Availability Is Not Security If an Abandoned Sea Anchor Cut the Cable?

art.cable.jpg I see in some fora people are still arguing that security involves countering malicious actors, and availability alone is not security, even if people are depending on availabity.

Were all those recent cable cuts in the Med. and the Persian Gulf not security issues, even though some of the affected companies are now planning to spend $300-400m on physical security to fix the problem?

If the culprit had been a Russian mobster or Al Qaeda or the CIA rather than (in one case) an abandoned ship anchor, then it would have been security, but now it’s not?

-jsq