NATO is planning a fleet of sea drones to protect critical underwater infrastructure

NATO is planning a fleet of sea drones meant to monitor threats to critical underwater infrastructure.

NATO is planning to roll out a fleet of uncrewed naval ships to protect critical underwater infrastructure.

Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, shared the development with Defense News on Tuesday.

He told the outlet his team was in the early stages of establishing the drone fleet, but aimed to launch it before a NATO summit next June.

Vandier compared the concept to police CCTV cameras that are mounted on streetlights in high-crime areas to capture evidence of criminal activity.

“The technology is there to make this streetlighting with USVs,” he said, using the acronym for uncrewed surface vessels.

Vandier added that the goal was that “NATO can see and monitor its environment daily,” especially across the Baltic and Mediterranean seas.

The development comes after several incidents of critical underwater infrastructure being damaged or severed over the last three years, with Russia sometimes suspected of being behind it.

In September 2022, a series of underwater explosions in the Baltic Sea rendered two Nord Stream gas pipelines, designed to transport gas from Russia to Germany, inoperable.

Danish, Swedish, and German authorities launched investigations and concluded that the incident was an act of sabotage. Denmark and Sweden closed their investigations due to a lack of evidence or jurisdiction, while Germany is continuing its probe and says it has identified two suspects.

Last month, two undersea fiber-optic communication cables were also damaged in the Baltic Sea, in a suspected act of sabotage.

The cables included a 135-mile internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island, and a 730-mile cable carrying data between Germany and Finland.

A NATO official told B-17 in September that threats to subsea infrastructure, including oil and gas pipelines and data cables, had increased since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

NATO has since taken steps to strengthen the resilience of critical infrastructure and prepare for any disruptions.

It created a NATO-EU task force on the resilience of critical infrastructure in January 2023, established an infrastructure coordination cell in February 2023 to map vulnerabilities, and set up the Maritime Center for Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure this May.

NATO is also “stepping up patrols,” Commander Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesperson for NATO’s Allied Maritime Command, told Reuters this month.

Regarding the drone fleet, Vandier didn’t specify the types of USVs or their overall number, but said that the US is already using a similar concept.

The US Navy established Task Group 59.1 in January to test and deploy uncrewed systems to improve maritime security in the Middle East.

“So somehow it’s not very risky,” Vandier said, adding that “everything is known and sold, so it is much more a matter of adoption than technology.”

NATO’s Allied Command Transformation’s Public Affairs Office didn’t respond to a request for comment.