NATO is stepping up monitoring of submarines after the defense alliance warned that Moscow is mapping European Union and US critical underwater assets, according to Bloomberg.
Allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have spent much of the last 12 days scouring the seas off the coasts of Norway and Iceland for a fictitious enemy submarine, an exercise aimed at sharpening abilities to hunt for vessels deployed by Russia and other nations.
“The asymmetric threat of a submarine is in its stealth, the fact that the other nations generally do not know where they’re operating,” US Navy Rear Admiral Stephen Mack, Commander, Submarines NATO, said in an interview. Because of that, “it’s important for us to train the alliance on how to understand the environment that the submarines will be trying to exploit to stay hidden.”
Submarines are one of Russia’s advanced capabilities that have remained largely untouched in its war in Ukraine. With a substantial fleet of nuclear-powered vessels, including ballistic missile and nuclear attack submarines, they remain a potential threat to the alliance also for more covert attacks.
NATO warned Wednesday of a significant risk that Moscow could target infrastructure in Europe and North America.
As part of the exercise dubbed Dynamic Mongoose, which started April 24 and ends Friday, 12 NATO nations, including the US, Canada, Spain and Portugal, teamed up their marine patrol aircraft, surface ships and friendly subs to search for a submarine with very little information.
The exercise took place in a strategic area for the alliance, the so-called Greenland-Iceland-UK gap, through which Russian vessels need to pass to access the Atlantic Ocean.
Once there, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces could potentially disrupt commercial shipping or cut off military supply lines for the US to send reinforcements to Europe. Sabotaging underwater transatlantic data cables could inflict widespread damage.
Nuclear-powered submarines can give a tactical edge by generating the vessel’s air and water, allowing longer stays at sea. Diesel-powered submarines however need to replenish their batteries more often, potentially exposing their location.
To track them, aircraft drop sonar buoys, while surface ships look out for any surfacing vessels and friendly submarines typically emit passive sonars to identify another submarine. All of them can face weather-related challenges especially in areas like the Atlantic.
“Anti-submarine warfare requires all three warfare disciplines to be most effective and specifically that coordination between the air, the surface and the friendly sub surface team,” Mack said.