Checklist (not part of the article): Evaluate the threat to U.S. undersea cables; explain expert warnings from Andrew Badger and lawmakers like John Barrasso and Jeanne Shaheen; outline the strategic risks tied to China and Russia and the Taiwan flashpoint; report recent technical developments and accidental vs deliberate damage data.
Andrew Badger, former Pentagon official and now chief strategy officer at Coalition Systems, is sounding a loud alarm about undersea cables and national security as President Donald Trump heads to Beijing to meet Xi Jinping. Senators John Barrasso and Jeanne Shaheen have pushed bipartisan legislation to harden that infrastructure, and Taiwan’s recent experiences add urgency to the debate. This piece takes those names and the stakes seriously while looking at the vulnerabilities and what they mean for the American public.
The world relies on a hidden web of fiber: subsea cables carry roughly 99% of global internet traffic and underpin up to $10 trillion in daily financial transfers. That concentration of traffic creates a single point of failure at the bottom of the ocean. When cables are cut or damaged, the effects ripple quickly through commerce, markets, and government systems.
Badger puts it bluntly: “America depends on the fragile nervous system of subsea cables for modern life,” and he warns that adversaries “seek to turn the bottom of the ocean into a battlefield.” He argues the threat is asymmetric, with China and Russia investing heavily in ways to exploit those vulnerabilities while the U.S. lags in defensive measures. Those are not hypothetical concerns when modern economies and militaries depend on uninterrupted, secure communications.
Recent reports from Taiwan underline the point. The island has recorded multiple subsea cable incidents, and officials there have accused foreign actors of cutting communications that lasted months in some cases. Badger warns a coordinated strike on American undersea infrastructure could “fundamentally disrupt our way of life — the internet, banking, energy markets and military communications all run through these cables.” The economic and political fallout would be severe.
In Washington, the response has started to take legislative shape. In April, Sen. John Barrasso and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen introduced the Strategic Subsea Cables Act of 2026 to strengthen security and resilience around critical undersea infrastructure. Barrasso emphasized the scale of what’s at risk: “Undersea cables are important for a variety of reasons. They carry 99% of the world’s internet traffic. They also support $10 trillion in financial transactions each and every day.” That kind of argument resonates with lawmakers who see infrastructure and deterrence as national priorities.
Technological developments add another layer of urgency. China’s recent publicized deep-sea mission reportedly tested an “electro-hydrostatic actuator” capable of slicing armored cables at depths of 3,500 meters. Reports like that raise the alarm because they suggest a capability to reach previously safer, deeper lines. When potential adversaries demonstrate tools designed to damage the plumbing of the global internet, it changes how policymakers and defense planners have to think about protection.
Not every cable break is an attack. Anniki Mikelsaar of the Oxford Internet Institute points out growth in AI and data use increases demand on cables, and she notes that many breaks remain accidents: “rising capacity requirements on submarine cables. Not all recent cable damage incidents can be attributed to foreign adversaries: the ICPC estimates 150 to 200 cable breaks occur per year around the globe, most of them accidents,” she said. Sorting accidents from deliberate tampering is a difficult technical and legal challenge that complicates any response.
Still, experts describe a pattern of suspicious disruptions in multiple regions that feel like gray-zone operations—incidents meant to test responses without triggering open war. “This is hybrid warfare in its purest form, designed to weaken the adversary below the threshold of declared war,” Badger said, noting scenarios such as anchors dragging across the seabed that offer plausible deniability. For a nation that prizes deterrence, gray-zone tactics are a headache: they erode stability without presenting an easy path to conventional retaliation.
Badger and others worry about strategic leverage. “Cables give Beijing and Moscow the ability to inflict devastating economic chaos almost at will,” Badger warned, adding that China might aim to influence U.S. decision-making by targeting infrastructure rather than pursuing outright military victory. That calculus — attacking economic lifelines to break public resolve — is the kind of asymmetric strategy modern defense planning must anticipate if policymakers want to preserve freedom of action in crises around Taiwan and beyond.
