The Seabed Is Now a Battlefield. Europe Is Still Prosecuting It Like the 1980s

by Jaffa Levy · December 30, 2025

The global economy runs through the seabed.
Not metaphorically. Physically.

Glass fibre carries almost all intercontinental internet traffic. Steel pipelines and high-voltage cables move gas and electricity between states to keep prices stable and lights on. These systems are not backups. They are the system.

And they lie exposed on the ocean floor.

Maintenance work on an underwater cable. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

More than ninety five percent of intercontinental data travels through submarine cables, not satellites. Bank transfers, cloud computing, military communications, airline systems, hospitals, ports, and emergency services all depend on infrastructure that most people never see.

This is why the seabed has quietly become a strategic battlefield.

It offers an attacker three advantages at once: high impact, low cost, and legal ambiguity. Damage can be caused by ordinary commercial vessels. Attribution is slow. Prosecution is often paralysed by jurisdiction.

What actually runs along the seabed

Intercontinental fibre optic cables carrying roughly 95 to 99 percent of global data traffic.
Regional data trunks linking Europe to Asia and Africa through narrow maritime corridors.
Gas pipelines that anchor industrial energy systems and shape geopolitical leverage.
High-voltage electricity interconnectors that stabilise national grids and smooth price shocks.
Cable landing corridors near shore, where infrastructure is most vulnerable to interference.

None of this requires advanced weaponry. Anchors, trawling gear, slow manoeuvres, and time in the right location can be enough.

From Nord Stream to the Baltic pattern

The turning point came in September 2022, when the Nord Stream gas pipelines were destroyed by underwater explosions in the Baltic Sea. The investigations confirmed sabotage. Responsibility, however, remained contested, fragmented across jurisdictions, and unresolved in public law.

The strategic lesson was unmistakable. A state or state linked actor could destroy critical seabed infrastructure in European waters and still evade prosecution.

What followed was not a repeat of spectacular explosions, but something more adaptable: repeated, lower grade interference.

Since 2023, the Baltic Sea has seen a cluster of cable and pipeline incidents involving commercial vessels dragging anchors across precise seabed routes. Behavioural patterns have been identified. Ships have been tracked. But enforcement has repeatedly run into the same obstacle: the inability to board and secure evidence quickly in the Exclusive Economic Zone.

A specialised cable-laying and repair ship. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The legal gap that makes sabotage repeatable

In territorial waters, states can act decisively. In the Exclusive Economic Zone, they cannot, at least not automatically.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, coastal states have economic rights in their EEZ but limited enforcement powers over foreign flagged vessels. Boarding, inspection, and seizure often require the consent of the flag state. When that consent is delayed or withheld, evidence disappears.

The result is a prosecution gap. Ships can be identified, but not searched in time. Investigations become diplomatic negotiations. Deterrence collapses into patrol theatre.

The legal tool Europe has not fully used

UNCLOS already contains a potential remedy.

Article 56 grants coastal states sovereign rights over economic activities in the EEZ. Submarine cables and power links that land on national territory clearly serve vital economic interests.

Article 60 allows states to establish safety zones around installations and structures used for those purposes, and to enforce rules within them.

If states designate cable corridors and landing approaches as protected installations, prohibit anchoring and seabed interference within defined zones, and enforce breaches through domestic law, they can lawfully board and inspect vessels without waiting for flag state permission.

Some states have begun to do this. Most have not.

The hard conclusion

The seabed is now a battlefield. Europe is patrolling it like a war zone, but prosecuting it like the 1980s.

If states cannot board suspected vessels promptly and preserve evidence while jurisdiction still exists, sabotage becomes a repeatable tactic rather than a punishable crime.

Deterrence without enforceability is theatre.

References

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