Connectivity Is Crucial To Our Future Security
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The recent nationwide Optus outage showed us that connectivity is crucial to our future security. Suddenly, everyone felt helpless and reacted with much anger and frustration toward the failing provider. This throws our dependence upon electrical and digitally connected devices into harsh relief. It is not a stretch of the imagination to plot likely scenarios during times of war in this new age of information. Cutting off the population from their institutions and from each other will be achieved via attacking communication infrastructure. This can be done far more easily than many people might think.
Cables Connecting Us To The World
“These cables, only about as thick as a garden hose, are high-tech marvels. The fastest, the newly completed transatlantic cable called Amitié and funded by Microsoft, Meta and others, can carry 400 terabits of data per second. That’s 400,000 times faster than your home broadband if you’re lucky enough to have high-end gigabit service.”
- (https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/features/the-secret-life-of-the-500-cables-that-run-the-internet/)
The great majority of data communication is piped through submarine cables and not via overhead satellites. These relatively thin high tech cables span some million kilometres around the world. They sit on ocean floors and carry the vast mass of information flow for the big tech giants Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon. These submarine cables connect us all with each other through our myriad devices.
There is a geopolitical battle raging right now between the United States and China for control of this network of undersea digital cables. The US is winning this and wants to ensure that China remains a minor player.
“The European Union’s executive wants to help invest in “cable projects of European interest” that would reduce its reliance on too few undersea internet connections and make it less vulnerable to sabotage, a document seen by POLITICO showed.”
Cabling Connecting & Surveiling
There is an understanding through the whistleblowing efforts of former NSA operative Edward Snowden that US spy agencies monitor data via these submarine cables of the big tech companies. The realisation that China is probably doing the same is one of the reasons why the push is on to freeze China out of the game. These lengthy cables require signal repeaters or boosters and it is suspected that these pieces of technology are where surveillance technology has been added to the cable network. Thus, we are seeing Chinese cabling deals quashed under pressure from the US in the South Pacific and around the globe. America wants to maintain its grip on the Internet internationally. The maintenance of these relatively fragile cables is a major component of the cabling network business. Companies tender for contracts to provide maintenance.
Many of the companies that lay and maintain submarine cables have strong links to the security agencies. Maintenance provides opportunities to insert surveillance technology to that cable.
Five Eyes & Chinese Hacking
The Five Eyes intelligence alliance has recently come out and publicly pointed the finger at China as the state sponsored home of hacking. This Western group of spy agencies tells us that China has been hacking secrets from US companies for decades and the clear message is that it cannot be trusted.
“The Five Eyes countries’ intelligence chiefs came together on Tuesday to accuse China of intellectual property theft and using artificial intelligence for hacking and spying against the nations, in a rare joint statement by the allies.
The officials from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – known as the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network – made the comments following meetings with private companies in the U.S. innovation hub Silicon Valley.”
China’s position as a global economic superpower is accompanied by its political position as a totalitarian regime with Xi Jinping as dictator. This makes many in the West uncomfortable for a number of reasons. China’s massive increase to its military capabilities only adds to this. Therefore, the geopolitical push to keep China out of various security arrangements internationally can be understood on this basis. However, it is equally foolish to assume that the US keeps its security concerns completely separate from its trade interests. Western powers have mixed business with so-called national security concerns from the outset in global affairs. Economic and military power go hand in hand.
This is about dominance on the world stage first and foremost. Competing powers always declare the other guy the bad guy in any dispute.
Another Dictator on The Horizon
When thinking about who are the bad guys, there is the shadow of one Donald J Trump looming over the USA in 2024 and beyond. A Trump presidency, especially a revenge presidency, poses the threat of untold dangers to world peace. A proven liar and fraud, Trump is a major risk to the safety of humanity. There are enough bad guys in prominent positions, like Putin, to go adding an immoral loon to the top job in the White House once again. The GOP has morphed into an extremist autocratic political party hell bent on Trump or destruction.
The delineation between bad and good actors on the global stage is getting less clear by the day.
Right wing media organisations like News Corp are directly complicit in the push for Trump.
South Pacific Submarine Cabling
Australia has been shoring up its South Pacific security relationships of late. These submarine cables make an appearance in the Soloman Islands situation with a Chinese deal sunk in 2017 and replaced by a US one the following year. The geopolitical dance, between the superpowers, has been island hopping here with visits by a cavalcade of foreign ministers. Anthony Albanese has been seen hula dancing and money is being spent on these tiny island nations by middling and super powers.
Connectivity is crucial to our future security. AUKUS may not be the only submarine concern that we have, as an island nation ourselves. Thinking about how easy it will be to go around cutting cables and disabling communication networks – modern warfare will be a lot about connectivity. Our security is very much tied up with this sense of staying in communication with each other and our important institutions. Protecting these submarine cables will be vital to achieving this.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of Money Matters: Navigating Credit, Debt, and Financial Freedom.
©MidasWord
