Norway: the floating NATO listening post

DW (English)

NATO is using a special ship to find those responsible for sabotaging data cables in the Baltic Sea. Its officials suspect Vladimir Putin’s Russian shadow fleet is behind the disruptions.

Transcript

00:01This doesn't look like a battleship.

00:04And acoustics expert Gautier Real and his colleagues

00:07aboard the NRV Alliance don't look or sound like typical soldiers.

00:12I've always been focused on going on the field,

00:15collecting data and so it's a thrill every time

00:19and discovering new ambient noise, new ambient sounds.

00:24But the field this Italian acoustician researches,

00:28how sound travels deep underwater,

00:31is increasingly part of the battlefield.

00:34In the Baltic Sea for example,

00:36what they've learned there can help combat Russia's

00:39hybrid war against NATO countries.

00:42We're trying to react with new way, with what we know,

00:45our knowledge on fundamental science and how sound propagates

00:48both in the water, on the sea floor and how to adapt our behavior

00:53to this new kind of malevolent action.

00:57The new kind of malevolent action Rael mentions

01:00is the growing number of oil tankers with ties to Moscow,

01:03which have been dropping their anchors and dragging them

01:06across critical undersea cables and pipelines connecting NATO countries.

01:10These scientists from NATO's Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation,

01:14or CMRE, based in La Spezia, Italy, have now established an early warning system,

01:20so they can hear the anchors drop before they drag.

01:25It's the core of asymmetrical warfare.

01:28It's extremely low-tech, even embarrassingly low-tech,

01:31but can do a lot of damage.

01:33And so you have to think how to adapt to this kind of new threats.

01:38The strategy is that if an anchor lands on the seabed,

01:41sensors installed there will relay an alert to command centers on land,

01:45which can then dispatch NATO ships or helicopters

01:48to intercept a suspicious vessel before it can get away.

01:52That's a time advantage that hasn't existed before,

01:55as NATO grapples with how to deal with this emerging threat

01:59in the waters of its latest members, Finland and Sweden.

02:02The problem space is quite new to us, the acts of sabotage.

02:08And it helps us to understand the way we could put into use

02:16the technology that we have already developed.

02:18So it's an act of innovation, if you wish,

02:21trying to modify and add algorithms

02:25that help dealing with this problem space in a better way.

02:28That's how fast the sun travels in the water column.

02:31So what does an anchor sound like when it hits the ocean floor?

02:35We asked the CMRE scientists to share their new discovery with DW,

02:39but we were told that has to stay secret.

02:42We cannot give you the sound that we recorded of the anchor,

02:45because it also includes the sound of our own vessel,

02:48which means that our signature would be given away

02:50and others would be able to track us.

02:52That's particularly important because one of the NRV Alliance's

02:56other tasks is to detect foreign submarines trying to sneak

03:00into NATO waters.

03:02Again, Gautier-Réal points out,

03:04acousticians are on the front line.

03:06Some marines are a difficult object to detect

03:09and are usually quieter than the noise itself

03:11that you measure underwater.

03:12The environment is a big piece of the puzzle.

03:14And so if you master that, if you understand how the sun propagates

03:18from you to a target and vice versa,

03:20then you did a good job at trying to detect something.

03:22However, CMRE decided over the summer

03:25not to keep the floating laboratory itself quite so undercover.

03:30After 37 years of existence,

03:32NRV Alliance finally has NATO painted on its side.

03:37CMRE said it hoped the new branding would help keep adversaries

03:41at bay as the ship headed back to its home waters in the Mediterranean.

03:46The next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

03:48the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

03:50the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

03:52the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

03:54the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

03:56the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

03:58the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

04:00the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

04:02the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

04:04the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

04:06the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

04:08the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day,

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