Baltic Sentry mission could provide proving ground for NATO’s underwater drones

Standing NATO Maritime Group One trains with Finnish FNS Hanko during a 2017 passing exercise in the Baltic Sea. (FRAN CPO Christian Valverde)

This is the latest in a series of semi-regular columns by Robbin Laird, where he will tackle current defense issues through the lens of more than 45 years of defense expertise in both the US and abroad. The goal of these columns: to look back at how questions and perspectives of the past should inform decisions being made today.

NATO has formed a new Baltic Sentry effort to deal with threats to the NATO nations surrounding the Baltic Sea from the Russians. And while the challenge is real, there is significant opportunity for innovation in shaping a new paradigm in maritime operations.

Currently, I am in Europe and had a chance to discuss this opportunity with Torben Mikkelsen, former head of the Danish navy and a well-respected innovator in maritime affairs. His key point: “Baltic Sentry” could serve as a forcing function to get these nations focused on integrating uncrewed systems, notably automated ones, to deliver the basic ISR needed for a mission which encompasses both underwater and above water surveillance.

“These systems could be launched from shore, air dropped or launched from manned vessels. In fact, learning how to work multiple platforms and locational launch points in a mesh consisting of manned and unmanned platforms and systems would be an important part of preparing for any future crisis in the Baltic Sea region.

“NATO needs to start from the ground up with a new approach built on how a combination of manned ship platforms with payloads of uncrewed systems could deliver the desired results in the entire spectrum of conflict, and the Baltic Sea is a very good ‘naval laboratory’ to use for exactly that,” Mikkelsen said.

“It is important to ensure that we can deliver the needed effects both now, when operating without a direct threat, and in a wartime scenario which is congested with hostile unmanned effects in all domains. In the latter situation the interest in operating with manned assets will be very low.

“It is about being able to transform the needed effects between manned and unmanned assets and to be able to use such in the right combination in line with the current threat and that signal you want to send to the opponent,” he added.

We also discussed the fact that NATO has a shortage of manned ships and personnel, which will not end any time soon, and that using autonomous systems provided a significant innovation path to get the desired effects one wanted with much less operational personnel. And with maritime autonomous systems, the personnel would not even have to be in the military but could be private contractors as well.

With the European states surrounding the Baltic Sea all now part of NATO there was the important opportunity to learn how to operate these new systems together and to share the data generated from them. As Mikkelsen put it: “If we do this right, then we will be able to share military payloads amongst those nations.”

It is a question of both technological and organizational change which is entailed in a new approach to managing Baltic security. The time to learn to do so is now, and not when in the midst of a crisis. (I will be publishing a book later this year addressing the question of the nature of the paradigm shift in maritime operations.)

Mikkelsen’s last job was as Denmark’s executive director for Navy programs at Defence Command, where he was laser focused on building a new generation of modular ships which were designed with the engagement of autonomous systems in mind. The Danes, like others, are focused on building capital ships which function as “motherships” that are tied inherently into unmanned operations.

The question then, he asked: “How much autonomous military payload can the mothership carry? And [can] that mothership platform [also be] remotely controlled in case of full-scale war?”

He underscored the similarities between the Black Sea with the Baltic and felt that the experiences of the Ukrainians and Russians there would clearly be deeply imprinted on the Russian mind. The irony could be that the Russians learned faster from the Ukraine war about maritime operations than NATO, and now NATO needs to adjust its own thinking.

The Ukrainian example of using remotely piloted USVs to significantly impact maritime operations has led to Ukrainian interest in such a concept as well. If the Russians have learned the value of these new systems taught to them by the Ukrainians, why would NATO drag its feet on learning to use them as part of its combat force?

The Baltic Sentry effort is a perfect place to start.