Securing critical undersea infrastructure

In the first week of September 2025, several nations across West and South Asia, including India, experienced significant internet outages caused by severing multiple undersea cables in the Red Sea. Initial suspicions quickly turned towards Yemen’s Houthis rebels, who have been waging a sustained campaign of attacking commercial ships transiting the Red Sea. However, the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) suggested that the likely cause was accidental damage caused by commercial shipping activity. The September incident, though, marked the seventh instance of undersea cable damage in the region since the Houthis launched their campaign in December 2023. Even in the early stages of their campaign, the Houthis explicitly threatened to cut undersea cables in the Red Sea through social media channels, Yemen’s internationally recognised government has also repeatedly warned that the Houthis may attempt to damage undersea cables.

In light of these facts, the potential involvement of the Houthis in past or future attacks on Critical Undersea Infrastructure (CUI) in the Red Sea cannot be ruled out. The incessant attack of the Houthis on commercial shipping has already led to the identification of the Red Sea as a High Risk Area (HRA) by various seafaring organisations. In this context, the growing threat to CUI, like internet cables, further undermines maritime security in a region that serves as a gateway to the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and will have implications for India’s strategic interests.

Presently, the Red Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Taiwan Straits have emerged as global hotspots where severe damage to CUI has considerably increased, raising suspicions of possible subversive malicious activity. In January 2025, NATO launched a new multinational naval mission in the Baltic Sea, known as ‘Baltic Sentry’, to protect CUI from intentional sabotage. Assessing this mission can provide crucial insights into developing an operational framework for securing CUI in India’s maritime areas of interest.

Read more at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses