NETWORK SIGNALLING UNDER UNCERTAINTY: LESSONS FROM THE BALTIC SEA FOR A CANADIAN UNDERSEA CABLE POSTURE

Abstract

Undersea communication cables have become strategic infrastructure because they sit at the intersection of economic connectivity, military resilience, and information stability. Generally, privately financed and operated, and routinely damaged by accidents, they carry almost all international data traffic and are increasingly probed through ambiguous, below-threshold disruption. The paper
therefore provides a forward-looking assessment of risks and governance gaps in cable security. It argues that cable security is best understood as a problem of resilience governance under uncertainty. It also argues that network signalling under uncertainty can reduce leverage created by ambiguous incidents when attribution remains probabilistic. It develops a framework in which governments, operators, local authorities, regulators, Northern and Indigenous governments, and communities signal collectively through operations, law, repair readiness, and public communication. Empirically, the paper treats Canada’s Arctic and North Pacific approaches as the core case and the Baltic Sea and adjacent North Sea as a learning environment. It uses Baltic incidents and NATO–EU responses to identify building block practices and to specify what a credible Canadian signalling posture could require. This includes cooperation with Japan and the Republic of Korea to extend this logic into the wider North Pacific.