The Netherlands plans to spend as much as €250 million (U.S. $274 million) on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in the North Sea to protect the cables and pipelines that crisscross the seabed off its coast. The Defence Ministry will mount cameras, radar systems and automatic identification system trackers on drilling platforms and offshore wind turbines, as well as buy satellite capacity to observe ship movements. The Netherlands also plans to buy two vessels with underwater monitoring technology.
Seabed warfare has become a hot topic for European nations after last year’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. The government of the Netherlands considers offshore infrastructure essential to the Dutch economy and national security. The current threats are primarily surface vessels carrying out “undesirable underwater activities.” The costs of boosting the Dutch ISR capability in the North Sea will be between €50 million and €250 million. The Netherlands anticipates offshore wind will become the largest source of sustainable energy for Europe.
