Pierroberto Folgiero’s warning is not just a commercial pitch from Fincantieri, Europe’s largest shipbuilder – it is a stark reality check for a continent still dangerously underestimating the geopolitical vulnerability of its underwater domain.
The firm’s CEO is sounding the alarm: Europe must urgently invest in its underwater defences, not just for national pride or industrial profit, but for survival in a world where undersea infrastructure is a soft target in hybrid warfare.
The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022 should have been Europe’s “9/11 moment” under the sea – a defining shock that triggers systemic overhaul.
Instead, attention has remained scattershot, largely focused on the Baltic while the Mediterranean, twice its size and no less strategic, remains exposed.
If Europe’s leaders were waiting for another warning, Folgiero has delivered it. Next time, it may be a subsea internet cable severed, a data centre compromised, or an energy grid disrupted.
Undersea cables carry 95% of the world’s internet traffic
Undersea cables carry 95% of the world’s internet traffic. Gas pipelines, fibre-optic systems, naval sensors – all lie hidden beneath the surface, largely undefended. While drones and submarines are now relatively cheap and increasingly autonomous, Europe’s ability to detect, deter, or respond to underwater incursions is not keeping pace.
The US pivot to the Pacific has left gaps in the Atlantic and Mediterranean that Russia – and potentially others – are eager to exploit.
Fincantieri’s push to double its underwater division by 2027 is both a commercial play and a strategic necessity. The €50bn annual growth in the global underwater economy is not just market optimism – it’s the realisation that future conflict and commerce will be shaped by what happens below the waves.
Undersea warfare is today’s battleground
Europe has long debated spending more on defence. But as Folgiero rightly points out, it must now spend better. That means building strategic partnerships, fast-tracking innovation in unmanned systems, and protecting subsea infrastructure with the urgency once reserved for land and airspace.
Underwater warfare is no longer tomorrow’s threat. It is today’s battleground. And if Europe doesn’t lead in securing its own submerged frontier, someone else will exploit it – with consequences too deep to ignore.
