Global undersea military competition is intensifying, with the US and Europe developing a new technology that uses already laid submarine cables to track Chinese and Russian nuclear submarines across the world's oceans. According to a report from the US technology engineering website InterestingEngineering, the US Navy is closely collaborating with European navies to transform over 1.2 million kilometers of undersea fiber optic cables into a massive passive sonar array for detecting, classifying, and tracking quiet underwater nuclear submarines. This revolutionary military technology, called "Distributed Acoustic Sensing" (DAS), is turning the global communication backbone into an "underwater net" for hunting nuclear submarines.

Undersea competition is intensifying, and submarine tracking technology has become a key focus of development

As "great power competition" becomes increasingly intense, undersea military technology competition has reached a critical moment. Nuclear submarines are known as "major weapons of great powers," which can use the vast ocean as cover and launch attacks from underwater without the opponent's awareness at any time and place. Therefore, they are an important means of mutual deterrence between major powers, even considered as "ace weapons." Meanwhile, all sides have been successively developing and building advanced submarine models. For example, Russia has developed the Borei-class, while the United States not only develops and builds Virginia-class nuclear submarines but is also researching a more advanced and expensive Columbia-class nuclear submarine.

There must be defense against offense. While major powers are developing attack nuclear submarines, they are also trying their best to develop tracking technologies aimed at discovering underwater nuclear submarines. However, the most difficult point in tracking underwater submarines lies in how to break through their silent performance. The US submarine technology needs no further explanation, and its silent technology ranks among the best globally due to more than half a century of submarine technology accumulation. Russia inherited Soviet submarine technology and strength, and due to limited funding in the past, it has always adhered to an "asymmetric" approach, focusing on developing new submarine technologies to counter American naval threats. Therefore, Russian nuclear submarines are truly "oceanic black holes." For China, the underwater nuclear submarine was once a weakness, but in recent years, Chinese submarine technology has made remarkable progress. In 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that China's submarine silent performance had made a big breakthrough, with the axial pump jet technology making Chinese submarines "oceanic black holes," capable of easily hunting American ships in the Western Pacific.

DAS tracking technology mainly relies on submarine cables

With all sides having excellent silent performance, traditional anti-submarine tracking can no longer meet battlefield needs, forcing all parties to explore new ways or technologies for submarine tracking. This time, the Western-developed "Distributed Acoustic Sensing" technology mainly uses standard fiber optic cables laid on the seafloor around the globe as sensors. Scientists send pulse lasers into the cables. When a submarine passes nearby, the submarine's engine and propeller will generate sound waves, causing extremely small vibrations or pressure on the fiber optic cable, thus changing the return signal of the laser. Then, by using advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze these subtle signal changes, it is possible to detect and locate the source of sounds underwater in real-time.

This technology's other major breakthrough lies in solving the problem of the vastness of the global ocean, making it difficult to achieve comprehensive, unobstructed monitoring. It turns existing telecommunications infrastructure into a continuous, globally distributed underwater listening network, with costs far lower than traditional sonar systems or underwater listening networks.

According to reports, this technology is now moving from theory to practical application. The US, UK, Australia, and several European countries have already launched plans to integrate "Distributed Acoustic Sensing" technology into the maritime situation awareness framework. Among them, the US has progressed to the stage of integrating "Distributed Acoustic Sensing" data into an underwater combat network, currently focusing on testing its information fusion with airborne anti-submarine aircraft and underwater unmanned weapons. Australia, through the AUKUS alliance framework, is closely cooperating with the US and attempting to establish an intelligence-sharing underwater listening network in the vast Pacific and with the US. Europe, on the other hand, is trying to apply this technology to the Atlantic, especially the North Atlantic, which is a densely populated area for Russian nuclear submarines.

Europe wants to use submarine cables to track Russian nuclear submarines in the North Atlantic

However, Western observers say that China has the densest submarine cable network in the Western Pacific region and may have already been testing this breakthrough technology.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7560522303500272164/

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