• NATO is planning to launch a fleet of uncrewed naval ships, a military commander said.
• Pierre Vandier told Defense News they will monitor and protect critical underwater infrastructure.
• Gas pipelines and undersea cables have been damaged in recent years, with some suspecting sabotage.

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 Business Insider 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.

• Russia could hand China technology that would cut into US undersea dominance, a US admiral said.
• Adm. Samuel Paparo said that he expected Russia to also do the same for North Korea.
• At a security forum, he said exchanges among Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China have intensified.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, the US Navy's top commander in the Indo-Pacific, said that Russia will likely give submarine technology to China that would undercut the US' undersea dominance.

Paparo, speaking at the Halifax Security Forum over the weekend, raised concerns about the two countries' military partnership.

"I expect Russia to provide submarine technology to the PRC that has the potential of closing American undersea dominance," he said, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China.

Undersea dominance is key for the US, especially in the Indo-Pacific, which includes the waters around Taiwan and the South China Sea.

China has grown increasingly assertive in the region in recent months, repeatedly crossing into the airspace and waters of Taiwan, a key US partner, and carrying out maritime gray-zone operations against the Philippines, an ally the US is treaty-bound to defend.

While the US Navy has one of the world's largest submarine fleets, China has the largest maritime fighting force.

At the same time, China has "helped rebuild Russia's war machine with 90% of its semiconductors and 70% of the machine tools that have rebuilt that war machine," Paparo said.

He described these bilateral military exchanges as a "certain transactional symbiosis" in which each country fulfills the needs of the others.

"This is a dangerous environment, and this is adding complexity to the environment itself," Paparo said, adding that the US needs to rethink its strategy in view of these exchanges.

He said that one way the US is already doing this is by sharing real-time intelligence with Japan and South Korea in their command and control networks and ballistic missile defenses.

According to Paparo, Russia is not only exchanging military capability and technology with China but also with North Korea and Iran.

North Korea has provided Russia with artillery and up to 11,000 soldiers to help its army against Ukraine, while Iran has transferred ballistic missiles and Shahed drones to Russia to aid its war efforts.

In return, according to Paparo, Russia would likely provide missile and submarine technology to the North Korean state.

However, the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea appears to be putting a strain on Sino-Russian relations.

Kurt Campbell, the US deputy secretary of state, said last week that China is increasingly concerned about the alliance between Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin.

He said that China has not directly criticized Russia, "but we do believe that the increasing coordination between Pyongyang and Moscow is unnerving them."