Defence & security capability for Mauritania

Mauritania's Atlantic waters are among the richest fishing grounds in the world, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing drains a coastal economy that depends on them while undermining sovereignty over a vast exclusive economic zone. The theft happens far beyond the horizon, out of sight of any shore.

Mauritania's land borders stretch across vast Saharan terrain toward Mali, Algeria, Senegal and Western Sahara, frontiers that exist on the map but not on the ground. With a small population spread thinly across a huge territory, no patrol line can hold ground where posts are days apart.

Mauritania's mineral wealth (iron ore around Zouerate, gold and other resources across the desert interior) draws unlicensed extraction that strips national resources and operates far from any road or authority. The activity happens in remote terrain the state cannot easily see or reach.

Mauritania's vast desert interior and its eastern approaches toward the Sahel place it alongside a region where militant networks exploit remote terrain, porous borders and unprotected communications. Seeing those networks before they act, across ground the state cannot patrol continuously, is central to keeping the country stable.

Mauritania's Atlantic coastline fronts one of the world's richest fishing zones and busy offshore approaches, yet coastal radar reaches only so far and the gaps between stations are exploited daily. Extending the maritime picture from the beach to the edge of the EEZ is essential to protecting the resource and the coast.

Sustaining forces across Mauritania's vast desert interior exposes convoys to long, vulnerable routes and strains limited budgets. With a small population spread over a huge territory, keeping remote operations supplied and connected is a challenge in its own right.

Contraband, fuel and untaxed goods cross Mauritania's borders wherever surveillance is thinnest: the eastern desert frontiers toward Mali and Algeria and the routes along the coast, draining customs revenue across a territory too large to patrol. The traffic moves precisely through the ground no one is watching.

Mauritania sits on migration routes running across the Sahara and along the Atlantic coast, where trafficking networks move people through desert and sea at terrible human cost. Its vast interior and long shoreline are two faces of the same challenge, and finding convoys and vessels early is as much about saving lives as enforcement.

Mauritania's Atlantic coast carries the fishing traffic and offshore commerce its economy depends on, and armed robbery at sea and piracy raise insurance costs, deter shipping and endanger seafarers. Protecting the sea lanes and the fishing fleet means detecting threats early across a wide maritime zone.

A single picture of a nation's waters, orbit to harbour, for EEZ enforcement, illegal-fishing detection and port security, held on national tasking rather than a coalition's.

Persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance across land, sea and air, tasked on national priorities and accountable to the flag that owns it.

Command-and-control links that adapt in the field and keep working where terrestrial networks cannot reach, owned outright with no partner able to listen in or cut the line.

Layered defence against hostile unmanned aircraft: detection, tracking and defeat priced for the mass threat rather than a missile economy that empties the magazine first.

Hardened control systems, security that works with the network down, and inspection that certifies the physical estate, the unglamorous half of national defence that decides the loud half.