NATO draws up plans for its own fleet of naval surveillance drones

MILAN — The NATO alliance has begun planning for its own fleet of unmanned boats meant to help protect critical undersea infrastructure across the Baltic and Mediterranean seas.

Following a pattern of undersea cable damage across European waters in the last year, with the most recent disruptions happening just weeks ago, top NATO officials have begun envisioning a capability that would allow the alliance to have permanent eyes above and under the waterline.

In an interview with Defense News, Adm. Pierre Vandier, the alliance’s Norfolk, Virginia-based commander for concepts and transformation, likened the idea to police CCTV cameras installed on street lights in urban trouble spots for recording evidence of crimes.

“The technology is there to make this street-lighting with USVs,” he said, using the military’s shorthand for unmanned surface vessel.

Vandier said his team is in the early stages of developing a USV fleet so that “NATO can see and monitor daily its environment.”

The first step would be to achieve this at a surface level, and then later under water.

The new project has already received “great support” from the central command of all NATO maritime forces, known as MARCOM, and the alliance operational headquarters of SACEUR, Vandier added.

While many details still need to be hashed out, officials believe they can equip the drone formation with fielded platforms that are known to work, leaning on experiments done by the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 59

“There is no name [for now], just USV Fleet,” Vandier told Defense News. “In fact, it already exists, so somehow it’s not very risky. The U.S. has enforced Task Force 59 in the Gulf for years, so everything is known and sold, so it is much more a matter of adoption than technology.”

Launched in 2021, TF 59 is a unit dedicated to integrating unmanned systems and artificial intelligence in the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet area of operations. It operates out of Bahrain and includes drones as well as other uncrewed vehicles working alongside manned ships.

In January, a new sub-unit was established, called Task Group 59.1, whose focus is on testing and upgrading industry systems to bolster maritime security across the Middle East region.

As of last month, the unit has trialed, upgraded and experimented with more than 23 different unmanned systems.

The task group took part in exercise Digital Talon in early November, during which it succeeded at remotely launching a loitering munition at sea and tested the vertical take-off and landing of drones from a USV

According to Vandier, the goal is to launch the drone surveillance fleet before the next NATO Summit, which will be held in the Netherlands next June.

“We are to experiment with the first talks about this and then work with the allies to find a proper way to make this happen,” he added.

The most recent incidents of undersea cable disruptions took place on Nov. 17 and 18, when a cable of a telecommunications company between Lithuania and Sweden was cut, and a cable connecting Finland and Germany was damaged.

Investigations of the incidents are still ongoing.

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