It is estimated that around more than 80% of the planet’s oceans remains to be mapped in detail, and in many areas we know less about the seabed than about the surface of the Moon. Still, that unknown environment is key to some of the world’s most advanced technologies.
Also for war.
The invisible map. I had a few days ago in a extensive Reuters report that China has been mapping the planet’s ocean floor for some time and that, when it is finished, it will have the last tactical advantage that the United States had left: knowing better than anyone else the terrain where the quietest war of all will be fought.
For decades, American superiority under the sea rested not just on more advanced submarines, but on something much more intangible: a deep knowledge of the ocean environment. Now that balance starts to change because Beijing is building, step by step, a detailed image of that invisible world that conditions every movement underwater.
A global network. What at first glance seems like oceanographic research is actually a global scale operation which combines dozens of vessels, hundreds of sensors and years of data accumulated in the Pacific, Indian Ocean and Arctic.
These ships travel repeated routes, scanning the seabed and collecting key information on temperature, salinity and currents, factors that determine how sound propagates underwater. It is not a trivial detail, it is crucial because, in underwater combat, seeing does not matter so much: what is really key is listening better than your opponent and hiding from them.
The “transparent ocean”. Here is possibly the crux of the whole thing. radiography that Beijing is carrying out. Because the heart of the strategy is the idea of creating a species of “transparent ocean”a network of sensors capable of monitoring what happens beneath the surface with an unprecedented level of precision.
The reason: although not everything is in real time, even delayed data allows build models that anticipateFor example, where a submarine can hide or how to detect it. In other words, China not only wants to sail better, but reduce uncertainty which has always protected these ships, transforming the ocean into a much less opaque and much more controllable space.
Military power. They remembered in Reuters that one of the keys to the Chinese advance is how it is using universities, scientific institutes and civilian ships to build this knowledge base without openly resorting to military means.
This fusion between civil and military allows it to operate more freely in international waters, accumulating strategic information without raising the same level of alert that a direct naval presence would cause… although the result is the same: a database that can be translated into operational advantages in the event of conflict.
The end of a historic advantage. There is no doubt, all this effort aims to a clear objective: erode one of the greatest strategic advantages the United States has had, its dominance of the underwater environment.
If China manages to match (or even surpass) that knowledge, it will be able, a priori, deploy your submarines more effectively, detect those of the adversary and monitor critical routes such as the approaches to the Pacific or the Strait of Malacca. It is therefore not a race of boats, but of information, and in this field the one who best understands the bottom of the ocean will have the initiative.
A new balance. Taken together, the Chinese strategy reveals a profound change in the nature of naval power: one where it is no longer enough to have more ships or better weapons, but rather dominate the environment in which they operate. By systematically mapping the seafloor and deploying sensors at key points, Beijing is preparing the ground for a competition in which the advantage will not be visible, but yes decisive.
And if that process is completed, the United States could find itself for the first time in decades without its traditional superiority in the most difficult domain to control: the one that cannot be seen.
Image | RawPixel, Youth Daily News
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