Underneath the Ice: Undersea Cables, the Arctic Circle, and International Security

Iceberg in Greenlandic waters in June 2016. Photo: United States Department of State – Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs

Infrastructure is a critical way for humans to engage with the natural environment in the Arctic region, as it facilitates access, connection, inhabitation, and productivity. The Arctic Institute’s 2022 series on Infrastructure in the Arctic investigates infrastructure as a critical point of analysis for considering human impacts and needs in the Arctic, especially in its role as a mediator, or as an interface, between politics, government, people and the natural environment.​

The Arctic Institute Infrastructure Series 2022

• Infrastructure in the Arctic: The Arctic Institute Infrastructure Series
• Underneath the Ice: Undersea Cables, the Arctic Circle, and International Security
• Enhancing Industrial Development in the Russian Arctic: The Northern Latitudinal Passage
• Without Icebreakers, Arctic Infrastructure Won’t Matter
• ‘Supported by every traveler in Norway’: Den Norske Turistforening, tourist infrastructure and transnational travel
• Iqaluit’s water crisis highlights deeper issues with Arctic infrastructure
• Arctic Towns in Transition: Norway’s commitment towards a new energy solution on Svalbard
• Arctic Military Infrastructure: The Olavsvern case
• Space Infrastructure for a Sustainable Arctic: Opportunities and Challenges of Spaceport Development in the High North
• Geopolitics of Subsea Cables in the Arctic
• Past, Present, and Future Themes of Arctic Infrastructure and Settlements
• The Arctic Institute’s Infrastructure in the Arctic Series: Conclusion

Undersea cables have grown in popularity and usage in recent years, with some “380 underwater cables in operation around the world, spanning a length of over 1.2 million kilometers (745,645 miles)”.¹⁾Griffiths J. (2019). The global internet is powered by vast undersea cables. But they’re vulnerable. CNN, 26 July, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/25/asia/internet-undersea-cables-intl-hnk/index.html, accessed 17 January 2022

These cables are heavily important to the West’s national and international defense and security initiatives given the amount of business conducted through them and the services they can provide to many industries. This is illuminated by the fact that Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta (formerly Facebook) have all become involved in undersea cable development and are “on track to become primary financiers and owners of the web of undersea internet cables connecting the richest and most bandwidth-hungry countries,” according to analysts and undersea cable engineers. Yet most of these cables rest along the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, connecting North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.”²⁾Mims C. (2022) Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft Weave a Fiber-Optic Web of Power. The Wall Street Journal, 15 October, https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-amazon-meta-and-microsoft-weave-a-fiber-optic-web-of-power-11642222824, accessed 17 January 2022

Many undersea cables are starting to advance farther north, entering the region of the Arctic circle. This past December, the US-based telecommunications company Far North Digital joined with the Finnish company Cinia to develop a 16,500 kilometer “submarine internet cable [under the sea]…connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean through the perilous Arctic Archipelago”.³⁾Khalili J. (2021) New submarine cable will blast data between Japan and Europe through Arctic waters. TechRadar, 22 December, https://www.techradar.com/news/new-submarine-cable-will-blast-data-between-japan-and-europe-through-arctic-waters, accessed 17 January 2022 In August, Reuters reported that the Russian state-owned telecommunications company Morsviasputnik had begun laying “its first undersea fibre optic communications cable… over Russia’s long northern coast from the village of Teriberka, on the Barents Sea, to the far eastern port of Vladivostok… to supply stable internet in Arctic port towns as well as the Kamchatka peninsula and Sakhalin.”⁴⁾Stolyarov G. (2021) Russia starts operation to lay undersea fibre optic cable through Arctic. Reuters, 26 August, https://www.reuters.com/technology/russia-starts-operation-lay-undersea-fibre-optic-cable-through-arctic-2021-08-06/, accessed 17 January 2022 China has also been expanding into the Arctic Circle, developing their cyber, trade, and economic capacities.⁵⁾Khorrami N. (2020) Data Hunting in Subzero Temperatures: The Arctic as a New Frontier in Beijing’s Push for Digitial Connectivity. The Arctic Institute, 04 August, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/data-hunting-subzero-temperatures-arctic-new-frontier-beijing-push-digital-connectivity/, accessed 18 January

There is an increased measure of data usage coming through undersea cables, which includes sensitive and important data, and utilizes poor security measures to secure these lines from foreign actors. With this large national security threat, the U.S. and international organizations need to take action.

The Foreign Threat

It is clear that many in the public see the Arctic Circle as a frozen, icy tundra when, in actuality, the region is quite imperative to international security and business. According to Scientific American “climate change and an accelerating loss of Arctic sea ice during summer months have opened the possibility of northern cable routes” while many nations “would favor less U.S.-centric cable routes and additional backup lines to avoid U.S. surveillance and disruptions in service.”⁶⁾Hsu J. (2016) An Internet Cable Will Soon Cross the Arctic Circle. Scientific American, 01 June, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/an-internet-cable-will-soon-cross-the-arctic-circle/, accessed 17 January From an economic and political perspective, there is clearly a desire from non-Western nations to circumvent the United States and acquire their own methods of telecommunications contact.

The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) has found that threats from foreign powers (like Russia) can come in the form of “cutting off military or government communications in the early stages of a conflict, eliminating internet access for a targeted population, sabotaging an economic competitor, or causing economic disruption for geopolitical purposes” alongside “tapping [these cables] to record, copy, and steal data, which would be later collected and analyzed for espionage.” CSIS’ commentary also found that Russia could be able to stage cyberattacks against these data pipelines which could “disrupt or divert data traffic, or even execute a “kill click” deleting the wavelengths used to transmit data.”⁷⁾Morcos P. & Colin Wall (2021) Invisible and Vital: Undersea Cables and Transatlantic Security. CSIS, 11 June, https://www.csis.org/analysis/invisible-and-vital-undersea-cables-and-transatlantic-security, accessed 19 January

Already, Russia has been heavily involved in developing their abilities to tap undersea cables and have also been accused of playing “a role in the outage” of the furthest north “undersea fiberoptic cable located between mainland Norway and the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean”.⁸⁾Newdick T. (2022) Undersea Cable Connecting Norway With Arctic Station Has Been Mysteriously Severed. The Drive, 10 January, https://www.twz.com/43828/undersea-cable-connecting-norway-with-arctic-satellite-station-has-been-mysteriously-severed, accessed 17 January 2022

Publicly, it is unknown exactly how effective foreign powers are at tapping Western undersea cables, the amount of damage this can inflict upon a nation necessitates the United States take steps to protect themselves from these problems. A recent 2021 report by the Atlantic Council highlighted this issue, stating, “…authoritarian governments, especially in Beijing, are reshaping the Internet’s physical layout through companies that control Internet infrastructure, to route data more favorably, gain better control of internet chokepoints, and potentially gain espionage advantage” while also describing how private companies and industry as a whole are becoming more aware of these network security risks.⁹⁾Sherman J. (2021) Cyber defense across ocean floor: The geopolitics of submarine cable security. Atlantic Council, 13 September, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/cyber-defense-across-the-ocean-floor-the-geopolitics-of-submarine-cable-security/#introduction, accessed 17 January 2022

The Defense Against Russia and Other State Actors

These efforts at defense may come in the form of international law and policy, and joint efforts at stopping intrusions.

Simply put, the U.S. government needs to take immediate and intense action. Writing for DefenseNews, Nadia Schadlow, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Deputy National Security Advisor for strategy, and Brayden Helwig, an intern with DefenseNews, are that, “First, the U.S. government should take more responsibility for repairing undersea infrastructure…Classifying cable repairs as matters of national security and developing a public-private operational plan — that includes a division of resources — to repair them is one step toward reducing the response time to a disruption or an attack” in addition to creating tax incentives for private industry to secure “cable landing stations, while investing in technologies that detect and deny undersea espionage”.¹⁰⁾Schadlow N & Brayden Helwig (2020) Protecting undersea cables must be made a national security priority. DefenseNews, 01 July, https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/07/01/protecting-undersea-cables-must-be-made-a-national-security-priority/, accessed 17 January 2022

Tactics like what has been described by Schadlow and Helwig would assist in better protecting the United States from cyberattacks and undersea threats by foreign actors, while also helping the international community by assisting the private sector, which controls most of these cables.

From an international perspective, there is a great need for more legal statutes governing undersea cables and the threats posed to these systems, as their jurisdiction in somewhat of a gray area. Garrett Hinck, a PhD student at Columbia University, wrote about this in 2017 for the Lawfare blog. Hinck finds that with regards to underwater cable law, despite the existence of both the 1884 Convention on the Protection of Submarine Cables and the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea there is very little that governs the usage of undersea cables in wartime or when damaged. He writes that, “relatively little attention…has focused on the legal frameworks that govern the networks of glass and steel that form the literal backbone of our internet…In practice, the lack of legal disputes involving attacks on cables leaves their legality uncertain”.¹¹⁾Hinck G. (2017) Cutting the Cord: The Legal Regime Protecting Undersea Cables. Lawfare, 21 November, https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/cutting-cord-legal-regime-protecting-undersea-cables, accessed 19 January 2021

Establishing a clear and official set of international guidelines for how undersea cables operate within wartime or in regards to international threats by both state and non-state actors is imperative to better securing them from threats, not only those of national security importance, but also those of human security importance.

In terms of joint cooperation, this can come across primarily in the form of government-private sector collaboration and interstate cooperation. CSIS, in their brief of undersea cable security, advocated for the U.S. government to “conduct bilateral confidential dialogues with its main European partners, in particular, the United Kingdom and France, to exchange information on their threat perspective and analysis, their respective cable projects, and the national measures implemented to protect them” while NATO “should work on a collective assessment of both the potential vulnerabilities to undersea cables in the Euro-Atlantic region and the implications of disruptions for allied operations”.¹²⁾Morcos P. & Colin Wall (2021) Invisible and Vital: Undersea Cables and Transatlantic Security. CSIS, 11 June, https://www.csis.org/analysis/invisible-and-vital-undersea-cables-and-transatlantic-security, accessed 19 January

From a private sector-government standpoint, Schadlow and Helwig in their article for DefenseNews also argue for private industry tax incentives to secure “cable landing stations, while investing in technologies that detect and deny undersea espionage”.¹³⁾Schadlow N & Brayden Helwig (2020) Protecting undersea cables must be made a national security priority. DefenseNews, 01 July, https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/07/01/protecting-undersea-cables-must-be-made-a-national-security-priority/, accessed 17 January 2022 Pierre Morcos and Colin Wall, writing a commentary for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, note, “…national governments should also ensure that operating companies implement the highest standards. As a first step, allies should encourage operators to adhere to voluntary guidelines, most notably those provided by the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC), an industry forum for cable owners and some governments that develops standard procedures… If voluntary standards fail to incentivize companies to invest adequately in cybersecurity, allies should consider defining mandatory requirements, as recently decided in the United States for oil and gas pipelines following the ransomware attack against Colonial Pipeline”.¹⁴⁾Morcos P. & Colin Wall (2021) Invisible and Vital: Undersea Cables and Transatlantic Security. CSIS, 11 June, https://www.csis.org/analysis/invisible-and-vital-undersea-cables-and-transatlantic-security, accessed 19 January

These forms of defense against state actors would greatly bolster the overall national security framework of the West. They would allow companies, global powers, and international organizations to deter hostile state actors like Russia and China while improving global security. Furthermore, they would allow for clarity going forward in terms of the open sea, the Arctic Circle, and international law while also preserving the Arctic Circle for purely business and scientific development as opposed to military action.

Conclusion

The Arctic Circle is a key resource for wealth, having an abundance of oil and gas in addition to being valuable territory for fishing and scientific exploration. With undersea cables, they provide economically beneficial routes for faster data accumulation while allowing for an increased ability to share information, conduct business deals, and communication between governments and the private sector. Undersea cables require protection from hostile state actors and non-state actors who see these cables as a way to advance their own geopolitical goals. By strengthening international law, having governments join with the private sector and other friendly governments, and making a stronger cybersecurity program, the Arctic Circle’s undersea cables will be more effectively protected from harm and allow for a peaceful sharing of information.

Alan Cunningham is a graduate of Norwich University and the University of Texas at Austin, attaining an MA in International Relations, a BA in History and a BS in Radio-Television-Film respectively. He plans to join the U.S. Navy as an Officer in 2022 and has worked in both the fields of finance and journalism, focusing on international/national security, military affairs, and foreign policy. He has been published in the Jurist, Security Magazine, ModernDiplomacy, and The Diplomat among others.