[15thandwhatever]

I'm less concerned about denial of service via cutting cables, and more concerned about the tapping of cables for wholesale data snarfing.

[CyberDildonics]

I don't think you have to choose.

[M_Grey]

Exactly... tap whichever ones you want, cut the rest. Two birds, one insane stone.

[Bdiem]

Is that a realistic threat model? What does the technology look like to tap into 800Gbit/s of fiber traffic - under water?

[willvarfar]

The USS Jimmy Carter submarine is equiped to do it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_tapping

The USA were caught tapping cables in the cold war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

Now this doesn't mean that the Russians are right now tapping these cables; they could be simply mapping their precise location etc for later or using them as a training exercise.

The Russians have submarines for this kind of thing, and I bet they're regretting they sent a surface ship. See a list of some of the submarines used for tapping cables at the bottom of the Yandar article.

[mikeweiss]

This, and if you can even capture that much traffic, all the good stuff is going to be encrypted anyway ;-)

[rurban]

Either tapping, as the US does, or cutting the US tap off.