Why do undersea internet cables matter?

Undersea internet cables matter because they carry about 99% of the world's intercontinental internet traffic, and almost nobody thinks about them. Roughly 600 cables on the ocean floor, most no thicker than a garden hose, move your money, your messages, and your Netflix. I use them as the clearest case of critical infrastructure hiding in plain sight. The tape: cables in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan got cut repeatedly since 2023, and Meta answered with a 50,000-kilometer cable of its own. Their physical and geopolitical vulnerability is a risk most leaders never put on the table. Out of sight should not mean out of mind. Cut 3 cables and a country goes dark.