Adversaries of the West are targeting subsea infrastructure networks which are critical to the functioning of modern society, according to Nato.
Power cables, oil and gas pipelines and fibre optic cables all run under the sea and are relied upon heavily by countries including the UK, which is particularly vulnerable given its island status.
The war in Ukraine and the emergence of China as a threat the UK both pose increasing risks to UK interests including the infrastructure which supply our needs via the seabed.
A senior Nato spokesperson has shared his concerns with The Guardian, and those concerns were analysed by a subsea cable expert for NCE.
Nato allied maritime command (Marcom) deputy commander Didier Maleterre told The Guardian: “We know the Russians have developed a lot of hybrid warfare under the sea to disrupt the European economy, through cables, internet cables, pipelines.
“All of our economy under the sea is under threat.
“And, to be very clear, we know what Russians have developed as far as nuclear submarines to operate under the sea. So we are not naive and we [Nato countries] are working together.”
Referring to the subsea infrastructure targeted by Nato adversaries like the Nordstream 2 pipeline, Maleterre said: “They [the companies responsible for them] didn’t know that such hybrid warfare would develop so rapidly.
“More than 90% of [the] internet is under the sea. All our links between the US, Canada and Europe are transmitting under the sea, so there are a lot of vulnerabilities.”
Maleterre said that Nato had, at any one time, “more than 100 ships, nuclear submarines and conventional submarines” patrolling waters in the Arctic, Black Sea, Atlantic, Baltic and the Mediterranean.
“That’s a very important concern because it’s a security issue for nearly 1bn Nato-nation civilians. We need to be protected and well supplied by our vital undersea infrastructures.
“We have particular attention on the Russians at the moment, but it’s very difficult to have a permanent surveillance of every cable; it’s not possible. A lot of nations – Norway, Sweden, Denmark as well – have developed drones, sensors, UUVs [uncrewed underwater vehicles] to be able to detect very rapidly [something] suspicious or something going wrong.”
Analysing the extent of the issue
Indeximate describes itself as a climate tech startup dedicated to preventing the failure of subsea power cables.
Indeximate director Chris Minto told NCE: “As a nation, we are heavily dependent on the integrity of both power and data connections to the mainland and to the rest of the world.”
Minto said severance of the connections “would have an immediate and significant effect on the ability of the nation to function.
“There is significant redundancy in place in our network which makes it resilient to all but a coordinated campaign. There are a number of choke points where multiple connections are co-located, a severance of the type seen recently with the Balticconnector could in a matter of minutes wipe out double-digit percentages of UK capacity.”
The Balticconnector is a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia which was damaged recently, and Finland blamed a Chinese ship for the incident.
Minto continued: “As a nation we have placed our future in the oceans: quadrupling the amount of offshore wind by 2030 and a heavy reliance on bidirectional interconnects for load sharing. Alternatives for energy generation and transmission are not possible.
“The only option for the UK is to fire up semi-dormant power stations which can work for energy but not for the internet, the latter is expected to have greater resilience to damage and again only a massive concerted attack would dent our abilities to operate
“However key connections to the continent are hugely valuable to the economy and designed for low latency and the financial markets would inevitably suffer.”
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently said it had “significant national security concerns” about the proposed Aquind electricity interconnector which would be built under the English Channel.
It did not disclose any details about those concerns and asked the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to amend the consultation process to enable it to disclose its concerns.
In November 2022 it was revealed that the MoD had accelerated plans for new warships to protect underwater assets.
Earlier this year, Policy Exchange, an influential policy think tank, urged the government to review its current defence measures for undersea cables.
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