an era of intense political polarization, the prospect of a tech billionaire or a volatile head of state ordering a private company to disconnect an entire nation's internet access is no longer just a dystopian fiction—it is a looming vulnerability in the new underwater kingdom.