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The U.S. economy is under threat from adversaries like China targeting undersea cables with the ability to “inflict devastating economic chaos almost at will,” a former U.S. intelligence official warned Sunday.
These cables carry 99% of global data and support up to $10 trillion in daily financial transactions, according to reports.
Andrew Badger, chief strategy officer at Coalition Systems, a defense tech startup, spoke as President Donald Trump is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing for talks expected to focus on trade, artificial intelligence and Taiwan.
Taiwan, a flashpoint in U.S.-China tensions, has reported about 30 subsea cable incidents in recent years, including one in which Chinese vessels allegedly severed cables and cut communications for months.
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“America depends on the fragile nervous system of subsea cables for modern life,” Badger, a former Pentagon official and author, told Fox News Digital before warning that U.S. adversaries “seek to turn the bottom of the ocean into a battlefield.”
“The asymmetric threat — China and Russia are devoting far more resources to attacking undersea infrastructure than the U.S. or its allies are to defending it,” Badger said.
“They’ve identified one of our greatest vulnerabilities, and we haven’t caught up. A coordinated strike on American undersea infrastructure could fundamentally disrupt our way of life — the internet, banking, energy markets and military communications all run through these cables. The dollar cost is almost incalculable, and the real damage would be the chaos and political instability that would follow,” he said.
Badger’s remarks came after Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., alongside Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., introduced the bipartisan Strategic Subsea Cables Act of 2026 in April.
The legislation is aimed at strengthening the security and resilience of critical undersea infrastructure.
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“Undersea cables are important for a variety of reasons. They carry 99% of the world’s internet traffic. They also support $10 trillion in financial transactions each and every day,” Barrasso said in a statement.
In April, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources confirmed a successful deep-sea mission testing an advanced “electro-hydrostatic actuator,” a device capable of slicing through armored submarine cables at depths of 3,500 meters, according to reports.
Similar suspicious disruptions have been reported in Europe and elsewhere, raising concerns about coordinated “gray-zone” operations designed to probe Western responses while remaining below the threshold of open conflict.
“This is hybrid warfare in its purest form, designed to weaken the adversary below the threshold of declared war,” Badger said, noting that incidents such as anchors dragging across the seabed can provide plausible deniability.
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“Cables give Beijing and Moscow the ability to inflict devastating economic chaos almost at will,” Badger warned. “This gives both nations tremendous strategic leverage over the U.S.”
China could also potentially target American undersea cables as a deterrent to U.S. engagement in Taiwan, according to Badger.
“Beijing could simultaneously target cables landing in the U.S., not to win militarily, but with the goal of breaking the American public’s will to intervene in Taiwan,” he said.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory, while the U.S. — Taiwan’s largest unofficial ally — supplies weapons under a law requiring it to help the island defend itself.
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The Taiwan Strait is also a critical artery for the artificial intelligence revolution’s most essential resources.
Anniki Mikelsaar of the Oxford Internet Institute said growth in AI’s use means “rising capacity requirements on submarine cables. Not all recent cable damage incidents can be attributed to foreign adversaries: the ICPC estimates 150 to 200 cable breaks occur per year around the globe, most of them accidents,” she said.
