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Undersea War

The Battle to Control the Cables and Pipelines That Connect Our World

Contributors

By Elisabeth Braw

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Oct 13, 2026
Publisher
Hachette Audio
ISBN-13
9781668659069

Price

$27.99

Format

Format:

  1. Audiobook Download (Unabridged) $27.99
  2. ebook $17.99 $22.99 CAD
  3. Hardcover $30.00 $40.00 CAD

How sabotage and disorder threaten the fragile network of undersea cables and pipelines that makes modern life possible—and how it may already be drawing the world into an all-out underwater war

The world depends on a tangle of underwater tubes on the ocean floor. Every day undersea cables transmit ninety-nine percent of the world’s data, while intercontinental pipelines convey two-thirds of the world’s oil and gas. These do their jobs so reliably that few would guess that “the cloud” is actually underwater, or that the stability of the global economy relies on pipelines on the seafloor. But as award-winning security expert Elisabeth Braw reveals, an invisible battle over those cables and pipelines is already ramping up.

Undersea War tells the history of the underwater infrastructure that supports everyday life. After decades of apparent harmony, in 2022 two pipelines in the Baltic Sea mysteriously exploded. Within months, the cutting of Taiwan’s Matsu Islands’ data links to the world and the subsequent destruction of additional Baltic pipelines and cables signaled that peace in the ocean depths was over. Superpowers are now racing to protect themselves as the seabed itself becomes a battlefield.

Blending engrossing historical narrative with acute strategic analysis, Undersea War shows that the next battle for global supremacy may unfold on the ocean floor.


Elisabeth Braw

About the Author

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. A columnist with Foreign Policy and Politico Europe, she also writes regularly for the Financial Times and The Times (London). She is the author of the award-winning Goodbye, Globalization.

Learn more about this author