Ce qu’a été cette campagne
Launched in January 2025 after repeated damage to Baltic cables and pipelines, Baltic Sentry deploys frigates, patrol aircraft and naval drones and integrates national surveillance. It is the module's first standing activity against hybrid pressure, and it attributes no incident to anyone.
The Baltic Sea is enclosed by Allied and partner coastlines except at the Russian shores, and the electricity, gas and data links crossing it belong to civilian operators rather than to militaries. Baltic Sentry is how the Alliance put a military watch over civilian infrastructure without owning it, and it is the mechanism through which damage to a cable became an alliance matter rather than an operator's insurance claim.
Confiance : élevée Au 2026-09Revu le 2026-09-21
Synthèse
NATO states that following several incidents involving critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea it launched the enhanced vigilance activity Baltic Sentry in January 2025, and that since then the activity has enhanced the security of that infrastructure by deploying a range of assets including frigates, maritime patrol aircraft and a fleet of naval drones. NATO says it is working with Allies to integrate national surveillance assets, improving the ability to detect threats to critical undersea infrastructure and respond if required. The activity is described as multi-domain and as a way of countering destabilising acts in the Baltic Sea. NATO later stated that Eastern Sentry builds on the experience of Baltic Sentry.
Objectifs déclarés
Ce que disent les participants. Chaque entrée cite où la position a été exprimée ; Vigil consigne qu’elle a été exprimée, non qu’elle est vraie.
To enhance the security of critical undersea infrastructure by deploying maritime and air assets and integrating national surveillance, improving the ability to detect threats and respond if required.
NATO's own description of the activity.
Objectifs évalués
La lecture de Vigil, assortie d’un degré de confiance. Tenue structurellement à l’écart des positions déclarées, afin qu’une évaluation ne puisse jamais être publiée comme l’objectif déclaré de quelqu’un.
Its deterrent logic is observation rather than protection: the seabed cannot be guarded along its length, so what the activity changes is the probability that a vessel's behaviour is watched, recorded and attributable at the time it occurs.
Forces principales
- Allied Maritime Command Primary force · Confidence: Moderate · as of 2026-09-21
Allied Maritime Command is NATO's maritime command and the parent of the standing naval forces; no source read assigns it a defined command role in this activity, and none is asserted.
Soutiens et acteurs extérieurs
- Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group One Supporting force · Confidence: Low · as of 2026-09-21
A standing mine countermeasures group under Allied Maritime Command, recorded here because mine countermeasures is the capability nearest the seabed question. NATO does not publish which standing forces contribute to the activity, and no contribution is claimed.
Issue et situation actuelle
Running since January 2025 and named by NATO in June 2026 as a current eastern-flank maritime activity. NATO states that Eastern Sentry builds on its experience, which makes it the template for the flank-wide activity that followed rather than a superseded arrangement.
Adaptations observées
NATO describes the integration of national surveillance assets as part of the activity rather than as a separate programme, which makes it a coordination mechanism over capabilities Allies already held as much as a deployment of new ones.
Implications politiques
It commits the Alliance to a continuous response to a class of incident whose attribution remains, in every case in this module, unresolved or contested — which is a political exposure as much as a military one.
Implications militaires
The activity is surveillance and presence, not protection of a line. Its military contribution is detection and the attribution of behaviour at the time it occurs.
Implications économiques
The assets under watch are commercial: interconnectors, gas pipelines and telecommunications cables owned by operators, whose repair costs and outage consequences fall outside the alliance entirely.
Événements liés
Lieux
Lieux que ce module publie déjà comme repères cartographiques, listés parce que la campagne les concerne. Pas une zone d’opérations.
Ce qui reste inconnu
- NATO publishes no participating units, vessel names, numbers or areas for the activity, and none is carried here.
- Whether the standing naval forces contribute to it is not published.
- No end date, review point or success criterion has been published.
Lectures que les éléments permettent aussi
- The activity's launch can be read as a response to a campaign of sabotage, or as a response to a rise in accidental anchor damage in a crowded and shallow sea with an ageing shadow fleet crossing it. The public findings support both readings in different cases, and this module records the cases rather than choosing between the readings.
Figure ici parce que l’évaluation propre à la fiche n’est pas la seule que ses sources permettent — et non comme une réserve sur l’évaluation ci-dessus.
Si un incident relevant de l’activité aboutit à une attribution à un État
No occurrence in the module's undersea set has reached state attribution. The first that did would change what the activity is understood to be responding to.
Si les moyens de l’activité sont publiés
NATO names asset classes — frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, naval drones — and not units or numbers. A published order of battle would be a change in NATO's own disclosure practice.
Questions Watch que cette campagne concerne
Questions analytiques permanentes dont les éléments passent par cette campagne, chacune avec sa dernière revue. Dérivées de l’objet Watch, jamais reformulées ici.
Voir dans Explorer la force qui conduit cette campagne Interactif : sélectionnez cette fiche et suivez ce qui s’y rattache.
Évalué au — 2026-09 Dernière revue — 2026-09-21