Nearly 50 recon and intel Marines headed to undersea cable guard duty in Europe

A team of close to 50 reconnaissance and intelligence-focused Marines are being sent to join a NATO mission that oversees the network of undersea internet cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

The Marines are being sent to join the NATO-led operation due, at least in part, to their expertise with unmanned reconnaissance drones and other tactical intelligence-gathering skills. In a Marine Corps press release, the senior officer in the Finnish Navy said the Marines would work alongside Finns and other NATO forces to monitor waters in the Baltic, which are crisscrossed with data cables and natural gas pipelines.

“The experience, skills and systems of the U.S. Marine Corps are perfectly suited for supplementing our situation picture and supporting our monitoring of the Baltic Sea,” said Chief of Operations of the Finnish Navy Capt. Johan Tillander.

The roughly four dozen Marines are from the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, and the II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, both of which are based at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Reconnaissance Marines are widely known as the service’s elite light infantry, but their primary capabilities are the passive skills of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR. The Information Group is an intelligence analysis unit trained to keep commanders apprised of ISR sources like those collected by recon units.

Both units were in Europe on training rotations, the Marine release said, when they were reassigned to the Baltic operation, dubbed Enhanced Vigilance Activity Baltic Sentry, to “operate alongside the Finnish Coastal Brigade to provide advanced expeditionary surveillance and tactical reconnaissance capabilities. The rotation will leverage the unique capabilities of Reconnaissance Marines, including small Unmanned Aerial Systems and littoral sensors, to feed vital data directly into the shared NATO common operational picture.”

The waters of the Baltic Sea — and the seafloor beneath them — have been an increasingly active front in the simmering conflict between Russia and NATO after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In September 2022, an undersea explosion broke the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines between Germany and Russia. A Ukrainian intelligence officer went on trial this month in Germany on charges related to the destruction.

Since the Nord Stream attacks, more than half a dozen other attempts have been made to disable or cut pipelines or data networks on the floor of the Baltic.