The Hidden Leverage of Digital Chokepoints

"We rarely stop to consider how very fragile they are. A fiber-optic cable lying quietly on the seabed, a satellite orbiting high above, or a single Dutch firm making the machines that build the world's most advanced chips? Each represents a potential point of failure. And when one of them falters, whether by accident or design, the consequences ripple instantly across the globe. What makes this even more concerning is that adversaries understand their potential value. They have studied the geography of our digital world with the same intensity that past powers studied maritime routes. Increasingly, they are testing ways to hold these chokepoints at risk, not in open war, but in the murky space called the gray zone."

"Consider the seabed. Nearly all intercontinental internet traffic runs not through satellites, as many imagine, but along the ocean floor. The "cloud" is, in truth, anchored to the seabed. These are resilient in some respects, yet highly vulnerable in others. Russia has long deployed specialized vessels (such as the Yantar) to loiter near critical routes, mapping them and raising concerns about sabotage. The People's Republic of China has taken subtler approaches. On several occasions, cables linking Taiwan's outlying islands have been cut by Chinese vessels in incidents they described as accidental. Taipei viewed them, by contrast, as deliberate acts of pressure that left communities offline for weeks."

Undersea cables, satellites, and semiconductor supply chains form critical infrastructure that sustains economies, militaries, and societies. These systems concentrate risk at narrow chokepoints where a single failure can produce global ripple effects. Adversaries study the geography of these digital arteries and increasingly test ways to threaten them through gray-zone actions rather than open war. State actors use both overt and subtle methods—specialized vessels mapping routes, incidents of cables being cut near disputed territories—to pressure opponents. Natural disasters and dependence on single suppliers further magnify vulnerabilities, leaving communities and services offline for extended periods.

Read at The Cipher Brief