The tool, which is able to cut lines at depths of up to 4,000 metres (13,123 feet) – twice the maximum operational range of existing subsea communication infrastructure – has been designed specifically for integration with China’s advanced crewed and uncrewed submersibles like the Fendouzhe, or Striver, and the Haidou series.
I mean, no? Ok let’s say you did cut off the internet, there’s still radio. Shortwave still can reach spies in foreign countries with their numbers stations now, and then there’s VHF/UHF at home etc. Snail mail still exists, so does ol’ fashioned landlines for communication at least internally even if they cut undersea telcom cables, hell I’m pretty sure CDMA would still be running, this sets us back to like 1990 at most, especially if we take this threat seriously and start implementing non-internet based (or sat internet) fallbacks just in case standard comms go down for a while until a new cable can be lain.
Like don’t get me wrong, we’d definitely feel the effects, but this isn’t some kind of world dominating shit we’re talking about here, it’s just pretty inconvenient, especially if we already have alts in place as fallbacks so we don’t have to scramble to set them up.
The knock on effects of substantial infrastructure interruptions like this can have massive impacts that snowball aggressively. Not saying you’re wrong, but it is nothing to scoff at. Things like this do have the potential to severely change the geopolitical landscape.
I’m not saying it’s nothing, just saying I think it’s massively overstated.