The Chief of Staff of the Navy (CEMA), Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, said in an interview with Agência Lusa that he will propose the purchase of two more submarines to the next government of the Republic. He intends to modernize two frigates within three years and obtain two refueling ships.
Meanwhile, a contract will be signed on the 29th for acquiring six Ocean Patrol Vessels, which should be in service by 2031 and already have anti-submarine warfare capabilities.
The justification for the investment is the Azores. “We are in a crucial area for logistical movements between the Americas and Europe and this is crucial for NATO’s logistical movement. If we Portuguese, who have the Azores, don’t actively participate in the protection of these maritime lines of communication, whether they are for data, cargo or people, we are somehow diminishing our strategic value within the coalition itself,” he said.
According to Agência Lusa, the first of the six ships, which will arrive in 2026, was initially scheduled for delivery in 2023. Still, the Court of Auditors has twice rejected approval of the contract.
As for the two submarines, scheduled for six years from now, would be smaller and added to the two the Navy already has, the Tridente and the Arpão. The Portuguese maritime extension, the admiral believes, “demands” the investment.
“Submarines also make it possible to observe the environment without messing with it, because nobody knows they’re there, and this is a very useful function for the state, which wants to control its sea discreetly and discover activities that it can’t discover otherwise because it doesn’t have the surface capacity to really occupy such a large space,” he said in the same interview.
The Military Programming Law includes funds for the renovation of frigates, and the modernization of two more should be completed within three years, said Gouveia e Melo.

The importance of controlling the Atlantic has also been reaffirmed by the United States of America. Search and rescue missions have returned to Lajes Base, and Russian submarines moving in the ocean are at the center of this attention.
In an interview with “Diário de Notícias” in July, the then-second US commander of the Lajes Base, Shawn Littleton, said that in the next 20 to 50 years, Lajes should be the “most strategically significant base the US has access to in Europe.”
Brian Hardeman, former US commander of the Lajes Base and the 65th Air Base Group, argued in August, at the surrender of command ceremony, that “it is undeniable that the strategic location in the North Atlantic makes access to the Azores, especially to No. 4 Air Base, of paramount interest to China”.
“The location of Lajes and Morón (a Spanish military base) allows them to act as strategic power projection platforms, which make it possible for bombers and fighters to remain outside the Russian threat area, but close enough to support the European deterrence initiative and the operation in the Middle East,” he said.

in Diário Insular–José Lourenço-director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University.