Understanding Interconnectivity of the Global Undersea Cable Communications Infrastructure and its Implications for International Cyber Security

This paper analyzes the interdependent nature of the global undersea cable communications infrastructure and its implications for international security. The paper concludes that the number of landing points in a country is not a function of miles of coastline, the number of other countries to which the country connects via cable links, nor the number of years the country has been a member of the international undersea cable network. However, the number of landing points correlates with the country’s structural position in the network, as well as variations in hard power and socio-political cohesion (as articulated by Barry Buzan’s framework). Both political and economic motivations discourage diversifying the number of landing points. Finally, this paper discusses two potential implications. First, countries that might seek to control citizens’ access to information by limiting the number of landing points increase the risk to the global undersea communications infrastructure. Second, countries with fewer landing points and high betweenness put the cable infrastructure at higher risk than similar scoring countries with more landing points.