Next global crisis may begin at the bottom of the sea

This article is authored by Kamakshi Wason, Global COO, Tillotoma Foundation and foreign affairs analyst.

The next global crisis may not begin with a missile crossing a border or a warship blockading a port. It may begin thousands of kilometers away, on the ocean floor, with the severing of a cable most people do not know exists.

Indian Navy ship sailing in the sea. (Representational) (REUTERS)

Beneath the apparent borderlessness of the internet lies a physical network of submarine fiber-optic cables carrying the overwhelming majority of international data traffic. They sustain financial transactions, cloud computing, and government communications. Yet these networks traverse maritime corridors shaped by geopolitical competition, including the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where regional instability has exposed the vulnerabilities of global connectivity.

The paradox is striking: Globalisation has made economies increasingly interdependent, making the security of the infrastructure sustaining that interdependence more important than ever.

Undersea cables are not merely telecommunications assets. They are strategic infrastructure. Their disruption could impose economic costs far beyond the location of an incident, particularly where alternative routes are limited or repairs delayed. The danger is not that one damaged cable could disconnect an entire country, but that concentrated vulnerabilities could create opportunities for coercion.

Unlike conventional blockades, interference with digital infrastructure may be difficult to attribute. Damage can result from accidents, natural hazards, or deliberate action. Even without a confirmed attack, the threat of disruption can raise insurance costs, undermine commercial confidence, and complicate international operations. The strategic value lies not simply in the ability to destroy infrastructure but in the ability to make its continued operation uncertain.

For India, the implications extend well beyond West Asia. As the country expands its digital economy, Artificial Intelligence capabilities and data centre infrastructure, reliable international connectivity becomes increasingly important. India's expanding focus on digital sovereignty, indigenous technology, and data infrastructure must now be complemented by greater attention to the resilience of the international networks connecting its digital economy to the world.

India should translate this priority into a concrete policy agenda. The Department of Telecommunications, working with the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, the Indian Navy and cable operators, should establish a national submarine cable resilience framework. This should identify critical dependencies, assess alternative routing capacity, and establish clear procedures for reporting and responding to disruptions.

Second, India should strengthen domestic cable-repair capabilities by assessing the availability of specialist vessels, equipment, and spare cables, while streamlining emergency repair clearances. Third, it should conduct periodic resilience exercises involving telecommunications providers, data center operators, and relevant security agencies to test whether essential services can withstand prolonged international connectivity disruptions.

Finally, India should pursue practical cooperation with Indian Ocean partners through information-sharing arrangements, coordinated incident investigations, and emergency-response exercises. Such cooperation would strengthen regional security without treating every cable failure as an act of aggression.

These measures would not eliminate risk. They would, however, reduce the likelihood that a localized incident becomes a wider economic crisis.

The deeper issue is sovereignty. A country may store its data domestically while remaining dependent on infrastructure beyond its territorial control. Strategic autonomy must therefore encompass not only the freedom to make independent decisions but also the capacity to sustain essential functions when external connections come under pressure.

India can strengthen its position by combining maritime awareness, infrastructure resilience, domestic repair capabilities, and regional cooperation. The objective is not to eliminate every vulnerability but to ensure that disruptions do not compromise the continuity of its digital economy. The internet may have made distance feel irrelevant, but geopolitics has not. The next test of India's digital sovereignty may be determined not in a server room, but on the seabed.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Kamakshi Wason, Global COO, Tillotoma Foundation and foreign affairs analyst.