Australia urged to lead Indo-Pacific cable shield as hybrid war risks rise

The cables that link Australia with the rest of the world lie mostly unseen, stretched across the seabed and threaded through some of the Indo-Pacific’s busiest and most contested waters.

This vulnerability could also become a strategic advantage, a new report says, urging Australia to position itself as an “Indo-Pacific preferred cable hub” as threats to submarine cables raise economic and national security risks across the region.

That view is echoed by regional analysts, who say Canberra would need to treat cable resilience not only as a domestic security issue but also as a shared regional project.

Geopolitical concerns and rising investment from “hyperscaler” technology firms such as Google and Meta Platforms are reshaping the Indo-Pacific cable network and could bring new investment into Australia’s undersea infrastructure, according to a paper published this month by the Australian National University’s National Security College.

The report, partly funded by the Department of Defence, said these developments were creating a “significant opportunity for Australia”. Its geography, political stability and “status as a trusted network partner” could attract cable investments that had previously transited “now increasingly geopolitically sensitive chokepoints”.