The issue of protecting submarine infrastructure emerged shortly after the appearance of such infrastructure in the 19th century, yet for a long time, legal and practical mechanisms for safeguarding it remained underdeveloped. Following a series of incidents in the 2020s involving cable damage in the Baltic Sea, the issue has gained urgency and has been used in Europe as an excuse to search for a new regulatory logic. However, the proposed measures often aim not so much at protecting infrastructure as at addressing objectives unrelated to cable security: establishing intelligence monitoring systems, expanding redundant telecommunications networks (driven by the Nordic countries aspiring to lead in digitalization), commercializing repair services, and extending the regulatory powers of the European Commission. Current initiatives also reflect economic interests. It is concluded that the militarization of undersea civilian infrastructure, including equipping submarine cables with technologies for carrying out reconnaissance activity in the Baltic Sea, allows them to be considered part of the military infrastructure. Attacks against Russian maritime infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, obstruction of shipping and other measures directed against it serve as sufficient grounds for Russian retaliatory actions against the infrastructure of unfriendly countries in the region. The NATO and European Union policies to “protect” underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea can also be seen as part of a broader process of militarization of the World Ocean. In this way, a precedent base is created, and mechanisms and arguments are developed that allow similar activities to be carried out in other regions of the world.
Gudev et al. (Wed,) studied this question.