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What is a submarine cable? Since the 1850s, men visualized the potential for laying cables crossing the oceans to send electric signals communicating people in a vast number of activities. People dreamed with a tool that would allow them to correspond instantaneously with others thousands of kilometers away. Commerce amongst the nations of the world would increase to levels never saw before, knowledge will be in a constant exchange bringing scientific advancement transforming societies and institutions. Today, one hundred and eighty years forward in human history, undersea cables are an amazing structure of worldwide communications. Millions upon millions of electronic packages of information are delivered and transmitted via undersea cables. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried telegraphy traffic, establishing the first instant telecommunications links between continents, such as the first transatlantic telegraph cable which became operational on 16 August 1858. Modern cables are typically about 1 inch (25 mm) in diameter and weigh around 2.5 tons per mile (1.4 tones per km) for the deep-sea sections, which comprise the majority of the run, although larger and heavier cables are used for shallow-water sections near shore. Today, with the exception of Antarctica, all continents are connected via undersea cables.  Modern cables use optical fiber technology to carry digital data, including telephone, Internet and private data traffic.

The Washington Associated Press offered a report telling that “Russian ships are skulking around underwater communications cables, causing the U.S. and its allies to worry the Kremlin might be taking information warfare to new depths. Is Moscow interested in cutting or tapping the cables? Does it want the West to worry it might? Is there a more innocent explanation? Unsurprisingly, Russia is not saying. But whatever Moscow’s intentions, U.S. and Western officials are increasingly troubled by their rival’s interest in the 400 fiber-optic cables that carry most of the world’s calls, emails and texts, as well as $10 trillion worth of daily financial transactions.”

Global Map of Telecommunications of Undersea Cables According to the report, General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the U.S. European Command, told Congress this month the following: “We’ve seen activity in the Russian navy, and particularly undersea in their submarine activity, that we haven’t seen since the ‘80s,” Without undersea cables, a bank in Asian countries could not send money to Saudi Arabia to pay for oil. U.S. military leaders would struggle to communicate with troops fighting extremists in Afghanistan and the Middle East. A student in Europe would not be able to Skype his parents in the United States. All this information is transmitted along tiny glass fibers encased in undersea cables that, in some cases, are little bigger than a garden hose. All told, there are 620,000 miles of fiber-optic cable running under the sea, enough to loop around the earth nearly 25 times. Most lines are owned by private telecommunications companies, including giants like Google and Microsoft. Their locations are easily identified on public maps, with swirling lines that look like spaghetti. While cutting one cable might have limited impact, severing several simultaneously or at choke points could cause a major outage. Mr. Michael Kofman, a Russian military expert at nonprofit research group CNA Corp. expressed the following concern: The Russians “are doing their homework and, in the event of a crisis or conflict with them, they might do rotten things to us,” It is not Moscow’s warfighting ships and submarines that are making NATO and U.S. officials uneasy. It is Russia’s Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research, whose specialized surface ships, submarines, underwater drones and mini subs conduct reconnaissance, underwater salvage and other work. One ship run by the directorate is the Yantar. It is a modest, 354-foot oceanographic vessel that holds a crew of about 60. It most recently was off South America’s coast helping Argentina search for a lost submarine. Parlamentskaya Gazeta, the Russian parliament’s publication, said last October the Yantar has equipment “designed for deep-sea tracking” and “connecting to top- secret communication cables.” The publication said that in September 2015, the Yantar was near Kings Bay, Georgia, home to a U.S. submarine base, “collecting information about the equipment on American submarines, including underwater sensors and the unified [U.S. military] information network.” Rossiya, a Russian state TV network, has said the Yantar can not only connect to top-secret cables, but could cut them and “jam underwater sensors with a special system.”

Is Russia Attacking Undersea Cables? The New Russian Target!

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