Ocean floor becomes new war zone

Governments and defense firms are investing heavily in underwater technology as critical seabed infrastructure like cables and pipelines faces growing sabotage risks from hybrid warfare threats.

Nord Stream showed the vulnerability

In September 2022, explosions deliberately sabotaged Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea, exposing how vulnerable critical underwater infrastructure had become after decades of neglect.

“This has been neglected for quite a long time, so it's quite a lot of catching up to be done.”

1.5 million kilometers of cables at risk

More than 1.5 million kilometers of submarine communications cables operate globally, alongside oil and gas pipelines and subsea power cables connecting offshore wind farms to land.

“Our whole economy is built on top of this.”

Defense firms see opportunity

Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri announced plans in July to acquire majority stakes in four companies for around 600 million euros to expand into underwater drones, marine surveying and subsea communications.

Motherships coordinate drone networks

Fincantieri's CEO envisions future surface ships acting as motherships that coordinate networks of autonomous vehicles operating above and throughout the water column to monitor seabed infrastructure.

“underwater telecommunications as the real enabler of this new ecosystem.”

Thales and others join the race

Major defense groups including France's Thales have established businesses spanning sonar, anti-submarine warfare, mine detection and autonomous underwater systems to compete in the emerging underwater market.

GreyShark patrols the seabed

Germany-based Euroatlas developed GreyShark, an autonomous underwater vehicle that can travel to assigned areas and complete missions without continuous human control, identifying obstacles and reporting discoveries.

Drones solve the scale problem

Fleets of autonomous vehicles patrolling strategic seabed areas are more cost-effective than using frigates and submarines, which are too expensive and scarce to maintain continuous presence across vast ocean stretches.

“It is virtually impossible to cover the entire ocean.”

Anti-drone warfare emerges underwater

As countries develop autonomous underwater vehicles, new anti-AUV missions are emerging to detect and identify unmanned vehicles operated by rival nations, creating machine-on-machine conflict scenarios.

“What we are building, so are our non-allies or our enemies building as well.”

Crewed and autonomous systems combine

Rather than replacing conventional submarines and warships, navies will increasingly combine crewed and autonomous systems, making interoperability between them increasingly important for future operations.

Endurance remains a bottleneck

Euroatlas is developing a hydrogen fuel-cell version of GreyShark designed for up to 16 weeks underwater or 8,000 nautical miles, though the company has not yet demonstrated that endurance in practice.

Nobody can protect it all

A fundamental problem remains: no one can realistically protect every mile of the 1 million plus kilometers of seabed infrastructure, even with advanced autonomous technology and increased investment.

“I don't think anyone would pretend that we can protect a network of a million kilometers plus.”

Who pays for protection?

Private companies traditionally owned and maintained subsea infrastructure, but protecting it against deliberate sabotage increasingly requires government involvement, raising questions about responsibility and funding.

Underwater tech lags far behind

Operating autonomously underwater is considerably harder than in the air due to poor visibility, difficult communications and different signal propagation, making underwater drones far less advanced than aerial drones used in Ukraine.

“This is not technology that's anywhere near the level of the drones we see in Ukraine.”

Drones are helpful, not a fix

Autonomous underwater vehicles provide deterrence and surveillance value but cannot fully secure the seabed, as technology remains immature and the scale of infrastructure is simply too vast to protect completely.

“It's helpful. It's mostly about deterrence and signaling. It's not a panacea that's going to fix it.”