Undersea cables crisscross the world’s waterways, connecting nations with power, natural gas, and ready internet access.
Hundreds of thousands of miles of these cables, sometimes no wider than a garden hose, traverse the globe, carrying roughly 97 percent of the world’s communications.
Their near-universal presence, however, and their importance in maintaining modern civilization have made them a rich target for international acts of aggression falling short of war, sometimes referred to as “gray zone” conflict.
In the last year and a half alone, there have been no fewer than 13 gray zone incidents in which submarine cables have been cut in what are believed to be acts of sabotage. The bulk of these alleged acts of disruption have been attributed to vessels from either China or Russia and have occurred in the Baltic Sea and the Taiwan Strait….