National Security Podcast: Critical submarine cables

In this episode of the National Security Podcast, Research Officer and PhD candidate at the ANU National Security College Samuel Bashfield and Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic and Policy Institute Dr Anthony Bergin join Dr William Stoltz to discuss the importance and vulnerabilities of submarine cables — critical infrastructure that is the backbone of modern communication.

In the Indo-Pacific, submarine cables carry over 95 per cent of international data traffic, including telephone and data communications. But they are vulnerable to a variety of environmental, accidental and malicious threats. Australia is particularly vulnerable to submarine cable outages, and many Indo-Pacific countries rely on a single line. In this episode of the National Security Podcast, Samuel Bashfield, Research Officer and PhD candidate at the ANU National Security College, and Dr Anthony Bergin, Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, join Dr William Stoltz, Policy Director at the ANU National Security College to analyse the current challenges facing undersea cable infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific, and policy recommendations that could increase their resilience. Listen here: https://shows.acast.com/the-national-security-podcast/critical-submarine-cables 

Samuel Bashfield is a PhD candidate and Research Officer at the ANU National Security College. His research engages with Indian Ocean security issues, with a focus on the past, present and future of the Chagos Archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory).

Dr Anthony Bergin is a Senior Fellow with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. For 20 years Dr Bergin served as an academic at the Australian Defence Force Academy. From 1991-2003 he was the Director of the Australian Defence Studies Centre.

Dr William A. Stoltz is Policy Director at the ANU National Security College. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne, and an Associate Member of the Centre for the Study of Subversion, Unconventional Interventions and Terrorism (SUIT) at the University of Nottingham.

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