Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the chief of the British defense staff, said Britain and NATO needed to prioritize protecting the lines of communication – specifically submarine fiber optic cables.

Peach made the comments during a talk at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense industry think tank.  He discussed potential threats to transatlantic cables from Russia ships and submarines.

The BBC has provided full coverage, including a video of Peach’s remarks, at http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42362500. 

This follows a recent report from another think tank in the UK, Policy Exchange, which also highlighted the threat to submarine cables from Russian activity. This report can be viewed at https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Undersea-Cables.pdf.

And threats to submarine cable communications are not limited to the Atlantic.  In an op-ed piece in the Nov/Dec issue of The National Interest, Eli Huang, special assistant to former Taiwan deputy defense minister Lin Chong-pin, focused on Chinese threats to Taiwan’s submarine cables.  See coverage of this at http://www.atimes.com/article/taiwan-undersea-cables-priority-targets-pla-war/.