The growing importance of undersea security was a topic of discussion at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this past weekend. The International Institute for Strategic Studies has described the subsea domain as an increasingly critical arena in its Asia Pacific Regional Assessment. An extensive network of undersea cables, which spans more than a million kilometres — transcending international and continental boundaries — carries the vast majority of the world’s internet traffic. Most cable damage is unintentional due to human error or natural disaster, but there has been growing concerns over intentional damage through sabotage or espionage.
