Mine warfare is re-emerging as one of the most consequential and underappreciated warfaredomains. Advanced ships and weapon systems oftenovershadow mine warfare. However, sea mines canhave a far greater impact than their cost and ease of deployment suggest.
For decades, mine warfare received very little attention. As a result, many NATO navies now have ageing mine-laying capability, limited mine stocks and a weaker industrial and operational base. Dedicated mine warfare ships have mostly been replaced by multi-role vessels. At the same time, specialist knowledge has declined. Meanwhile, countries such as Russia and Iran have kept or expanded their mine inventories and adopted flexible deployment concepts, including smaller vessels and unmanned systems.
Current approaches no longer match today’s threats. Naval forces now operate in more contested environments across several domains, and mine warfare has reclaimed its importance as a key access denial strategy. The ability to deploy mines and rapidly detect threats and reopen sea routes are no longer niche skills that can be handled by a few specialised platforms.
This whitepaper aims to inform of what is required to develop sustainable and scalable mine warfare capabilities for the future maritime battlespace. Therefore, it has been sought to minimise the use of military jargon – and if it is unavoidable – to explain the concepts.