First he created Defense his Joint Cyberspace Command. Later, it expanded the objectives of the Air Force, renaming it the Air and Space Army. Now, after covering the Armed Forces the cyber domain and the ultraterrestrial domain, it is up to the Navy to expand their missions to a hitherto inaccessible domain: the seabed. The Navy is discussing the threats to Spain at the bottom of the sea and how to tackle them -report sources linked to Defense policy- either under the command of the current Admiral of Maritime Action (ALMART, based in Cartagena) or, if necessary, creating a specific naval command.
Defense already looks more than 1,000 kilometers up, but has not yet managed to follow what happens beyond 1,000 meters underwater. Almost no country can patrol deepbut being in that space of sovereignty is an increasingly crucial strategic necessity: 98% of the internet data flow reaches Spain by submarine cable; Whoever cut off that flow would hit 98% of our international financial transactions.
This Defense concern is also linked to the development of important infrastructures. Algerian gas up a submerged pipeline; the plans for offshore wind farms -soon the first auction for the Canary Islands- provide for anchoring mills on the ocean floor; and the disruptive energy commitment of the country, the BarMar Hydroduct, involves taking two million tons of green hydrogen per year from Barcelona to Marseilles by a vulnerable 11-inch tube wide for 455 kilometers and with 2,500 meters of Mediterranean water above.
This strategic project of the Government reinforces the conviction of civilian and military Defense advisers to expand the capacity on the most impassable of military domains. “We risked too much to be lateand the expansion of investment in Defense is the opportunity,” a member of the leadership of the Armed Forces of those who think about acquisitions told EL PERIÓDICO.
The debate has been gaining urgency since whoever burst under the Baltic the Nordstream 2 pipelinelast September, demonstrated a disturbing double capacity: stealth in sabotage and impossibility of attribution. The seismographs confirmed that it was an explosion, but there is still no public report that confirms who pulled the detonator.
anti RURP mission
In the Navy, the discussion is still “on the theoretical level and the exchange of papers,” says the aforementioned source. “Spain and also NATO and the EU are thinking of making the system more resilient,” confirms Captain Miguel Cuartero, head of the Strategic Plans Section of the Navy General Staff. The problem of protecting these infrastructures is addressed, not only on the seabed, but also on arrival on land.”
There are starting certainties: the first, that the defense of that domain can only be robotic, is the only Spanish territory that they cannot step on the humans; the second, that because the submerged territory is so vast and there are so many infrastructures, there must first be a political decision on what and how much is a priority guard. This concerns not only Defense, but also the ministries of Economy, Industry, Ecological Transition, Interior and the Presidency of the Government itself.
Since the invasion of Ukraine began, there have been half a dozen occasions when Navy troops have detected and driven away Russian vessels that lurked in the vertical of submerged Spanish cables, that activity of fishy boats that are technically called RURP, as EL PERIÓDICO already announced.
The next National Maritime Security Strategy, published by the Department of National Security, attached to Moncloa, will warn about the need to monitor the seabed more. The last one edited is old: it dates from 2013; by then Russia was still considered a reliable actor by NATO and Crimea was still a territory of Ukraine. This guide, which will speak more emphatically than ever about the seabed, was to appear imminently, but its release to the public has been postponed due to the call for elections.
Catalan robot
From a security point of view, Spain has two types of infrastructure: essential and critical. To the second category belong those, such as the Spain-Algeria gas pipeline or data cables, on which an attack would cause a systemic impact in the country.
Until today, the Navy defends submerged infrastructures with “presence, surveillance and dissuasion operations”, he explains cuartero. It is taught, in fact, a standing order surveillance of any vessel operating near cables or gas pipelines.
But for underwater intervention there is only one main ship available, the Neptune, based in Cádiz, manufactured in 1975, which carries the Scorpio 03 robot, capable of operating at a depth of 600 meters. And mine hunters, whose action limit is 200 meters, hydrographic vessels or submerged explosives specialist divers, who can work at a maximum of 90 meters, are pulled. That is why the wait for the new BAM IS (Maritime Action and Underwater Intervention Vessel), designed for deep underwater rescue, is so pressing.
The new ship has been commissioned from the Navantia shipyard in Puerto Real (Cádiz)and will be endowed with the Leopard. In this case, it is not a combat tank, but rather the underwater robot of the same name manufactured by the Swedish company Saab, already acquired and tested in Cartagena, and which will provide the Navy with capacity for the first time intervene at 3,000 meters underwater.
Meanwhile, minesweepers and hydrographic vessels operate with a Catalan invention. It’s a drone, it’s called Sparus II, it’s cheap and it goes down to 200 meters. It develops the Girona firm IQUA Roboticsborn from a scientific project at the University of Girona.
The BAM IS is a key defense bet, parallel but not simultaneous to that of the S81 submarine, in a country that has already experienced the effects of war at the bottom of the sea. The first attack by the United States in its conflict with Spain in 1898 was precisely the cutting of a telegraph cable that linked Cuba with his metropolis.
The dangers
Before deciding whether to create a Seabed Command or whether the existing structure will suffice, “Spain will have to determine the critical elements of the system & rdquor;calculates the head of Strategic Plans of the Navy General Staff, and, just as there is a National Critical Infrastructure Plan, determine what is critical at sea and what is not.
After the political decision, additional problems must also be addressed, “such as that of what legality applies to what is monitored in international waters, because there the legislation is more diffuse& rdquor ;, he says.
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The law is diffuse, but the threats are becoming clearer. One of them, terrorist: on Amazon, without going any further, UUVs are sold, (Unnamed Undersea Vehicles or unmanned underwater vehicles) capable of descending from 50 to 100 meters for no more than 3,000 euros.
At the bottom of the sea, “the difficulty of attributing the facts” is a challenge, explains Cuartero. Down there, in the event of sabotage, “it is difficult to collect and analyze the evidence of what happened & rdquor ;. And that makes the seabed “a very favorable environment for the application of hybrid strategies in the gray area & rdquor ;.