Following a series of undersea cable sabotages in Europe, NATO has laid a plan to form a fleet of USVs for surveillance.
In his interview with Defense News, Admiral Pierre Vandier stated that USVs will act as "street cameras" to strengthen undersea security.
In November, two incidents where Lithuania-Sweden and Germany-Finland undersea cables were damaged.
The introduction of USVs into the undersea security will consist of existing and tested platforms. Vandier gave the example of USN's TF59 operating USVs in the Gulf and the tests during the Digital Talon exercise.
Turkiye and France are also actively working on USVs for undersea warfare. Turkiye's works include ULAQ's ASW configuration fitted with sonars and MIR USV, which has launched a torpedo. France's Inspector 125 USV to carry and deploy UUVs was picked for Belgian-Dutch rMCM ships.
Vandier underlined that the details for what types of USVs will be acquired are still being worked on, but MARCOM supports the idea.
