While the Baltic and Indo-Pacific regions have been in the spotlight, the recent incidents with fibre optic data cables in the Arctic have been overlooked.
This analysis examines 17 publicly reported cable outages in the high north between 2018 and 2025, excluding Baltic Sea incidents. All of them have taken place near polar ocean observation facilities, including satellite ground stations, satellite-launching spaceports, a maritime observatory, and an Arctic air base with maritime patrol aircraft. Regardless of the incidents’ causes, recurring Arctic fibre optic cable damage can disrupt high-bandwidth communications in the high north and cause transmission delays for time-sensitive Earth observation data.
The security of Arctic cables is the most significant overlooked vulnerability in terms of global digital infrastructure security in the present day. The cables are also the pillar for the surveillance infrastructure of key Arctic sea lines of communication. The Arctic is rapidly moving into the forefront of global security, and network infrastructure is a central enabler to competition in this theatre. These cables’ interoperability with satellites makes northern network infrastructure protection urgently relevant, but collaboration frameworks stay fragmented.
Any activity which includes human and autonomous-systems deployment to the Arctic, including long-fare navigation, mineral resources extraction, scientific and military activity, needs broadband. In addition to broadband, fibre optic cables facilitate space-based and undersea earth observation (EO) sensor data collection and transmission not only EO data of the Arctic region but, in the case of polar-orbiting satellites, of the entire Earth. These satellites converge around the high north. Cable breaks endanger vital scientific information like climate monitoring data, sea ice movement information for the safety of navigation, and military situational awareness of the polar oceans. Imaging of illicit or adversarial activity in the Arctic, including monitoring surface and subsurface vessels, becomes more difficult in the region if time-sensitive data does not reach the end-user in time due to cable breaks.
This analysis has looked at disruptions to submarine cables in the high north that have impacted Greenland, Norway, the Shetland Islands (UK), Alaska (US), Canada, and the Denmark-Greenland link. Impacts have ranged from mild temporary loss of network redundancies, as in the case of Svalbard, to so-called apocalyptic outages, as was the case in parts of Alaska this year. The problem will not resolve itself—further action is required to secure the existing northern network infrastructure.
Download and read: Ruptures at the Top of the World: High North Network Infrastructure Protection (PDF)
link