Publication of Policy Papers for the SPF Project “Cooperation Between European and Indo-Pacific Powers in the U.S. Alliance System”
IINA (International Information Network Analysis) hosts a series of policy papers featuring analyses and insights from U.S., Japanese, South Korean, Australian and European experts, which discuss constructive cooperation among U.S. allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. The series aims to provide readers with valuable perspectives on the future of NATO-IP4 (Indo-Pacific 4) cooperation for regional and global security.
NATO efforts to establish defense cooperation with IP4 partners are more likely to succeed if their focus is on the immediate operational demands that defense forces face across the North Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theaters. One feasible area for NATO to play a role is joint sustainment tools. Navigating and prevailing in a contested logistics environment means ensuring that logistics, supply chain operations, and transportation capabilities are resilient and can operate effectively in hostile settings.
NATO’s partnerships with Japan and South Korea offer a unique opportunity to develop coordinated sustainment strategies with AUVs in a key role across the transatlantic and Indo-Pacific theatres. Such strategies would help mitigate the complex nuclear threats emerging from Russia-China Arctic collaboration. The advent of commercial space has reduced the urgency for some militaries of deploying AUVs for surveillance of surface activities. However, commercial space companies lack good coverage of the polar regions, so systems such as AUVs or even passing gliders can provide valuable insights on activities such as shipping patterns and naval operations. In addition, AUVs can provide undersea surveillance of infrastructure, submarine activity, and environmental conditions.
Japan and South Korea have long-standing Arctic interests. Both have operated research vessels in the Arctic since the 1990s. as permanent observers of the Arctic Council since 2013, Japan and South Korea have more opportunities to legitimately pursue their Arctic interests. Japan and South Korea also have formidable expertise and knowhow in shipbuilding, sustainability and the development of AI-powered autonomous and smart systems that can contribute significantly to safeguarding the strategic interests of NATO allies and partners in the Arctic.
Russia’s defense footprint across its Arctic coastline is increasing, with China as an enabler of infrastructure and operational developments. Russia’s ballistic missile submarines deployed at the Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea constitute a nuclear threat to the US homeland. Investments in AUVs will further diversify Russia’s means of launching nuclear weapons.
Russia-China collaboration to sustain this threat includes undersea operations to disrupt NATO communications and data infrastructure and the sharing of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) derived from ship transits and satellite transmissions. Russia has fitted its submarine bases in the Vladivostok area, south of the Bering Sea, with new hardened submarine shelter pens and repair and maintenance facilities to avoid dependence on Northern Fleet facilities on the Kola Peninsula at the other end of Eurasia. Russia-China base-sharing arrangements near the Bering Strait entrance to Russia’s Arctic coastline strengthen interoperability, and Moscow and Beijing’s joint exercises test NATO responses. In 2024, two Russian and two Chinese nuclear-capable bombers conducted a joint air patrol in Alaska’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), demonstrating a willingness to extend cooperation to their strategic nuclear forces.
Coupling Russia’s Arctic coastline to China’s Polar Silk Road facilitates the two countries’ collaboration, allowing them to operate across the Arctic. Russia and China are partnering to expand the Russian port Zarubino, which is southwest of Vladivostok, and make it the biggest in Northeast Asia. The port connects directly to the Chinese mainland by rail. In 2024, Russia’s Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom and the Chinese shipping company Hainan Yangpu NewNew Shipping announced a joint venture to operate an all-year container route. They agreed to build five ice-class container ships and invest in infrastructure along the Northern Sea Route to overcome the logistics challenges of operating a year-round container route. With access to repair and replenishment facilities in Russia’s Arctic harbors, China can operate independently across Russia’s Arctic coastline. Beijing has domestically built icebreakers and semi-submersible heavy lift vessels to carry out salvage operations. Furthermore, China is helping Russia to digitalize the Northern Sea Route, and Russia has used Chinese optical fiber to build the Polar Express undersea cable, which is expected to provide internet to all of Russia’s Arctic region by 2026.
NATO should mirror Russia-China collaboration in the Arctic by initiating defense collaboration between the North Atlantic and Indo-Pacific theaters. Drone technology is steadily advancing in the maritime sectors of NATO members and their Indo-Pacific partners. The United States is testing an uncrewed surface fleet, and Japan has a new AUV specifically for long-term operations in the pipeline and will complete it in 2027. The new AUV will be capable of autonomous navigation and can host cameras, sonar, and communication devices. Different AUVs could be involved to address the operational challenges in the Arctic, which suggests the need for a diverse portfolio of systems. With the lack of friendly infrastructure ashore along Russia’s 24,000 kilometer Arctic coast, AUVs would need to travel long distances without support. That suggests environmentally-powered vehicles like underwater or surface wave gliders that can do passive acoustic surveillance for shipping or submarines. In other parts of the Arctic, NATO and Asian allies would be able to deploy AUVs from ships or shore, which could allow powered AUVs that can do more sophisticated operations like bottom mapping or infrastructure surveys.
Japan and Australia both aim to counter growing Chinese military and hybrid assertiveness across the Indo-Pacific. The establishment of a joint ISR network based on AUVs will allow them to collect maritime information beyond their individual capabilities. For example, Japan acquires intel from the South China Sea and the South Pacific, whereas Australia does so from the East China Sea and Western Pacific. They have agreed to increase their interoperability, which will help them to enhance their surveillance of China. Japan aims to employ multiple AUVs at the same time in a coordinated operation. Future projects also include the potential for joint development with Australia.
If Japan fits its AUVs to operate in the Arctic, it could similarly use them for coordinated operations with Arctic NATO allies. This action would significantly add to regional ISR capabilities and would hence strengthen allied monitoring and response options along the Arctic coastline from the Bering Strait to the Barents Sea and further out to the Atlantic. In addition, NATO’s Arctic allies would acquire ISR from the East China Sea and Western Pacific.
South Korea is also developing domestically produced AUVs for long-term operations. Hanwha Systems has signed a deal with South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development to develop a multipurpose AUV with a payload for weapons. The AUV will enable the navy to independently perform underwater operations, including ISR and naval mine warfare. The agency has scheduled a prototype for testing in 2027. Like Japan’s, South Korea’s navy operates jointly with the US Navy and is also discussing joint warship development projects with Australia. If South Korean AUVs participate in coordinated undersea ISR operations with transatlantic allies and partners, NATO would have that information from the Yellow Sea.
Their maritime industrial profiles make Japan and South Korea competitors in the same markets. However, those same characteristics make them ideal partners for a joint undersea operations network in the Arctic that would strengthen the force posture of US allies against Russia’s China-enabled military buildup. Both Japan and South Korea collaborate with the United States to counter possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China, and North Korea over their nuclear capabilities. Coordinated AUV operations between transatlantic allies facing a nuclear threat at the western entrance to Eurasia and Indo-Pacific allies facing a nuclear threat at the eastern end of Eurasia would greatly strengthen the US alliance system to mitigate nuclear threats from Eurasian and Northeast Asian adversaries. Because South Korea has an Arctic and maritime profile similar to Japan’s, US Arctic allies should include Seoul in coordinated AUV operations, focusing on the Bering Strait region. In addition, the capabilities described here are applicable to allied interests in the southern polar region. Australia, France, the UK, and Norway all have Antarctic claims that are challenged by China’s increasing presence.
Coordinated AUV operations require building AUVs to operate in Arctic conditions, including developing batteries that allow long-term operations over long distances and space communication tools that allow for data transmission in extreme Arctic weather conditions. The US Department of Defense’s 2024 Arctic Strategy announced that these operational challenges have priority in US cooperation with NATO allies and partners. Japan and South Korea have long-standing Arctic interests and maritime and defense industrial interests that make them obvious partner countries in these defense industrial efforts.
To coordinate AUV development and operations, NATO-IP4 needs to include these autonomous systems in an operational framework that facilitates their integration into joint operational concepts and doctrines for the Arctic region. NATO should initiate discussion of these issues now to prepare for the launch of Arctic-capable AUVs for long-range operations. NATO’s Modelling and Simulation Centre of Excellence in Rome is designed for this task. One of its focus areas is interdomain and interdisciplinary exchange, which (1) investigates the use of modeling and simulation to integrate systems with autonomous capabilities in operational scenarios and (2) supports coalition interoperability. NATO’s Office of the Chief Scientist at its Brussels headquarters should also be involved to ensure that leading-edge science and technology supporting the alliance’s cooperative security efforts form the basis of Arctic coordination with Indo-Pacific partners.
Liselotte Odgaard would like to acknowledge precious help and feedback from Klaus Sørensen, Sune Lund, and Bryan Clark.
(2025/03/21)