The Israeli Navy plans to multiply its naval fleet in the coming years to contend with a maritime arms race in the region and new threats at sea.

Tomorrow, the Israeli Navy is set to recieve its sixth submarine, INS “Drakon” — or Dragon — following a 3,792-nautical mile (around 8,000 km) voyage of nearly a month from Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems’ shipyard in Kiel, Germany, and after around 12 years of planning, construction, and testing.

Navy officials say that the delivery of the INS Drakon was delayed by several months because Denmark and Norway prevented German contractor TKMS from conducting tests of the submarine in their deep waters. Instead, TKMS had to take INS Drakon further out into the North Sea, in international waters, to conduct the tests during its construction.

The Navy will hold a ceremony at the Haifa Naval Base tomorrow to receive the Dolphin 2-class submarine, coming in at 74 meters long and weighing a whopping 2,600 tons — the largest and heaviest submarine yet in Israel’s service.

The installation of Israeli systems inside the new submarine is expected to take two to three months, and only months later will it be declared operational.

The arrival of the INS Drakon comes as the Navy is seeking to massively increase its fleet in the coming years, after detecting that other countries bordering the Mediterranean — both allies and nations with strained ties — have significantly larger navies than Israel.

In addition, the military has understood that it must have a stronger Navy to contend with new threats at sea, following developments in the past few years, and especially in recent months, in the straits of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, where Iran and the Iran-backed Houthis have prevented freedom of movement in the Gulf and Red Sea, harming major shipping routes.

Navy officials say they fear the same harm to freedom of navigation and shipping could occur elsewhere, including in the Mediterranean.

To contend with those threats, in the next three to four years, the Navy is set to receive the first of five Reshef-class corvettes. These are due to replace the two oldest models of Israel’s Sa’ar 4.5-class missile boats, set to be retired after four decades. In practice, this means that the Navy is increasing the number of small missile boats in its fleet.