Digital arteries and geopolitical fault lines. The strategic dimension of submarine telecommunications cables

The global digital economy rests upon a largely invisible physical foundation: a network of over 550 active submarine fiber optic cable systems stretching across approximately 1.3 million kilometers of ocean floor. These systems carry more than 95% of all international data traffic encompassing mostly all financial transactions, governmental and military communications. Despite this structural centrality, submarine cables have historically occupied a marginal place in geopolitical analysis. Yet as great-power competition intensifies and digital dependencies deepen, they have emerged as a decisive axis of international rivalry, where the control of routes, landing stations, and network architecture confers power in ways that closely parallel the classical control of maritime straits and port systems.