A former US intelligence and Pentagon official warned Sunday that adversaries such as China and Russia could trigger massive economic disruption by targeting the undersea cable network that powers global communications, financial systems, and military infrastructure.

The warning comes as President Donald Trump prepares to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing for high-stakes discussions expected to center on trade, artificial intelligence, and Taiwan.

According to experts, undersea cables carry approximately 99% of the world’s data traffic and support as much as $10 trillion in global financial transactions every day.

Andrew Badger, chief strategy officer at defense technology startup Coalition Systems, said hostile nations increasingly view the ocean floor as a strategic battlefield.

“America depends on the fragile nervous system of subsea cables for modern life,” Badger told Fox News Digital before warning that U.S. adversaries “seek to turn the bottom of the ocean into a battlefield.”

Badger argued that China and Russia have invested far more heavily in offensive undersea capabilities than the United States and its allies have invested in defense.

“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.

According to Badger, Beijing and Moscow have identified a critical vulnerability in Western infrastructure.

“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.

His remarks came amid growing concern in Washington over the security of critical subsea infrastructure.

In April, Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen introduced bipartisan legislation known as the Strategic Subsea Cables Act of 2026, designed to improve protection and resilience for underwater cable systems.

“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.

Concerns intensified after reports emerged in April that China had successfully tested advanced deep-sea cable-cutting technology.

According to reports, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources confirmed a mission involving an “electro-hydrostatic actuator,” a device reportedly capable of severing armored submarine cables at depths of 3,500 meters.

Suspicious cable disruptions have also occurred in Europe and other regions, fueling fears of coordinated “gray-zone” operations intended to pressure Western countries while avoiding outright military confrontation.

“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.

Badger warned that the ability to damage undersea infrastructure gives America’s adversaries enormous leverage.

“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.”

He also suggested China could potentially use attacks on American undersea infrastructure to discourage US military involvement in a Taiwan conflict.

“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 continues to claim Taiwan as its territory, while the United States — Taiwan’s largest unofficial ally — continues providing military assistance under longstanding US law requiring support for Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities.

The Taiwan Strait has also become increasingly critical because of its importance to the global artificial intelligence industry and related technologies.

Anniki Mikelsaar of the Oxford Internet Institute noted that expanding AI infrastructure is increasing demand on submarine cable networks worldwide.

According to Mikelsaar, growth in artificial intelligence means “rising capacity requirements on submarine cables.”

At the same time, she cautioned that not all cable disruptions are linked to hostile activity.

“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.

{Matzav.com}