The British military is growing increasingly concerned that Russia could use its sub force to sever Internet access to NATO in an emergency.
Chief Marshall Stuart Peach, head of Britain’s military, said cutting the West off from the Internet would have catastrophic consequences.
Military and government analysts have noted that most global Internet and phone traffic passes through cables on seabeds around the world. Cutting those would dramatically disrupt everything from communications and financial transactions to military operations that rely on undersea fiberoptic networks.
“In the school of Russian warfare at sea it’s not about aircraft carriers, it’s about the undersea domain,” said Peter Roberts, director of military sciences at RUSI.
He added that “the threat from Russia is very real” and that the Russian navy was already tapping submarine-laid cables. [source]
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