Crossed Wires: The future of war — what happens if the internet stops working?

Daily Maverick

20-07-2025

Across every technology, from renewable energy to encryption to AI (of course), from communications to synthetic biology, the rules of warfare are being so utterly rewritten that it is hard to imagine what a confrontation will look like some years from now.
A news item recently came across my screen that stopped me short. The announcement was a few months old, but when taken in conjunction with other global matters at play, it took on new significance.
The report was about an academic paper published in the state-sanctioned Chinese-language journal Mechanical Engineer on 24 February. It revealed that China has developed and publicly unveiled a powerful deep-sea cable-cutting device capable of severing the world's most fortified underwater communication and power cables at depths of up to 4,000m — twice the depth of most existing subsea cables.
While the paper talked a bit about it being used for salvage operations and other civilian tasks, the message was clear — the Chinese have built an economic doomsday machine. I set off to do some research on these cables. A couple of facts stand out, as reported by commentator Stephen McBride. The first is that $12-trillion is moved through undersea cables daily. The second is that 95% of all global data, including emails, messaging and the worldwide web, passes through these cables.
McBride offers this, which to my mind is an understatement: 'If enough undersea cables were cut, we'd have a worldwide internet blackout. Stock markets would freeze. ATMs would stop working. Total chaos.'
In the wake of some of the developments of recent history — the internet, AI, social media, satellite communications and the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine — there is reportedly a furious amount of rethinking (and panic) going on in the secret covens of military strategic planners. Very little that was taken for granted a mere 20 years ago still applies — how to gather intelligence, how to judge manpower requirements, likewise skills and weapons, how to protect communications, etc. Pre-21st-century warfare textbooks must be starting to look like rotary telephones.
Some of this is on display for all to see. During the recent Israel-Iran war, Israel took complete control of Iran's skies within a few days, obliterating thousands of installations, munition stores and defence systems. Iran has an army of about two million personnel (both standing and reserve). It meant nothing.
Almost no defence was offered by Iran; the country was simply overwhelmed on every metric imaginable. Military leaders were killed, radar defences obliterated, and the internet was cut, as were mobile phone services. Most of Iran's retaliatory missiles and drones were intercepted. It was about as complete a military success as one could imagine, notwithstanding the need for US assistance in taking out the nuclear facilities at Fordow, which required the famous 'bunker-busters' to go deep into the mountain.
Data guided the way
The difference between Israel and Iran was intelligence. Israel knew everything it needed to know before it attacked. It had assembled intelligence over years, most importantly from electronic eavesdropping — surreptitious surveillance software that had penetrated mobile phones, messaging apps and secure military networks. The Israelis had listened to everything from private conversations to supposedly secure defence and political communications for a long time before the attack.
In simpler terms, this was a cyberwar. Data guided the way. Bombs and explosives were merely the loud coda.
The advanced technology that was used by Israel is the tip of the modern spear, if you will excuse the metaphor. Across every technology, from renewable energy to encryption to AI (of course), from communications to synthetic biology, the rules of warfare are being so utterly rewritten that it is hard to imagine what a confrontation will look like some years from now. One country may be able to deliver a knockout blow to another by disabling the engines of daily life, starting with energy and data, which sit at the base of everything — food, communications, information, transport, heating, cooling and money.
One can even imagine a scenario in which the violent killing of humans will not be required — no blood or severed limbs, no keening of mothers at gravesides. The winning country could win via the secret insertion of some lines of clever software into millions of devices across the spectrum of utilities, government, institutions and personal devices. (Perhaps I have gone too far here. I suspect that killing to generate fear and despair is not going to disappear anytime soon.)
Considering all this, it is no surprise that the Pentagon just handed over $200-million to each of the four largest US artificial intelligence companies — OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Google — with the stated objectives for the use of said dollars as warfighting operations, intelligence analysis and business and enterprise information systems.
Here is what is surprising. The Pentagon has reached out to these commercial AI companies instead of the Rolodex of old boys' club defence contractors, which include Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics. These companies have grown very rich over the past 50 years, but they do not have the speed, energy and know-how to quickly develop and deploy cutting-edge AI into weapons of war.
Warfare is data now. They who collect, use, delete or repurpose it most effectively will win.
I like being connected to the internet. China's sea cable cutting technologies (and rumours of weapons being developed to take out satellites like Elon Musk's Starlink) paint a dark picture of where we might end up if we can't, well, just all get along. DM
Steven Boykey Sidley is a professor of practice at JBS, University of Johannesburg, a partner at Bridge Capital and a columnist-at-large at Daily Maverick. His new book, 'It's Mine: How the Crypto Industry is Redefining Ownership', is published by Maverick451 in SA and Legend Times Group in the UK/EU, available now.