[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies.]

A sudden disruption of major undersea internet cables in the Red Sea has triggered widespread connectivity problems across parts of Asia and the Middle East, once again drawing attention to the fragility of the world’s digital lifelines and the growing geopolitical volatility in the region. The incident, reported on 6 September 2025, has affected India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other neighbouring states, leaving businesses, banks, government agencies and millions of ordinary users grappling with slower speeds, patchy access and rerouted services. While repair work has been initiated, early assessments suggest it could take weeks before the damaged lines are fully restored, given the technical challenges of mobilising specialised ships and divers to repair cables lying thousands of metres below sea level.

The cables affected include some of the most important arteries for data flowing between Europe and Asia: the South East Asia – Middle East – Western Europe 4 (SMW4), the India – Middle East – Western Europe (IMEWE), and the FALCON GCX network. Together, these lines carry a significant share of global data traffic, making their damage immediately noticeable on digital platforms. Microsoft confirmed that its cloud and productivity services such as Azure had experienced delays, although rerouting through alternative pathways had reduced the worst effects (Asaf, Citation2025). Telecom operators in the Gulf states, including Du and Etisalat, acknowledged complaints from customers about degraded connectivity, while users in India and Pakistan also experienced slower streaming, payment delays and occasional outages in banking apps.

The disruption comes against the backdrop of escalating instability in the Red Sea, where Yemen’s Houthi rebels have, since late 2023, targeted commercial shipping in retaliation for Israel’s war in Gaza and in defiance of Western naval patrols. The group has previously been accused of threatening or striking submarine infrastructure, although it has not claimed responsibility for the latest cuts. The Houthis’ Al-Masirah television channel cited international reports of the outages, but offered no admission of involvement. That ambiguity has not prevented speculation, with security experts noting that the pattern of escalation in the Red Sea fits with a broader Houthi strategy of projecting influence beyond Yemen’s borders. Even if the disruption turns out to be the result of an accident, such as a drifting anchor or seismic shift, the suspicion alone illustrates how infrastructure damage in this strategic corridor can quickly acquire political overtones.

The re‐opening of the Suez Canal – The race for power in the Indian Ocean

The Red Sea is one of the most vital communication and trade arteries in the world. Roughly 17% of global internet traffic flows through its seabed cables, while more than 12% of global maritime trade transits its waters (Monaghan et al., Citation2024). Disruption in either domain carries consequences that ripple far beyond the immediate geography. Earlier shipping disruptions forced cargo vessels to avoid the Suez Canal and reroute around Africa, adding billions in costs to global supply chains. Now, the cutting of cables exposes a different layer of vulnerability: the dependence of modern economies on a limited number of fragile lines no thicker than a garden hose, stretched across thousands of kilometres of ocean floor and left largely undefended.

For the countries most affected, the timing could not be worse. India’s digital economy, which handles billions of online transactions daily, relies heavily on uninterrupted connectivity for everything from retail to remote services. Pakistan, already facing economic stress, saw additional disruptions in online banking and government services. Gulf nations, positioning themselves as hubs for finance and data centres, were forced to divert traffic through less efficient routes. Although companies employ multiple redundancies in cable networks, the concentration of several lines in the narrow bottleneck of the Red Sea makes simultaneous disruptions especially damaging.

Strategically, the incident raises larger questions about cybersecurity and infrastructure protection. Undersea cables have long been regarded as the hidden backbone of globalisation, carrying 99% of international data (ITU, Citation2025), but they are rarely at the centre of security debates. Now, however, as maritime disputes intertwine with digital economies, safeguarding cables is becoming a priority. Western naval powers patrolling the Red Sea may soon be asked not only to secure commercial shipping from missile and drone attacks but also to protect subsea communication lines. Yet such protection is technically challenging: cables lie invisible beneath deep waters, and the area they cover is vast. Repair ships are few, slow to mobilise, and vulnerable in a conflict zone.

Diplomatically, the incident underscores how localised conflicts can ripple into the broader architecture of globalisation.

Talha Latief Tantray is a Non-Resident Fellow at Indo-Pacific Study Centre, Sydney, Australia.