The Undersea War (the International Battle For Supremacy At The Bottom Of The World)

By (author) Elisabeth Braw
Short description/annotation:
A gripping account of the hidden battles beneath the world''s oceans, where cables and pipelines - the lifelines of the modern world - are under constant threat from states, corporations, and hackers.
Description:

''A sizzling account''The Times

A hidden network sustains our world, but it''s no longer safe.

Every button, house, nation and financial market depends on a massive, unseen web of cables across the ocean floor. Power cables and pipelines on the seafloor provide the world with energy. This is the newest battlefield where countries must protect their interests - and the functioning of daily life - while rivals test their limits. From the Baltic to the Pacific, sinister ruptures, mysterious vessels and submarine incursions mark a conflict already under way.

With gripping accounts of maritime patrols and access to naval officers, undersea engineers and cable operators, Elisabeth Braw captures the fragility of an infrastructure that underpins everything from mortgages to cancer research and the global financial system to simple emails.

The stakes are immense. Virtually all global internet traffic runs through these arteries, and energy runs in cables and pipelines alongside them - yet the more essential this network becomes, the more exposed it is. The Undersea War shows that the next great conflict may not erupt on land - but in the depths below.

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A compelling and revealing look at the new front-line of geopolitical conflict
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Illuminating yet unsettling . . . It is rare for a nonfiction book to reveal the urgency and significance of a topic that has been largely ignored until now with such analytical precision and narrative power
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A masterful and compelling book by one of the most insightful observers of modern strategic competition . . . Timely, authoritative, and highly relevant, The Undersea War is essential reading for policymakers, business leaders, and citizens alike
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Timely, authoritative, and deeply unsettling, The Undersea War illuminates
one of the most consequential - and least understood - security
challenges of our age

Review quote:
Writing with the authority of all her scholarship but with a journalist''s eye for drama and suspense, Elisabeth Braw packs a real punch with this analysis. It''s a war that is not just undersea. It''s a war that is also under-reported and now certainly underway
Biographical note:
Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where she leads research on threats to the global maritime order. A leading expert on national security, geopolitics and global risk, she has worked in academia, the private sector and journalism, and regularly writes for The Times, Politico and Foreign Policy. She is the author of God''s Spies, The Defender''s Dilemma and Goodbye, Globalization, which won a gold medal in the 2024 Axiom Business Book Awards. Born in Sweden, she attended university in Germany and holds a Magister Artium in political science and German literature.