FEATURE
SANCTITY IN PERIL Evaluating the Subsea Cable Threat Landscape BY DEVON A. JOHNSON
O
n August 16th, 1858, the Atlantic Telegraph Company successfully laid the first transatlantic submarine telegraph cable. The impact of such a momentous achievement was recorded in the telegraphic correspondence exchanged that very day between Queen Victoria and then president of the United States, James Buchanan, in which the latter relayed the following: It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conquer on the field of battle. May the Atlantic Telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty and law throughout the world. In this view will not all nations of Christendom spontaneously unite in the declaration that it shall be for ever [sic] neutral, and that its communications shall
be held sacred in passing to their places of destination, even in the midst of hostilities?1 Over two hundred years later, submarine cables remain central to the facilitation of global telecommunications, realizing the diffusion of modern civilization’s communications as President Buchanan had imagined. They are the central nervous system of the internet, carrying between land masses the contemporary world’s most valuable commodity: data. Yet, it is only in the past fifteen years that there has emerged within academic scholarship an awareness and accordance that the protection of the subsea cable system, not having been designed with security in mind, requires swift attention from governments, militaries and the private sector. From sabotage to severance, the historical legacy of subsea infrastructure weaponization serves as a reminder that the threat to the sanctity of submarine cables is not new and, 1
Library of Congress, The telegraphic messages.
NOVEMBER 2023 | ISSUE 133 63