Underwater Frontiers of Gulf Geopolitics: A Strategic Achilles’ Heel

Beneath the Persian Gulf’s waters lies a new arena of power—where control of cables and pipelines could decide the balance of global stability.

Located at the intersection of energy and digital pathways, the Persian Gulf hosts infrastructures that are vital to the global economy. While its surface sea lanes have long been arenas of intense regional and international rivalries, the subsea dimension has also gained increasing geopolitical importance. It has become a strategic Achilles’ heel — exposed to hybrid threats ranging from intelligent naval mines and unmanned underwater vehicles to the sabotage of communication cables. What takes place beneath the surface is no longer merely a technical aspect of maritime security but a decisive factor that can reshape global power balances.

A Vital but Volatile Economic Hub

The Persian Gulf holds nearly half of the world’s proven oil reserves and around 40 percent of its natural gas. This abundance places its littoral states – Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Qatar – at the very core of the global economy. Qatar, in particular, has emerged as one of the leading suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG), further reinforcing the region’s importance in the ongoing energy transition and in the diversification strategies of European and Asian markets.

Qatar, in particular, has emerged as one of the leading suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG), further reinforcing the region’s importance in the ongoing energy transition and in the diversification strategies of European and Asian markets.

This prosperity rests on a single maritime chokepoint: the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow corridor stretching barely 40 km wide at its most constricted point. Moreover, it facilitates roughly 20 percent of the global daily oil consumption and an increasing share of LNG shipments. Any disruption would have immediate and far-reaching consequences for world markets, whose stability is directly contingent upon the unhindered flow of this artery.

Yet the region is anything but stable. Iran, a major actor in the Gulf, possesses both conventional and asymmetric means to threaten freedom of navigation: tanker seizures, drone strikes, sabotage of port infrastructure, and mine warfare deployments. Its doctrine of asymmetric naval warfare relies heavily on swarm tactics, small fast boats, and unconventional assets, precisely to offset the superior naval capabilities of the United States (US) and its partners^[1].

For the Gulf monarchies, the continuous export of hydrocarbons extends beyond serving merely economic interests — it is an existential question for them, underpinning both domestic stability and political legitimacy.

The Subsea Blind Spot and Its Strategic Leverage

The subsea dimension, long overshadowed by surface operations, is now a critical vulnerability. Telecommunications cables linking Europe, Asia, and Africa partly pass through the Gulf, complementing the dense networks of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Their disruption would have systemic effects, paralysing communications and financial transactions^[2]. In today’s interconnected economy, where trillions of dollars circulate daily via fibre-optic routes, a single severed cable can reverberate across stock markets, logistics chains, and data flows.

Similarly, the dense network of subsea pipelines and gas conduits — indispensable to daily hydrocarbon transport — lies in shallow waters that are easily accessible yet extremely difficult to secure. Offshore infrastructures, already vulnerable to sabotage and accidents, are even more at risk underwater, where surveillance is limited and intervention is complex. Global economic stability thus depends on infrastructures whose fragility offers a strategic lever to any hostile actor.

The dense network of subsea pipelines and gas conduits — indispensable to daily hydrocarbon transport — lies in shallow waters that are easily accessible yet extremely difficult to secure.

The drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities in recent years demonstrate the vulnerability of regional energy infrastructures^[3]. Nothing is preventing such tactics from extending beneath the surface. The recent cutting of cables in the Red Sea, which disrupted data traffic, brought attention to the fragility of these systems. In the Persian Gulf, a deliberate subsea operation would pose even greater consequences, given the density of infrastructures, the confined geography, and the region’s centrality in global trade.

Iran and its proxies possess the appropriate tools: midget submarines, naval drones, and mine-laying capabilities. Their low cost contrasts sharply with the disproportionate damage they could inflict. Offensive mining remains the most alarming scenario. In the Strait of Hormuz, a few dozen well-placed mines could halt maritime traffic, provoke an immediate spike in oil and gas prices, and trigger cascading effects across the global economy^[4].

Furthermore, technological innovation amplifies this risk. Intelligent naval mines, equipped with advanced sensors or artificial intelligence (AI), can identify ship types and remain dormant until remotely activated. Their use facilitates plausible deniability: an undersea explosion can be attributed to an accident or an unidentified actor. This ambiguity increases strategic uncertainty and complicates any collective response. Mining thus becomes not only a tool of disruption but a form of subsurface denial of access, allowing an actor to paralyse vital flows without overt confrontation.

This undersea blind spot is further aggravated by the limits of Gulf navies in subsea surveillance and resilience. Detection, mapping, and rapidly repairing cables or pipelines require advanced technologies and specialised expertise, concentrated mainly within Western navies and private operators^[5]. Regional actors remain structurally dependent on external protection — a dependency that invites strategic probing and covert action.

From Hidden Vulnerability to Strategic Stewardship

The balance of power in the Persian Gulf no longer rests solely on surface capabilities or conventional deterrence. It increasingly depends on the ability to secure and control what lies beneath. The subsea environment has become a decisive arena of competition, where technological superiority, intelligence, and coordination define both resilience and influence. As global energy and data routes converge through the Gulf, control of this underwater space has become inseparable from the security of regional connectivity corridors such as the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which will rely on the same fragile network of cables and pipelines.

To meet this challenge, regional and external actors must move from passive protection to an active strategy. There are three principles to guide this shift.

First, awareness. Security begins with knowledge. Gulf states and their partners must build a shared understanding of the subsea environment — mapping infrastructures, monitoring activity, and identifying vulnerabilities. Integrating military, industrial, and commercial data streams would enable early detection of anomalies and credible attribution in the event of an incident. Without this shared and comprehensive set of information, deterrence remains theoretical and response inevitably reactive.

Integrating military, industrial, and commercial data streams would enable early detection of anomalies and credible attribution in the event of an incident.

Second, resilience. The goal is not to eliminate threats but to limit their impact. Rapid repair capabilities, route redundancy, and pre-positioned assets form the backbone of credible resilience. Establishing regional teams for emergency intervention — backed by shared expertise and capacity building with trusted partners — would send a clear message: disruption would be costly but never decisive. In this regard, resilience must also be integrated into future regional infrastructure projects, ensuring that energy corridors, digital cables, and hydrogen pipelines are designed from the outset with repair and protection mechanisms in mind.

Third, cooperation. No state can secure the subsea domain alone. A Gulf Subsea Security Partnership linking Gulf monarchies with Western and Asian partners could harmonise surveillance, coordinate responses, and conduct joint exercises focused on undersea infrastructures. Maintaining a persistent naval presence and clearly signalling that any attack would provoke a collective response would enhance deterrence in a situation where ambiguity currently encourages aggression. Such a framework would also serve as the operational backbone of IMEC, transforming economic interdependence into structured security cooperation across the Indo-Mediterranean space.

For Europe and its partners, the stakes are direct. Energy flows and digital connectivity that link Europe to Asia depend on the security of this region. Supporting Gulf resilience through technological cooperation, intelligence sharing, and operational presence is therefore not an act of solidarity but of strategic necessity. Protecting the Gulf’s subsea infrastructures is thus not only about regional stability but about safeguarding the credibility of global connectivity initiatives that underpin Western strategic autonomy.

Jérémy Bachelier, French Navy officer and former military fellow at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).

^[1] Michael Connell, “Iran’s Naval Forces: From Guerrilla Warfare to a Modern Naval Strategy,” CNA Strategic Studies, Center for Naval Analyses, Arlington, VA, 2009.

^[2] Douglas R. Burnett and Robert Beckman, Submarine Cables: The Handbook of Law and Policy (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2014), 3–7.

^[3] International Energy Agency, “Oil 2021: Analysis and Forecast to 2026,” IEA Market Report (Paris: IEA, 2021), 22–24.

^[4] Martin N. Murphy, Small Boats, Weak States, Dirty Money: Piracy and Maritime Terrorism in the Modern World (London: Hurst, 2009), 198–201.

^[5] International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance 2023 (London: Routledge/IISS, 2023), 343–345.