Page 12: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2025)

SUBSEA CABLE SABOTAGE UNDERSEA CABLES

SUBSEA CABLE SABOTAGE:

Underwater, Underprotected, and Under Attack!

© Adobe Stock/jesada

By David Hunt, Boies Schiller Flexner round the 6th September 2025, 15 undersea ca- Why are cables a prime target for hostile actors?

bles in Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea were Undersea cables are major points of interest for hostile actors severed, resulting in increased latency and wide- of both state and non-state varieties for three chief reasons –

Aspread disruptions in internet provision across strategic importance, ease of interference and plausible deni- the Middle East and South Asia. As this incident illustrated, ability. First, they are vitally important to States since they are modern communications are profoundly dependent on vul- the primary means by which telecommunications are trans- nerable sub-sea infrastructure. This comes against a back- mitted. This means that a vast range of infrastructural domains drop of increased hostile action against subsea cables, with depend on undersea cables to function – for example, ? nance, the UK and Japan both recently announcing measures to se- healthcare, and the media. cure vital cable infrastructure. Secondly, cables are rather easy to interfere with. Their lo-

While the most recent damage appears to have been acciden- cations are publicized, largely to prevent innocent unaware tal, it further illustrates the de? ciencies of the international le- ships from accidentally damaging them. They also tend to be gal regime for management and protection of these vital assets. unguarded and located at a suf? ciently shallow depth that they are reachable without much dif? culty.

Geopolitical context Crucially, they are also surprisingly fragile – they tend to be

The Red Sea is an area of major geopolitical interest. It sits constituted by a bundle of glass ? bres surrounding a metal between Africa and Asia, and is surrounded by States who are core that provides structural support but lack much further major players in energy industries. The region is also charac- physical reinforcement. This ties into the third reason – it is terized by geopolitical tension, with Saudi Arabia and Iran vy- easy for an actor to damage an undersea cable but to then as- ing for supremacy and large external powers like the US and sert that the damage was merely an accident.

China exercising considerable in? uence over relations in both

Africa and the Middle East. The Houthis, an opposition mili- Liability: What legal recourse is available?

tary group operating from Yemen, have since October 2023 The existing legal regime provides scant protection to af- attacked many ships in the Red Sea, prompting speculations fected States. Historically the leading instrument for pro- that it was they who damaged the undersea cables in question. tection of cables was the 1884 Convention for the Protec- 12 November/December 2025

MTR #8 (1-17).indd 12 MTR #8 (1-17).indd 12 11/20/2025 7:30:22 PM11/20/2025 7:30:22 PM