尽管星链和其他通信卫星服务不断扩张，全球大部分互联网流量仍通过纵横交错于海底的光纤电缆传输。这些光纤电缆与一个由油气管道和海底电力电缆组成的网络共存——随着灰色地带战争和公开冲突变得普遍，所有这些连接国家和大陆的关键链路如今都面临日益加剧的破坏风险。
Despite the expansion of Starlink and other communications satellite services, most of the world’s Internet traffic still travels through subsea cables crisscrossing the ocean floors. Those fiber-optic cables coexist with a network of oil and gas pipelines and submarine power cables—and all these crucial links connecting countries and continents now face growing sabotage risks as gray-zone warfare and open conflicts have become widespread.
大西洋理事会高级研究员、“全球海洋秩序威胁倡议”负责人伊丽莎白·布劳的新书主要探讨了世界水下无形基础设施面临的日益上升的风险。她的这本书探讨了从波罗的海到太平洋，船只异常长时间拖锚切断或损坏海底电缆和管道的可疑事件在现代的增多。
The rising risks to the world’s invisible infrastructure beneath the waves are the main subject of a new book by Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who leads the Threats to the Global Maritime Order Initiative. Her book, titled , explores the modern rise in suspicious incidents in which ships dragging their anchors for unusually long periods have cut or damaged undersea cables and pipelines from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
布劳承认，约60%的海底电缆损坏主要归因于渔业和航运活动中的人为失误，即配重渔网或船锚拖过海床。风暴和海底滑坡等自然危害也占此类事件的一小部分。总体而言，每年有150至200条电缆受损，通常能迅速修复。
Braw acknowledges that about 60 percent of undersea cable damage is primarily due to human error during fishing and shipping activities, when weighted nets or anchors drag across the seabed. Natural hazards such as storms and undersea landslides also account for a smaller proportion of such incidents. In total, between 150 and 200 cables are damaged each year and usually repaired quickly.