“We are committed to maintaining and enhancing the security and resilience of critical undersea infrastructure,” Defense Minister Luke Pollard told MPs last week. “Just as the defense secretary called out the activities of the Russian spy ship Yantar hovering over our undersea cables, let those who threaten the U.K. or our allies be in no doubt that we will defend our undersea infrastructure.”
The SDR, ordered by Prime Minister Keir Starmer shortly after taking office, is being led by former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, and will look at a range of threats. Pollard told Dhesi’s committee last week that Robertson’s work should be complete by the spring.
Starmer announced in February that defense spending would increase to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, rising to 3 percent beyond 2029.
However, Kaushal warned that options for repelling the threat of Russian sabotage in international waters might be limited. It is impossible constantly to monitor thousands of miles of pipeline or cable, and the Royal Navy would be legally constrained in what it could do to stop a Russian vessel in international waters during peacetime, Kaushal said.
Since the Nord Stream attacks, NATO navies have increased patrols around critical subsea infrastructure, in an effort to deter would-be saboteurs. But Kaushal said that adding more vessels to these efforts was unlikely to change the security picture.
The U.K. should instead concentrate its efforts on threats to infrastructure that could cause the most disruption, he argued.
“When it comes to [sabotage of] undersea cables, this is a slightly overblown threat, at least as far as it pertains to civilian cables. Military cables are a much smaller subset, and them being severed would have really significant ramifications,” Kaushal said.
“Or focus more heavily on gas — because that is an area where the grid really is dependent on a few points like [the] Langeled [pipeline].”