According to the website of Defense News magazine on November 15th, NATO has tested a series of underwater sensors manufactured by the alliance to protect critical infrastructure in the ocean by sending divers and unmanned underwater vehicles to secretly bypass them. According to the report, the experimental activity was held on November 14th, jointly organized by the Allied Special Operations Forces Command (SOFCOM) and the NATO Maritime Research and Experiment Center located in La Spezia, Italy. This test was conducted against the backdrop of the first "Brave Machine" exercise in 2024. The exercise includes having special forces personnel equipped with different devices such as diving propulsion systems pass through the detection system to assess whether they will be detected and help engineers better understand changes in signal characteristics. Officials stated that several companies provided various sensors for this exercise to detect various signals such as acoustic signals, magnetic signals, passive signals, and electrical signals. The organizers of the exercise will connect sensor readings with an augmented reality simulator to provide analysts with an intuitive experience. The biggest challenge facing military underwater signal feature management is uncertainty. Kurt Mueller, a US Navy colonel and director of SOFCOM's Maritime Development Department, said in an interview with Defense News, "The biggest challenge is not knowing if you have been discovered or if you have been detected... It needs to be understood that there is a system that can detect you, but you know nothing about it and don't know what capabilities it has." Mueller said that the Ukrainian war was the driving force behind the "Brave Machine" exercise, as Russia's bombing on land and sea caused huge damage to critical infrastructure. He said, "Russia is attacking Ukraine's infrastructure. For them, this is almost a more feasible target than the Ukrainian military. This makes us pause and reflect: how fragile are we? If special operations forces can play a role in verifying this technology, it will bring returns to our country and NATO." According to the NATO website, the role of SOFCOM is to deter the alliance's two major threats in peacetime and defend against them in crisis: Russia and terrorist organizations. The rapid spread of manned and unmanned underwater systems, as well as the improvement of maritime activities, have changed the pattern of ocean warfare, increased the intensity of competition in ocean space, and generated new types of threats. According to M ü ller, protecting critical underwater structures involves a significant amount of "political interests" because in many cases, these buildings do not belong to any country and are not within the borders of any country, which means that joint action by multiple countries is needed to protect these buildings. (New Society)