The bloc plans to have sea surveillance in the Atlantic and Mediterranean by next June, a senior official has told Defense News
NATO military commanders want to launch a fleet of unmanned surface watercraft and later submersibles to monitor the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, Defense News reported on Tuesday.
The project is based on a similar US program in the Persian Gulf, and could be started before the next NATO Summit, to be held in the Netherlands in June 2025, French Adm. Pierre Vandier, who holds the position of NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, told the news website. The official compared the idea to city CCTV cameras, saying the “technology is there” to implement such a system.
”In fact, it already exists, so somehow it’s not very risky. The US 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,” Vandier explained.
The admiral was referring to a project launched by the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in September 2021 to monitor some 2.5 million square miles (6.5 million square kilometres) of water in the Middle East area of operations. Earlier this year, the US created a sub-unit of the task force, operating out of Bahrain, to integrate manned and unmanned missions.
Vandier said the NATO project has support from the organization’s central command of maritime forces and its operational headquarters. The outlet suggested it was moving forward due to a “pattern of undersea cable damage across European waters,” which some Western officials have blamed on Russia despite a lack of evidence.
The latest such incident was reported this week and involved a link between Finland and Sweden, NATO’s two newest members. Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin claimed on Tuesday that sabotage could have been involved, but Finnish officials later confirmed that at least one of the two identified breaks was caused by construction work.
Vandier was approved for his NATO post in June. He previously served as Chief of Staff of the French Navy and commanded the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.
The French military has been trying to integrate robotic Airbus Helicopters VSR700 rotorcraft to be flown from its warships, but the SDAM program has suffered from delays and requirement changes, according to local media.
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