Hormuz is blocked. So everyone rerouted through Bab el-Mandeb.
Here’s the problem: Bab el-Mandeb carries 12% of all global trade and 10% of all oil shipped worldwide. It’s the only maritime link between Asia, Africa, and Europe through the Suez Canal.
If that closes too? The entire world’s shipping has one option left: sail around the Cape of Good Hope.
Weeks longer. Massively more expensive. Every cargo, every tanker, every container ship.
Saudi Arabia already saw this coming. They’ve been rerouting oil exports west through Yanbu via the East-West Pipeline just to bypass Hormuz entirely.
Iran issues a warning suggesting it could cut undersea internet cables and cloud infrastructure in the Persian Gulf – Tasnim
Dozens of major submarine fiber-optic cables run through the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz (at least 17 systems in the broader area per analyses).
Key ones include systems like AAE-1, FALCON, Gulf Bridge International, EPEG, SMW5, and extensions of 2Africa Pearls.
Together with Red Sea routes, these carry a huge portion of global data traffic—estimates range from ~17-30% for Gulf-specific segments up to claims of 95% on certain Asia-Europe-Africa corridors.
They support internet, cloud services (Amazon, Microsoft, Google data centers in the Gulf), finance, and AI projects in the region.
canisgallicus 