[ Flash ] The Power of the Pipes

From Iran’s cable threats in the Strait of Hormuz to Big Tech’s dominance in Europe — a growing strategic vulnerability.

Iran is threatening to tax the submarine telecom cables running through the Strait of Hormuz — or even disrupt global data traffic. Economic blackmail? Geopolitical pressure? A bargaining chip? Undoubtedly. But beyond the immediate threat, Iran is merely exposing a brutal reality: whoever controls critical infrastructure holds asymmetric power of enormous consequence.

This issue extends far beyond the Middle East. During a hearing before France’s National Assembly inquiry commission on structural dependencies and systemic vulnerabilities in the digital sector, Henri Verdier — the government’s chief digital officer — stressed just how technologically dependent France has become. Not just in software and cloud services, but at the level of infrastructure itself: physical networks and hardware.