By Nanditha Subhadra
In a world already reeling from escalating conflict in the Middle East, one nightmare scenario has quietly emerged: Iran deliberately disrupting the submarine fibre-optic cables that snake through the Persian Gulf and the narrow Strait of Hormuz. These are not mere communication lines — they are the invisible arteries carrying roughly 17-20% of global internet traffic between Europe, Asia, and Africa, powering everything from bank transfers and stock markets to cloud computing, video calls, AI systems, and hospital networks.
If Iran — already accused of mining the Strait and blocking shipping — chooses to sever or damage these cables (through mines, submarines, or proxy sabotage), the consequences would dwarf even the oil-price shocks that dominate headlines. This would be a digital chokepoint attack with global repercussions, and India’s booming IT sector would be among the hardest hit outside the immediate Gulf war zone. History has already shown us how fragile these systems are — and how devastating even accidental cuts can be.
The Cables at Risk: A Clustered Vulnerability
All active international submarine cables passing the Strait of Hormuz are deliberately routed through Omani waters (to avoid Iranian territorial claims and permitting issues). The key systems currently traversing or hugging this corridor include:
- AAE-1 (Asia-Africa-Europe-1)
- FALCON (FLAG Alcatel-Lucent Optical Network)
- Gulf Bridge International (GBI) Cable System
- Tata TGN-Gulf
These cables link the Gulf states directly to Europe and onward to Asia. Extensions like the paused 2Africa Pearls branch were set to connect Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Pakistan, and India, carrying capacity for over 3 billion people.
The cables are tightly clustered — making them easy targets. Repairs in a mined, war-patrolled strait would be nearly impossible; repair ships (already scarce) cannot operate safely. Historical precedent from Red Sea cuts shows single incidents caused months-long delays and 25% traffic drops between Asia and Europe. Multiple simultaneous cuts in Hormuz would be far worse.
Historical Precedents: Warnings Ignored
The world has seen this movie before — and the ending was painful.
In January-February 2008, a series of submarine cable cuts devastated connectivity across the Middle East and South Asia. The FALCON cable was severed twice in the Persian Gulf itself: once near Bandar Abbas (Iran) on January 23, and again between Muscat (Oman) and Dubai (UAE) on February 1. Simultaneously, SEA-ME-WE 4 and FLAG cables were damaged near Alexandria, Egypt. Causes were officially attributed to ship anchors, but the timing triggered conspiracy theories.
Impacts were immediate and severe: Egypt lost up to 80% of its internet capacity; India suffered a 60% reduction in international connectivity, affecting an estimated 60 million users; Pakistan saw 12 million users impacted. Banks, businesses, and everyday internet slowed to a crawl for days or weeks. Rerouting helped somewhat, but bottlenecks persisted. A second wave of cuts in December 2008 (again near Egypt and the Mediterranean) repeated the chaos.
Fast-forward to the Red Sea disruptions of 2024-2025. In February 2024 and again in September 2025, multiple cables — including SMW4 (operated by Tata Communications), IMEWE, AAE-1, and FALCON GCX — were damaged near Jeddah and elsewhere. Suspected causes included anchors from conflict-damaged ships (linked to Houthi actions) and commercial shipping. No country went fully offline, but India, Pakistan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia experienced degraded speeds, increased latency, intermittent access, and cloud-service delays. International data traffic took major hits; repairs dragged on for weeks or months due to security risks and logistics. Experts noted that the Red Sea’s narrow chokepoint mirrors the vulnerability now facing Hormuz.
These were largely “accidental” or conflict-adjacent incidents. A deliberate Iranian attack in a hot war zone would multiply the damage exponentially — with repair ships unable to enter the area at all.
Nations Hit First and Hardest
Gulf States (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq): Near-total or severe internet blackouts in the initial hours/days. Dubai — the region’s financial and data hub — would see banking, trading, and cloud services collapse. Governments, hospitals, and AI infrastructure (a trillion-dollar Gulf bet) would grind to a halt. Terrestrial backups exist but lack the capacity to handle full international traffic.
Pakistan and India: Direct slowdowns or partial outages. India’s major Europe-bound cables (Tata TGN-Gulf, FALCON, AAE-1) route through this corridor. Nearly one-third of India’s westward internet traffic passes here. Cloud services, international data centres, and real-time applications would suffer spikes in latency and packet loss — exactly as seen in 2008 and 2025.
Europe, broader Asia, and Africa: Rerouting overloads alternative paths (already strained Red Sea routes or longer Pacific loops). Expect widespread latency increases, slower video streaming, delayed financial settlements, and disrupted supply chains. Global stock exchanges and interbank systems reliant on low-latency Gulf links would feel the pain.
The Rest of the World: Not a full “internet shutdown,” but cascading degradation. Banks, logistics, remote work, and even satellite backups (which cannot handle fibre-scale bandwidth) would strain. The simultaneous closure of both Hormuz and Red Sea chokepoints has never happened before — experts call it “globally disruptive.”
India’s IT Sector: A Body Blow to the $250+ Billion Engine
India’s IT-BPO industry — employing millions and driving exports to the US and Europe — depends on reliable, low-latency submarine connectivity. A Hormuz disruption would:
- Slow or interrupt data flows for software development, cloud services, fintech, and customer support.
- Cause massive productivity losses in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kerala’s tech hubs (including areas near Kollam).
- Hit data-centre operators and AI/cloud players hard; clients abroad would shift workloads elsewhere if latency spikes persist.
- Trigger revenue drops estimated in billions — mirroring the slowdowns already felt during the 2008 Persian Gulf cuts and the 2025 Red Sea incidents.
Longer-term, it accelerates diversification pushes (more Singapore/East routes or emerging overland cables via Iraq-Turkey), but the immediate hit could shave GDP growth and erode India’s reputation as a reliable digital partner. Repair delays mean weeks or months of pain — exactly when India’s digital economy is scaling fastest.
The Critical Reckoning: Iran’s Own Suicide Strategy
Iran may see cable sabotage as asymmetric warfare — a cheap way to hurt the West and Gulf rivals without direct naval confrontation. But this would be self-defeating on multiple levels:
- Economic backlash: Gulf states (Iran’s neighbours) and Pakistan/India (potential trade partners) suffer first. Global financial markets tanking would punish everyone, including Iran’s already sanctioned economy.
- International isolation: Deliberate attacks on critical infrastructure would trigger unified condemnation, possible NATO-style responses, and new sanctions. It crosses a red line that even Russia or China might not fully endorse.
- Repair impossibility: Iran’s own connectivity (limited as it is) would degrade, and mines/debris would trap repair vessels for years.
- Escalation spiral: Western navies already patrol for mines; cable attacks could justify broader military action in the Gulf.
Overland alternatives (Saudi-Qatar-UAE projects through Iraq/Turkey) are racing forward precisely because of these risks — but they won’t be ready in time.
This is not just an oil story anymore. The Strait of Hormuz has become a data chokepoint as critical as its energy one. Iran’s potential decision to cut the cables would not “shut down the internet” globally — but it would deliver a crippling, months-long digital wound at the worst possible moment for a hyper-connected world.
The world must treat undersea cables with the same strategic urgency as oil tankers. Diversification, armed escorts for repair ships, and rapid terrestrial backups are no longer optional. For India, the wake-up call is loudest: reliance on a single volatile corridor for one-third of Europe-bound traffic — a vulnerability already exposed in 2008 and 2025 — is a strategic liability that must be fixed yesterday.
If Tehran pulls the trigger, the first casualties won’t be ships or soldiers. They will be the silent fibre-optic threads that keep the modern world breathing. And India’s IT dream could wake up gasping.
*The author is an IT professional with over three decades of experience