SeaSEC: The international collaboration that is helping to protect our critical underwater infrastructure

Type: Behind the story
Topic: Impact
Topic: Legal & Policy
Publication date: 20 Jun 2025

The coast and seabed of The Hague is a key testing ground for new initiatives to defend the North Sea from emerging global threats. We are used to seeing modern warfare conducted from the air with missiles and drones, but there is also an increasing threat from under the sea.

In 2022 the Nord Stream gas pipelines connecting Russia and Germany were sabotaged causing severe disruption and affecting the power supply of much of Europe. 

In the wake of this and other threats, the six countries with shallow-water coastlines along the Baltic Sea and the North Sea came together to found the Seabed Security Experimentation Centre - or SeaSEC - which is tasked with developing new technologies to protect undersea infrastructure.

Interview with Carine van Bentum About the work within the SeaSEC project.

SeaSEC protects northern seabed infrastructure

SeaSEC is a unique collaboration. The Ministries of Defence of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands, who already form an alliance known as the Northern Naval Capability Cooperation, work alongside stakeholders in the private sector to safeguard critical power pipelines and communications cables buried beneath the seabed.  

Carine van Bentum, Director, SeaSEC “We are basically blind in the water. GPS doesn’t work underwater. Your Wifi signal goes one metre. Your visibility in the North Sea is also one metre. The only way you can work underwater is with sonar, but the water in the North Sea is also very shallow, so even if you have a sound signal, it reflects quickly off both the sea bed and the surface, causing a lot of echo and noise. That presents a challenging environment for developing a clear understanding of the underwater environment.”

Scheveningen hosts seabed security exercises

In such difficult conditions, SeaSEC has engaged more than 20 commercial organizations and research institutes. In May 2025, they participated in a Challenge Week at SeaSEC’s maritime testing grounds off the coast of Scheveningen near The Hague. The companies were asked to perform tasks such as mapping the seabed, and identifying threats such as mines and drones. At the end of the week, the Ministries of Defence were able to identify solutions that might be ready for deployment in military or operational environments. 

But such a diversity of stakeholders across six individual countries can bring further challenges in terms of decision-making and overcoming administrative barriers that can slow down procurement and the implementation of any new technologies. 

Carine van Bentum, Director, SeaSEC “Critical undersea infrastructure is a new threat and that means no single country or department really ‘owns it’ yet. On one hand that makes collaboration easier because we can develop new initiatives from scratch without interference, but it is also harder because no departments are ready or willing to take ownership and make important decisions. But the threat is currently so high we all feel the need to collaborate and share data and intelligence.”

A critical part of SeaSEC’s mission is the idea of action over rhetoric, so there is a clear imperative for the six governments to do what they can to speed up and streamline collaborative undersea infrastructure projects. 

Carine van Bentum, Director, SeaSEC “Our mission is that we are doing things right now. Instead of just talking about the urgency of critical undersea infrastructure, we are actually doing something to solve the issue. Initiatives like the Challenge Week have shown key stakeholders that there ARE solutions that are available. We just have to build awareness and enthusiasm that will motivate decision makers to take the steps needed to implement them. But we have to speed up. While we are operating in the grey zone between war and peace, it is difficult for governments to prioritize these types of projects. Only when the worst happens, like in Ukraine, do decisions get made. Unfortunately, by then, it is often too late.”

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Seabed Security Experimentation Centre

Accelerating the development and adoption of capabilities to secure undersea infrastructure in shallow waters