NATO Considers Watching Undersea Internet Cables with a Fleet of Unmanned Boats

An anonymous reader shared this report from Defense News:
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, Admiral 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 an unmanned surface vessel 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... 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.

The article notes the U.S. Navy's Task Force 59 (launched in 2021) is already 'dedicated to integrating unmanned systems and AI in the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet area of operations.' This prompted Admiral Vandier to say the technology for an unmanned cable-watching fleet 'already exists... everything is known and sold, so it is much more a matter of adoption than technology.'

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