Two Royal Netherlands Navy (RNN) surface vessels will support a combined Nato fleet in the Baltic Sea to protect critical subsea infrastructure, according to a 20 January 2025 press release.
Known as ‘Baltic Sentry’, the allied vigilance mission, launched on 14 January, responds to the suspected Russian sabotage of a Finnish and Estonian submarine cable in December 2024.
Nato will utilise the capabilities of HNLMS Luymes, a hydrographic survey ship, and flagship of the Standing Nato Mine Countermeasures Group 1, and the frigate, HNLMS Tromp, another flagship of the Standing Nato Maritime Group 1.
An additional Dutch warship, the Tripartite-class HNLMS Schiedam, will also join them in the Baltic next week.
The Dutch government confirmed that the ships will serve as part of Baltic Sentry until the end of February 2025 at least. Other allied naval forces will similarly contribute a range of assets to accompany the Dutch platforms, including frigates and maritime patrol aircraft.
Currently, the Netherlands are the primary naval contributor, but other allies, such as Germany, are in the process of sending corvettes, minehunters, and possibly P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft.
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By GlobalDataAt the time Baltic Sentry launched a week ago, Nato Secretary General, and former Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, listed possible repercussions against saboteurs engaged in this new form of grey-zone conflict: “Ship captains must understand that potential threats to our infrastructure will have consequences, including possible boarding, impounding, and arrest.”
Critical multinational infrastructure
Around 95% of international data flows via subsea cables, according to an August 2024 report published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a US security think tank.
Roughly 600 cables planned or operational worldwide, spanning 1.2m kilometres, are the world’s information superhighways.
This critical infrastructure “provides high-bandwidth connections necessary to support the rise of cloud computing and integrated 5G networks, transmitting everything from streaming videos and financial transactions to diplomatic communications and essential intelligence.”
None of this is new. Russia is already engaged in an indiscriminate campaign against Ukraine’s infrastructure – supporting both civilians and personnel – and has, it seems, resorted to cutting critical power sources in the deep to strike against Nato allies as part of the state’s wider global strategy.
Protection in the grey-zone
This has become a problem across all military domains, particularly in space, where nations also rely on communications from above.
“Space provides the basis of technologies that we use every day: communications, intelligence, surveillance, navigation timing,” commented Juliana Suess, a space defence expert, and now an associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “All these are really crucial things that are quite often forgotten about because they’re currently working.”
Such sabotage is increasingly common. These are “deniable acts short of war,” which for CSIS denotes the so-called grey-zone.
Just as governments begin to think about protecting their space assets in the grey-zone, new solutions are already emerging to protect maritime infrastructure.
An American commercial supplier, Ocean Power Technologies, offers intelligent ocean-based sensor systems that are also self-powered buoys. These systems offer crucial maritime domain awareness. These autonomous assets can be deployed to protect shipping lanes, detect and remove unexploded mines, among other missions.
Such solutions are crucial for their sustainable presence. Whereas Nato navies are limited in their forward presence as the three Dutch ships’ mere month-long stint in the Baltic indicates.
