Undersea fibre-optic cables now funnel some 97 per cent of the world’s global communications and internet traffic and $10 trillion in daily financial transactions. None are more crucial to global communications and financial markets than the transatlantic networks whose disruption could trigger a major economic meltdown.
The potential strategic threat from hostile attack has been relatively low on the priority list of Nato countries until recently, but growing aggressiveness of Russian naval exercises close to cables in the Atlantic, and Moscow’s embrace of hybrid and cyber warfare, have rung alarm bells. Five years ago British MP Rishi Sunak, now a candidate for the Tory leadership, wrote a paper warning of the dangers of underestimating the threat and urging a reassessment of maritime capabilities. In March London announced the commissioning by 2024 of a multi-purpose ship fitted with advanced sensors and remotely-operated autonomous undersea drones to protect the cables that run along Ireland’s south coast and that connect the UK and US.
The vulnerability of cables was also highlighted in Ireland’s recent Commission on the Defence Forces report, which said the upgrading of the Naval Service to a nine-ship fleet should involve “the enhancement of subsurface capabilities to monitor subsea cables” . The report came after Government protests in January had led Russian naval exercises directly above such cables in the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to be moved out further into the Atlantic. Such a new capability was not, however, included in the Government’s more recent implementation plan.
Not for the first time, Ireland will be able to rely on its neighbour’s navy, whose new asset will be tasked, it has emerged, to operate in the Irish EEZ, though outside Irish territorial waters. In doing so primarily to protect UK interests, just as the RAF occasionally protects Irish and British airspace by intercepting Russian jet incursions, the UK effectively extends an element of the Nato protective umbrella to this country.