NATO wants to prevent sabotage of Internet cables in the sea. To do this, it wants to deploy drones to protect the Internet.
You may have caught on: lately, Internet cables lying on the seabed are suddenly being damaged. One suspects sabotage, looking mainly at Russia. To protect the Internet, NATO is considering deploying drones.
But how do those drones work in and underwater, and can our Internet really be protected? We explain.
NATO wants to protect the internet
You probably don’t realize it, but our Internet doesn’t just appear out of thin air (unless you have a subscription to Elon Musk’s Starlink). Most of our Internet traffic travels through huge cables. Some of these lie at the bottom of the sea to provide connections between continents.
If a cable is damaged, it need not cause major problems immediately. But as recently evidenced in the Baltic Sea, sabotage can have more serious consequences. On Nov. 17 and 18, two NATO countries’ underground Internet cables were sabotaged there.
Why are there internet cables in the sea?
Undersea fiber optic cables are the foundation of global Internet. They connect continents through thousands of miles of cable on the ocean floor. These cables have enormous capacity and speed. These cables are laid by special ships and are essential to the global Internet today. Among other things, they allow international transactions to take place, making them indispensable to the economy.
A cable between Lithuania and Sweden was cut and a cable between Germany and Finland damaged. Besides the frustration of not being able to watch Netflix, for example, this also compromises security. Logical that NATO should take action.
NATO wants to prevent this at all costs. But how can you protect the seabed? Submarines could patrol, but they can’t keep an eye on everything and it costs a lot of time and money. That’s why NATO has another idea: drones.
This is how drones work underwater
When you think of drones, you probably think mostly of devices that fly through the air, but they can also be used in other ways. For cable protection, NATO would like to deploy unmanned surface vessels, also called unmanned surface vessels (USVs).
NATO is still in the early stages of developing this unmanned fleet. First, the focus is on surface drones. In the future, undersea drones could also be deployed. The plan is said to have already been approved by NATO’s central command center for all naval forces.
For this technology, NATO appears to be relying on the U.S. Navy’s TASK Force 59, reports Defense News. This unit has already conducted several experiments with drone formations and deployment platforms, including in the Gulf region. There, a unit operates out of Bahrain using artificial intelligence along with manned ships.
With these developments, NATO seems determined to prevent sabotage of undersea cables as much as possible. The alliance has at least been alerted by recent events.
