For centuries, the map of the global empire was drawn in salt water and steel. Whether it was the Phoenician Sea roads, the coaling stations of the British Empire, or the modern-day naval choke point of the Strait of Malacca, geopolitical supremacy belonged to whoever controlled the physical transit of physical goods.
Yet, a profound structural shift is quietly reorganizing the global balance of power. The modern global geoeconomic power of the age is the transnational digital network, particularly the fiber-optic submarine cables, which have replaced physical trade routes as primary levers of global geoeconomic influence.
The Ultimate Geopolitical Chokepoint
The modern world’s international commerce depends on a network of glass fibers rather than the open sea. Submarine data cables transport over 97% of all transcontinental internet traffic, according to ITU Cable Resilience Analysis, and enable up to $10 trillion in financial transactions every day. Whichever state controls, monitors, or secures, this invisible network wields an unprecedented degree of structural power.
The classical geopolitics of territorial control is shifting to what academics call infrastructure power, in which political power is being integrated into technological systems. Instead of taking control of physical harbors, the great powers of today are competing for network centrality of digital flows.
The strategic center stage for this digital conflict is the Western Indian Ocean and the broader Indo-Pacific, where crucial maritime passages are being mirrored by massive undersea data lines. Under the banner of its “Digital Silk Road,” launched in 2015 as a key pillar of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has aggressively financed and laid thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables. The most visible one is the Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) cable, which runs directly from Asia to Africa to Europe without the involvement of Western routing stations.
The construction of these direct links is not only about market share but also rules access to data, intelligence, and digital sovereignty in the Global South. Infrastructure assets like the PEACE cable system represent a dual-use ecosystem where economic development is tightly coupled with long-term strategic and intelligence collection capabilities.
The Fragmented Sovereignty
This shift in geoeconomic leverage has fundamentally disrupted the traditional role of the nation-state. During the golden age of globalization, transnational infrastructure was treated mostly as a public good that is shared, operated by private-sector institutions, and used for everyone’s benefit. Today, telecom networks are seen and treated as contested national security battlegrounds in which states weaponize interdependence through network topology for strategic leverage.
The networks, however, are mostly private, and their structures and operations are largely controlled by private, multi-national conglomerates, including Google, Meta, and other state-backed companies, and states cannot wield power by sheer force of military decree. Instead, they engage in highly complex maneuvers of friendshoring the seabed, attempting to align private corporate actors with state-level alliances. The US and its allies are clearly trying to respond to Chinese dominance in digital infrastructure by advocating for Western digital ecosystems and regulatory frameworks, as in the case of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII).
This constant battle between corporations and geostrategic competition from the state is giving rise to the concept of the “atomized territory” as described by researchers. Regulatory and technical power are no longer based on a nation’s fixed geographical boundaries. Instead, geoeconomic influence is dispersed across a fragmented landscape of deep-sea landing stations, private testing laboratories, and technical standards committees.
The Suez Canal and the Malacca Strait are still essential waterways for the world’s energy needs, but they are exposed to the physical challenges of the 21st century. By contrast, a minor alteration to a routing protocol or a well-placed digital landing station can paralyze whole financial sectors, disrupt military logistics, and reshape public opinion thousands of miles away without firing a single shot. The arena for geo-economic conflict is no longer the seas but the light that illuminates them.
