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Drones/Unmanned

An Unmanned Hellscape Needs a 21st Century Hephaestus

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By Scott Humr

Introduction

To understand the future, it is helpful to consider the past. Greek mythology can offer rich parallels to modern military technologies and concepts. Recent conceptions about the defense of Taiwan from a Chinese invasion through a “hellscape” of unmanned systems harkens to the mythical robot Talos to protect the island of Crete. Talos, a giant bronze robot, was commissioned by Zeus and built by the Greek god of invention and blacksmithing, Hephaestus. This lone Talos robot is said to have marched around Crete thrice daily and hurled boulders at invading enemy vessels.

While a single Talos was able to accomplish such mythical feats, the defense of Taiwan is envisioned to require “tens of thousands” of unmanned robotic systems. However, wishful thinking is not the bridge that will let us cross from myth to reality. Yet, “[w]ishful thinking” are the words of a retired Peoples Liberation Army Navy officer used to describe Admiral Paparo’s strategy for an “unmanned hellscape” if China were to conduct a cross straits invasion of Taiwan. While such an invasion of Taiwan and subsequent armed conflict would likely not benefit China, the fact remains that employing unmanned systems in the quantities envisioned by the United States would require its military to further develop both capacity and know-how to oversee such a complex endeavor.

If an unmanned hellscape is to move from fantasy to credible threat in the eyes of an adversary, the U.S. Navy, as part of the Joint Force, must take concrete steps to address weaknesses in its current conceptualizations of unmanned future warfare. To overcome these obstacles, the U.S. Navy can lead the way by appointing a robotics and autonomous systems czar to interface and invigorate industry, develop forward deployed naval robotics formations, and oversee a deeper investment in the forces needed to operate these systems.

Naval Robotics and Autonomous Systems Czar

The appointment of a naval robotics and autonomous systems czar or Razar [pronounced: “razor”] can provide the authority within a single individual to generate the momentum needed to overcome the challenges to making any vision of a credible robotics force a reality. However, reporting suggests that rising demand for weaponized drones could strain existing U.S. industrial base capacity. Specifically, when it comes to scale, history provides a poignant example of how a leader with a singular focus can move mountains.

With the commencement of hostilities near the end of the 1930s, U.S. leaders concluded that they needed to get the country on a wartime footing by scaling production quickly. The U.S. was able to bring about a massive change at a scale never before seen and not yet repeated up to this point. The appointment of William Knudsen as Chairman of the Office of Production Management with an eventual commission as a Lieutenant General in the U.S. Army helped rapidly expand the defense industrial base by fostering both innovation and production at scale. Along with others such as Henry Kaiser and “Cast-Iron Charlie” Sorensen, Knudsen helped organize and rally the American industrial base like no other in history to achieve unprecedented levels of production needed by the Allied powers, a 20th century Hephaestus. Knudsen’s efforts were only possible because of the authority vested in him by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his own hard-won upbringing for understanding mass production like few others. Arguably, the U.S. Navy can do the same today.

While the U.S. Navy leads the Joint Force in operationalizing autonomous systems, it still needs a Razar to help lead and synchronize its efforts to ensure autonomous systems integrate with other platforms and capabilities. The Razar can lead the service’s efforts to help drive industry and cross-coordinate with the Joint Force for the development of common protocols and common control for autonomous systems technologies. Furthermore, the Razar can be the single office for Fleets and Type commands, who are responsible for readiness, training, and equipping of specific categories of naval capabilities, to interface with for the development of standards, open architecture approaches, testing, and assimilation of autonomous systems across the U.S. Navy. Without a Razar, the likelihood of a plethora of systems taking hold without a single integrator to help coordinate how these platforms will operate within current and projected naval concepts is bleak, particularly in the new age of “precise mass.”

A disjointed effort by the U.S. Navy will result in a greater number of incompatible systems, standards, and communications devices, which squanders precious time and limited resources. Rather, to succeed in this space, the U.S. Navy must appoint a Razar who is trilingual in technology, military operations, and acquisitions and has the authority, interpersonal skills, and enterprise knowledge to not only cut through bureaucratic red tape but is able to build bridges with industry. The Razar can also act as the lead sled dog of the Joint Force for helping implement Senator Roger Wicker’s Fostering Reform and Government Efficiency in Defense Act. To this end, the Razar’s efforts should become the Type command for future robotics formations.

Robotics Formations in the Fight

For the U.S. Navy to compete effectively with autonomous systems, robotics formations continuously operating forward should be its bid for success. The Ukrainian military has already demonstrated the utility of dedicated robotics force. While it can make sense to integrate some autonomous systems into existing formations, high-end capabilities will require additional technical acumen, safety considerations, and advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures developed by a dedicated core of personnel. A Razar can oversee the professional development of dedicated units that understand the complexity and nuance needed to employ autonomous systems effectively while ensuring seamless integration into other naval formations.

A dedicated robotics force will require a host of new qualifications, training standards, and readiness considerations. Large scale integration of such systems into current formations would add a tremendous amount of additional requirements on top of an already overburdened sailor’s list of current qualifications. Attempting to maintain additional qualifications for robotics or autonomous systems on top of existing requirements, will result in watered down proficiency, or worse, only a superficial understanding of autonomous systems capabilities. This projection is backed by a recent Government Accountability Office report which found “the Navy does not fill all required ship positions, and that sailors assigned to a ship are sometimes unavailable for duty (for example, temporarily assigned to another ship) or may have inadequate training or preparation for their positions.” Combined with already higher stress levels the force is experiencing, the U.S. Navy cannot afford to make its already overworked sailors do more.

Rather, cohesive units of robotics systems operators who can train and learn together are a superior proposition. When brought in early for planning naval operations, such personnel can provide unmatched expertise to support the operational commander and properly integrate into planning staffs. The Navy’s Robotics Warfare rating is a great start and their continued professionalization as a vital component to the naval service. It is also critical that robotics professionals are prepared to do without the contract support many units have become accustomed to expect in warfare.

Warfare, for the U.S., is an inherently governmental function. However, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrated that a bevy of contracted support or field service representatives were necessary to employ a variety of technologies and provide in-country repair services. While the expansive forward operating bases of Iraq and Afghanistan provided a relatively safe area for contractors to operate, future battlefields in and around the First Island Chain will not provide the same level of sanctuary.

Placing robotics formations in the First Island Chain is also necessary for gathering the data necessary to train and improve machine learning algorithms for target recognition and autonomy before conflict erupts. This will allow robotics operators to improve their craft, especially in emissions control conditions where contacting distant support is not only unavailable, but dangerous. Operating forward in competition will allow robotics professionals to continuously perform operational test and evaluation, which is impractical if performed in its traditional manner. For these reasons, forward deploying dedicated robotics formations becomes an imperative to demonstrating a credible robotics force against Chinese aggression, improving autonomous systems tradecraft, while also demonstrating a strong commitment to our allies and partners.

Invest in Humans

The Razar can also act as the lead advocate for the development of robotics personnel, which are anticipated to increase. There are already reports from the war in Ukraine that make clear the necessity and importance of fielding large numbers of drone operators. These operators also provide critical oversight and expertise for employing autonomous systems capabilities to ensure both their legitimate, ethical, and effective use. Naval robotics personnel would provide the necessary legal and ethical oversight of autonomous weapon systems and assurances for helping overcome their complex employment. Because war is fundamentally a human endeavor, having human oversight over autonomous systems are key to demonstrating U.S. commitment to International Humanitarian Law and applying appropriate levels of human judgment required in Department of Defense Directive 3000.09. However, the Navy’s lowering of recruitment standards coupled with an already difficult recruiting environment may prove detrimental for inculcating the technically proficient human capital necessary to sustain such an envisioned robotics force that hellscape requires.

Key for adherence to these and other ethical principles is not only having educated, and well-trained personnel at all levels of command who understand the implications of employing autonomous systems, but professionalized units who specialize in autonomous systems. A key pillar of the Navy’s unmanned campaign framework is the investment in warfighter education. To accomplish this with personnel responsible for leading autonomous systems implementation, the U.S. Navy needs to expand its education at Carnegie Mellon University and the Naval Postgraduate School while furthering opportunities to include other schools for incorporating additional courses on the ethical employment of autonomous systems. Incorporation of more human factors and human-machine interaction training including the use of a detailed case study method will go a long way in developing greater understanding needed for autonomous systems operators and leaders alike. Accordingly, the realization of human-machine teaming with autonomous systems will only come about through a comprehensive appreciation in the development of the human side of the autonomous systems equation. To be sure, complexity does not stop there either.

Robotics and autonomous systems also operate within a system of other complex systems. When such systems are linked together in various kill webs or chains of diverse technologies, complexity increases nonlinearly. The combination and integration of different waveforms, assorted protocols, numerous encryption schemes, and variability of track formats makes complexity rise where mistakes can eventually compound. Robotics operators and their leaders need to become familiar with the myriad challenges associated with technologies within which autonomous systems are integrated. Having highly trained individuals will support easier integration of newer autonomous systems and associated technologies into operational plans. Fittingly, well-trained robotics personnel generate greater rapport for their organizations by establishing trust and confidence to commands and allies they support.

Hellscape’s Holdups?

The appointment of a Razar to oversee all robotics and autonomous systems also has drawbacks. It will centralize a number of aspects that may slow some units down for adopting and integrating autonomous systems in the short term. Moreover, an argument could be made that the U.S. Navy should let a thousand flowers bloom for robotics technologies and promote decentralized innovation. While the appointment of a Razar should not inherently slow down the development of robotics systems and their adoption by other units, a bias toward incorporation at the highest levels is still necessary. Instead, a Razar can take many of the best-of-breed innovations and systems to ensure they support naval forces in a unified way. The Razar can act as the key linkage to other Type or functional commanders in a way lower-level units may struggle to see adopted at scale. Moreover, the Razar is needed to advocate for the significant number of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy considerations to account for future programming of resources to ensure autonomous systems do not become an ephemeral capability.

Another potential drawback is not integrating them at scale within a carrier or expeditionary strike group (C/ESG). While this may be true at a certain level, it cannot be looked at as a shortcoming. Rather, through the use of liaison officers, pre-deployment workup opportunities, and envisioning such units as lethal eyes and ears of the C/ESG, forward deployed autonomous systems placement more than makes up for any apparent non-assimilation. Additionally, paired with forward deployed Marine Corps Stand-In Forces provides a more robust landward component of the Navy that will help keep the door open for the Joint Force, to include allies and partners. Predictably, the Joint Force could one day see the addition of a Combined Force Robotics Component Commander as part of a Joint Task Force in the very near future.

Conclusion

The U.S. Navy, and the Joint Force, in general, face an impending crisis for supporting the defense of Taiwan against any number of potential Chinese actions to bring Taiwan under its control. However, the ability to create a hellscape will require a U.S. Navy intimately familiar with the capabilities and limitations of numerous robotics systems. Furthermore, burdening current units with large quantities of autonomous systems is equally unlikely to result in increased lethality and effective integration but instead weaken current capabilities due to the additional training placed on already overtasked personnel. Such an approach is a recipe for disaster and disuse of robotic systems. Instead, the future is professionalized naval units specializing in human-machine integration with the ability to seamlessly incorporate them into any number of naval formations. This will, however, require the U.S. Navy to have standing forces of these teams if it is to truly benefit from these advanced systems.

Unlike Talos, today’s robotic systems require significant human oversight and additional capabilities to orchestrate a credible capability. Yet, in similar fashion to Talos, robotic systems today can suffer from a number of singular flaws. The Razar should oversee mitigations through continuous development, training, and employment that will address these shortcomings. The ichor that powered Talos in Greek mythology is analogous to the data and connectivity necessary to operate a vast network of robotics and autonomous systems to create a hellscape. A ‘Hell-Razar,’ therefore, must address these potential points of failure.

The myth of Talos provides interesting parallels to the protection of an island by a robotic force. To address this future state, the U.S. Navy can lead the way by assigning a Razar to both coordinate better integration while bolstering defense business, develop forward deployed autonomous systems formations, while also expanding and investing heavily in its robotics personnel. This is what is needed to get “more players on the field” quickly to make our adversary’s think twice while also demonstrating a credible and employable capability to the Joint Force, allies, and partners.

Scott Humr, PhD, is an active duty lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps. He currently serves as the deputy director for the Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems office under the Capabilities Development Directorate in Quantico, Virginia.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Marine Corps or the Department of Defense.

Featured Image: A Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC) at a Technology Readiness Experimentation event in San Diego in March. (Photo by Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Yeager)

Capability Analysis

Building Resilient Killchains for the Stand-In Force

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By Aaron Barlow, Patrick Reilly, and Sean Harper

Introduction

As the Marine Corps prepares to contest the regional superiority of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the Indo-Pacific alongside the Navy and the joint force, the service must strengthen its organic killchains and ensure that each new capability acquisition aligns to the concepts that the service must execute. While joint integration will rightfully remain critical to successful campaigns, the Marine Corps – as the isolatable forward edge of the joint force in the Indo-Pacific – must ensure that its presence adds credible theater combat capability even when joint sensing, communication, and fires cannot support the stand-in force. The Marine Corps should therefore focus on acquiring platforms that present a different risk profile than the joint force; prioritize organic ownership of all components of certain killchains from sensor to shooter; value resilient, risk-worthy platforms over the highly capable but expensive; and focus on diversity and depth in the types of munitions it brings to the fight.

 Strategic Context

Over the past five years, the Marine Corps has confidently and rapidly altered its force structure to meet changing national strategic priorities. As articulated in the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) and echoed in its 2022 sequel, the United States must meet the 2020s as a “decisive decade” and defend U.S. national security interests by effectively deterring its adversaries, using the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a benchmark to measure the pace of advancement. In an August 2024 report, the Commission on the 2022 NDS charted the Marine Corps’ modernization progress to date, stating “The service deserves high marks for displaying the agility that DoD often yearns for but rarely achieves.” The report further lauded the Marine Corps’ Force Design efforts as a “coherent way for the Marine Corps to operate in the Indo-Pacific against the pacing threat while retaining the ability to serve as the nation’s emergency response for crises as they materialize.”

However, the 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance recently reinforced that modernization remains a “righteous” but incomplete journey. Using the service’s Concept for Stand-in Forces as a yardstick, recent acquisitions overestimate and over-rely on the availability of joint and national capabilities in the highly contested environment in which they must perform. Equally, other acquisition and force design decisions seem fundamentally misaligned to stand-in force imperatives like footprint, signature, and risk minimization.

The value proposition of stand-in forces best manifests in the context of a hypothetical PRC campaign to achieve reunification with Taiwan by force, in which the PLA will leverage its significant regional firepower advantage to assert all-domain superiority well East of the first island chain. Confronted by an adversary capable of devastating maritime precision strikes, the joint force will likely withdraw the preponderance of its high-end capabilities beyond the range of PRC threats. Further, Chinese capabilities will be focused on disrupting the long-range communications networks necessary for these high-end capabilities to close killchains from safer distances.

Nonetheless, the joint force will still require the ability to contest Chinese all-domain control in the first island chain. Enter the stand-in force, positioned on forward locations throughout the battlespace. Fighting as an extension of the fleet and joint force, the stand-in force will leverage disaggregation to create reconnaissance and targeting dilemmas for adversaries reliant on precision strike regimes. Stand-in forces will employ asymmetric capabilities and tactics to hold adversaries at risk in multiple domains, ultimately preventing the accumulation of regional superiority.

The Marine Corps’ perspective on how to execute A Concept for Stand-in Forces has evolved since the project began in 2020. The services Force Design annual updates allow us to trace this evolution. Foundational Force Design guidance initially prioritized the development of “smaller but better-connected formations that organically possess a complete killchain appropriate to echelon.” However, the 2022 Force Design Annual Update walked back this vision “from an initial focus on generating organic lethal capabilities…to a more balanced focus that includes persisting forward in a contested area to win the [reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance] battle and complete joint kill webs.” The 2022 annual update also raises unresolved questions about what this balance might look like, reiterating that “certain capabilities must be organic to our Stand-in Forces, such as organic sensors and long-range precision fires to close kill webs when external capabilities are not present or available.”

Based on this guidance, the stand-in force’s risk of isolation from the joint force clearly persists. How intensely should the Marine Corps hedge against this risk, and how should the service define the balance it seeks? Recent service acquisitions suggest that the Marine Corps has overinvested in capabilities that are inappropriate for a stand-in force, at the expense of building robust organic killchains that provide a guaranteed capability baseline in the event of isolation.

The Value Proposition of Organic Killchains

The disaggregated nature of stand-in force formations and the tyranny of distance imposed by the littoral operating environment combine with the nature of the PRC threat to illustrate the value proposition of organic killchains. For example, consider the dependence of the combined joint all-domain command and control (CJADC2) concept on the resilience and availability of joint information networks. Under CJADC2, the joint force and partners seek to project all-domain effects by seamlessly closing killchains comprised of national and joint sensors, processors, and shooters. CJADC2 represents a legitimate integration challenge, and to date the services have been inching towards minimum viable capabilities.

The 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance articulates how the Marine Corps sees its contributions to CJADC2: “Marines will act as the ‘JTAC of the Joint Force’ – sensing, making sense, and communicating to the rest of the Joint Force with an ‘any sensor, any shooter’ mindset.” Until recently the Marine Corps has followed in the wake of other services’ initiatives through participation in the Navy’s Project Overmatch and the Army’s Project Convergence, both of which have sought to develop and exercise the interconnectedness and interoperability required for the joint services to share information and close killchains. The Marine Corps has successfully exercised acquiring and maintaining custody of targets with organic sensors while passing this information to joint command-and-control applications, recently at Exercise Valiant Shield, which included an Indo-Pacific Command-level exercise of its Joint Fires Network. These initiatives and exercises represent obvious technical progress, but as demonstrations of concepts, they risk overestimating the reliability and availability of joint information networks in a way that unbalances the Stand-in Force in favor of brittle kill webs.

This imbalance becomes especially evident in the context of how the PLA plans to prosecute future conflicts. The PLA believes that modern warfare is not “a contest of annihilation between opposing military forces, but rather a clash between opposing operational systems.” The PLA’s derived concept – Systems Destruction Warfare – prioritizes attacking “the flow of information within the adversary’s operational system.” Under this paradigm, if the joint force envisions CJADC2 as a fundamental center of gravity that enables hard-hitting joint killchains, the PLA must view the same system as the joint force’s critical vulnerability and deploy proportional operational resources to target and disrupt it. What is the value proposition of the stand-in force if joint information networks must be available to unlock its contribution to potent joint capabilities?

A U.S. Marine Corps AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar is deployed during exercise Resolute Dragon 24 in Okinawa, Japan, July 31, 2024. The radar was deployed to support training with enhanced sensing and targeting data between the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment and the JSDF during RD 24. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Matthew Morales)

To deliver on its value proposition, the stand-in force must retain the capability to hold the adversary at risk with credible killchains in contested environments when the rest of the joint force cannot. When CJADC2 is uncontested and operating at its peak it will make extensive use of C2 platforms in the air and space domains. However, the questionable survivability and persistence of these platforms is in part the impetus of the stand-in force concept. Thus, reliance on these high-end joint networks introduces a contradiction in the stand-in force’s conceptual framework.

A potential overestimation of the resilience of emerging commercial, proliferated low-earth orbit constellations also underpins the Marine Corps’ conceptual reasoning. Systems such as SpaceX’s Starlink may indeed enable a more robust space-based command and control architecture compared to legacy systems. However, these constellations have increasingly been touted as a communications panacea, especially after Starlink’s success in Ukraine. Meanwhile, adversaries are rigorously searching for effective counters, hunting for exploitation opportunities, or developing options to remove the space layer altogether. Though a credible 21st-century force cannot ignore emerging space layer technologies, the Marine Corps should not overestimate the resilience of commercial P-LEO solutions at the expense of organic spectrum-diverse information networks.

Earlier this year, the Marine Corps initiated Project Dynamis as a service bid to gain initiative in shaping contributions to CJADC2. The Marine Corps should leverage this opportunity to refocus command and control modernization to better align the service’s balance of information capabilities with the stand-in-force concept. The service should specifically refine robust, diverse information capabilities that enable the stand-in force to contest adversary all-domain control in ways that multiply combat power through the availability of joint networks, but crucially do not require them. Further, the end-to-end organic ownership of certain critical killchains by the stand-in force has the dual benefit of providing a credible means of contesting all-domain control when the joint force cannot be present and providing an alternative information path for the joint force inside contested areas.

An Organic and Asymmetric Munitions Mix

If spectrum-diverse information networks provide the connective linkages for an end-to-end organic killchain, a deep and varied arsenal of service-owned munitions must provide the kinetic edge. Though the Marine Corps has long constructed capabilities around a variety of indirect fire munitions, the 38th Commandant’s Planning Guidance prioritized the service’s first ever acquisition of a ground based medium-range anti-ship missile. The service’s portfolio has since grown to include Naval Strike Missiles, long-range anti-ship missiles, and Tomahawk cruise missiles, each in different phases of acquisition and with varying concepts of employment. While these munitions will provide the stand-in force with the capability to hold high-value targets at risk, they also represent relatively high-cost, low-density investments. Deriving estimates from total program acquisition costs published in the Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request, the Naval Strike Missile (90 units), Tomahawk (34 units), and long range anti-ship missile (91 units) carry units costs of $2.32M, $3.09M, and $7.02M respectively.1

The per-shot expense of these munitions raises questions about whether the Marine Corps will have the magazine depth to necessary to sustain a protracted sea denial campaign. Additionally, the many lower-tier maritime targets that the stand-in force could easily hold at risk may not rise to the threshold of significance necessary for engagement with low density munitions; if the stand-in force cannot engage these targets it forgoes opportunities for credible sea denial contributions. The acquisition of exquisite medium-range munitions should not be abandoned, but greater diversity and depth in the Marine Corps portfolio of munitions could enable the service to operate more effectively as a stand-in force. 

For example, a large arsenal of relatively low-cost loitering munitions will provide the stand-in force with an asymmetric advantage against littoral targets, since a single operator can control multiple munitions that cooperatively overwhelm adversary air defenses. Practical munitions trade-offs could also reduce the volume of information exchange necessary to execute killchains. For example, capabilities imbued with a layer of autonomy, such as kamikaze drones and suicide surface and sub-surface vehicles may reduce the required frequency and fidelity of sensor and operator inputs compared to traditional munitions, unburdening limited network resources. The Marine Corps should therefore intentionally balance its high-cost fires systems with deep magazines of effective yet relatively inexpensive loitering and one-way attack munitions.

Matching Capabilities to Concepts

As the Marine Corps considers the appropriate balance of organic and joint investments, the service should also consider how well its future platforms align to the concepts the service must execute. The 38th Commandant’s Planning Guidance clearly defined the types of platforms appropriate to future amphibious and stand-in forces: “We must continue to seek the affordable and plentiful at the expense of the exquisite and few when conceiving of the future amphibious portion of the fleet.” Equally, stand-in forces must “confront aggressor naval forces with an array of low signature, affordable, and risk-worthy platforms and payloads.” The latest 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance suggests that the service has not wholly altered this philosophy, reiterating that the service must “not design our own exquisite low volume platforms.” However, considerations of affordability and riskworthiness do not receive explicit mention.

The Marine Corps should not compromise on cost and risk here. As the service constructs killchains, it should avoid the pattern of investing in expensive, exquisite, and excessively overengineered platforms that directly mirror or present the same risk profile as existing joint capabilities. The service should instead focus acquisitions on platforms that diversify the risks faced by the joint force. Marine Corps platform attributes should closely resemble the original value proposition for Force Design and A Concept for Stand-in Forces: highly expeditionary, risk-worthy, operationally and logistically supportable in protracted conflict, and respectful of the fiscal realities faced by the service.

As an illustrative example, consider the Marine Corps’ recent acquisition of the MQ-9A Reaper platform, part of a service unmanned aerial system strategy that actually preceded Force Design. Now integrated into air combat element formations, the MQ-9A provides the service with a credible organic long-endurance airborne surveillance and command-and-control capability in competition. However, recent battlefield evidence suggests that the Reaper may not be survivable when targeted in conflict without additional supporting capabilities. Iranian proxy groups, most notably Yemen’s Houthi rebels, appear to have downed at least four MQ-9s since October 7, 2023 (and possibly far more, with acknowledged numbers increasing frequently). If affected today, these losses would halve the Marine Corps’ current fleet of MQ-9A platforms, or quarter the projected fleet in 2025. Unmanned aerial system operations in Ukraine also offer insights into the utility and survivability of large, loitering unmanned platforms in peer conflict. Though used to great effect at the outset of the war, recent reports have suggested that Ukraine has significantly curtailed the sorties flown by their Turkish Group 5-equivalent Bayraktar TB2 drones, due in part to the deployment of a more sophisticated Russian integrated air defense network along the front. Further, a platform with a 3000-foot runway requirement and a unique maintainer MOS arguably does not conform to Force Design and stand-in force principles like footprint and signature minimization. Finally, though not a novel and exquisite platform, the service’s MQ-9s do not seem fiscally risk-worthy at the current rate of acquisition, especially considering recent shoot-down rates. In FY2024, the Marine Corps paid an effective unit cost of $37.5M each for five MQ-9A platforms, which would provide a Houthi-equivalent adversary with several months of target practice. The PLA is likely another story, and the MQ-9A will almost certainly be a priority target based on the platforms’ potential value as killchain enabler.

General Atomics, perhaps sensing that the service lacks compelling alternatives, appears ready to upsell the Marine Corps on the more capable but likely far more expensive MQ-9B in the near future. At present, while the MQ-9A may serve as an invaluable enabler in competition, the platform appears too rare, too capable, and too imminently targetable to persist and survive as the stand-in force transitions to conflict.

U.S. Marine Corps Captain Joshua Brooks, an unmanned aircraft system representative, and Master Sergeant Willie Cheeseboro Jr., an enlisted aircrew coordinator with Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1, prepare to launch and operate the first Marine Corps owned MQ-9A Reaper on Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz. Aug. 30, 2021. (U.S. Marine Corps photo)

Consider instead the application of a different solution paradigm to the same problem: the acquisition of high numbers of comparatively low-cost medium-size semi-autonomous unmanned aerial systems (UAS) like Shield AI’s V-BAT or the Platform Aerospace Vanilla UAS to support surveillance, command and control, and targeting missions. Distributed throughout contested areas, launched from austere locations under vertical/short takeoff and landing regimes, and operated in swarms with a different payload on each airframe, these platforms could support or heavily augment large, low-density systems like MQ-9A in conflict. In one-to-one comparisons, medium UAS clearly cannot match the capability of larger systems like MQ-9A. However, when operated at scale and especially when integrated with other long-range littoral sensors, medium UAS platforms can provide an acceptable solution to the stand-in force’s surveillance and command and control requirements while presenting an asymmetric cost and targeting dilemma to adversaries.

While we have focused on the MQ-9, the Marine Corps portfolio is replete with platforms that carry similar contradictions when examined through the Force Design and stand-in force lens. Instead of replicating the acquisitions of the past, Marine Corps should specifically develop capabilities around diverse, risk-worthy, high-density, and relatively low-cost platforms and consider reducing investments in highly capable but overly precious and concentrated capabilities that mirror those in the joint force. 

The Future of Force Design

The 39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance reiterates that “Force Design remains our strategic priority and we cannot slow down.” Force Design provides the Marine Corps a unique opportunity to differentiate itself from past operating concepts and acquisition decisions while building an asymmetric value proposition in the joint fight against peer adversaries. The Marine Corps cannot afford to own every node of every kill web, but selective end-to-end ownership of specific killchains will enable relevant and credible service contributions to the joint force in competition and at the onset of a protracted conflict. Moreover, a Marine Corps with enhanced magazine depths and a plethora of affordable, risk-worthy platforms operating forward in first island chain will challenge adversary all-domain control and set conditions for US domination in the later stages of any maritime campaign. Likewise, any improvements that the Marine Corps makes in the alignment of its expeditionary capabilities to threat-informed concepts will concurrently prepare the service to effectively fulfill its role as a crisis response force, primed for contingencies in support of national mission objectives in accordance with the shifting realities of modern war.

Major Aaron Barlow, Captain Patrick Reilly, and Major Sean Harper are currently serving as operations research analysts assigned to the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration in Quantico, Virginia.

These views are presented in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the official views of any U.S. government entity. 

Notes

1. Data reported for USN. USMC specific data not available for FY2024.

Featured Image: U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Terrell Chandler, left, and U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Melvin Monet, both low-altitude-air defense gunners with 3d Littoral Anti-Air Battalion, 3d Marine Littoral Regiment, 3d Marine Division, set security with an FIM-92 Stinger during Marine Littoral Regiment Training Exercise (MLR-TE) at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, Jan. 28, 2023. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Israel Chincio)

Current Operations, Drones

Drones for Maritime Activisim

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Phase 1: Stop illegal driftnet fishing in the Med. Phase 2: Keep those pesky children out of my flowerbeds.
First we stop driftnet fishing in the Med, then we get those pesky children out of my flowerbeds.

The Black Fish is a non-governmental organization (NGO) “working for the oceans that has integrated the use of unmanned air vehicles in support of its marine wildlife protection operations.  Blackfish’s UAS were provided by Laurens De Groot’s organization ShadowView, which supplies UAVs to non-profits for conservation projects.  The group flew initial demonstration sorties with a quad-rotor over a harbor and is looking to improve their UAS capabilities to fly longer-range missions over the open water in an effort to expose illegal driftnet fishing in the Mediterranean
 
The Black Fish joins the ranks of a growing number of NGOs using drones for maritime activism, specifically UAVs for surveillance operations, including Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Earthrace Conservation, and Greenpeace.

This article was re-posted by permission from, and appeared in its original form at NavalDrones.com.

Future Tech, New Initiatives

MFP 6: The Fleet of the Future

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What will your Navy/Coast Guard look like in 5/10/25/50 years, and how is it different from today?

This is the sixth in our series of posts from our Maritime Futures Project.  For more information on the contributors, click here.  Note: The opinions and views expressed in these posts are those of the authors alone and are presented in their personal capacity.  They do not necessarily represent the views of their parent institution U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, any other agency, or any other foreign government.

LT Drew Hamblen, USN:
In 25 years we will not use aircraft carriers.  Manned jets will also be obsolete.  Helicopters will be manned for logistical flights only.  Pods of “gamer-like” unmanned aerial system (UAS) operators will rotate out for round-the-clock patrol and surveillance.

Bryan McGrath, Director, Delex Consulting, Studies and Analysis:

New additions to the hanger bay.
New additions to the hanger bay.

I will take on only the 50-year horizon, and I will start by saying that YES, the aircraft carrier will still be in existence.  Not just because they last for decades, but because of their continuing utility.  At some point in the next two or three decades, we will collectively make the switch to a predominately unmanned carrier air wing.  This will then lead to the construction of a totally new aircraft carrier, one built from the keel up to project unmanned power.  In essence an assembly line whose product is combat power, this vessel would launch (primarily) unmanned platforms on missions, recover them, harness them to an assembly line in which the aircraft receives required maintenance, fuel, new mission planning and new armament—and is then redeployed almost immediately.  Diagnostics would pull aircraft off the line at pre-programmed locations for maintenance that would remove them from the immediate flight cycle.  These aircraft would essentially be a wing, a bomb, fuel, and a computer.  Manned aircraft would fill C2/ABCCC (airborne battlefield) type missions, to include flight following/control of unmanned aircraft of all types.  More combat power will be submerged.  The U.S. mastery of the undersea domain will continue and increase.  Hybrid warships will operate both on and beneath the ocean’s surface.

CDR Chris Rawley, USNR:
I’m bullish on unmanned systems, which will become increasingly pervasive in the U.S. Navy over the next few decades.  Within 10 years, virtually every surface platform from patrol boats to CVNs (aircraft carriers) will carry one or more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).  UAVs in the inventory will likely become more numerous than manned aircraft in the next half-century.  Over a decade of combat has demonstrated that unmanned aircraft are capable of conducting a great many of the missions that have traditionally been performed by manned aircraft, especially scouting and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).  Strike will be the next mission-area to benefit from long-endurance UAVs, then airborne electronic attack (AEA), and eventually air-to-air combat.  The impediments to these changes are more cultural than technical.

The outcome of two programs, in particular, will be critical determinants of whether unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) are introduced into the fleet to the same extent as unmanned air systems.  On the surface side, SAIC’s Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) is an interesting concept, which if successful, will reverse some of the asymmetry associated with the proliferation of quiet diesel submarines.  On the undersea side, the Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Innovative Naval Prototype (LDUUV INP) will demonstrate whether the physical limitations inherent in unmanned submersible propulsion and endurance can be overcome to produce a useful and flexible combat capability.

Unmanned systems are not a panacea and will never replace the dedicated, capable Sailors that make our navy the most powerful in the world.  These systems and their associated concepts are untested, and it remains to be seen if they can take over, or at least complement, the roles of manned platforms.  Even so, unmanned naval systems will reduce the risk to our Sailors in many mission areas, and if acquired smartly, will realize savings in defense.

LT Scott Cheney-Peters, USNR:
0-5 Years:  Pretty much the same fleet.  More drones and hybrid-electric drives.  It will be interesting to see what direction the U.S. Navy goes with upcoming design selections on new amphibious ships, and even more so with what capabilities they – and the next batch of destroyers – must have.  Most likely the nation’s economic crunch will place the emphasis on modernized versions of what we already know works, but hopefully not at the expense of finding ways to facilitate cheaper upgrades in the future (for example through modularized components).

5-10 Years:  Early afloat experimentations with directed energy/electric weapon systems (DEEWS), especially for ships’ self-defense.  More ships reach the fleet with drone use integrated into their designs.

10-25 Years:  DEEWS starts to be incorporated into ship design.  Drones increasingly play a greater role, not only performing ISR, but many other forward missions.  If battery capacity and non-traditional energy-generation development trends continue, a lot more widely dispersed, self-sustaining drones that can loiter for months or years deploy on and below the waves.    Specialized Arctic drones and Arctic modifications for manned vessels are developed for operations in the opening and warming, but still harsh, far north due to climate change.

 

Are you in my network?
      Are you in my network?

25-50 Years:  Drones start to factor into presence requirements in ship numbers at the beginning of this time frame as manned vessels (surface or subsurface) become primarily motherships/command and control (C2) network nodes.  Additive manufacturing (3D printers) capabilities are integrated into a number of vessels that serve as mobile production facilities.  These might either be larger manned auxiliaries or dispersed aboard the motherships to facilitate drone production.

The large networks of naval drones increase the Navy’s MDA capabilities to an almost unimaginable level during this time, but the missions of maritime interdiction (boarding) operations, ballistic missile defense, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, and of course, showing the flag (good news for waterfront bars worldwide), remain the domain of manned vessels – but they are empowered by their naval drone and mobile production facility capabilities.

In the latter part of this timeframe and beyond, key nodes of unmmaned drone production facilities are located at naval bases and maritime hotspots around the globe and aboard mobile and themselves unmanned and automated.  Some of these may be based on, or tethered to portions of the sea bed that can be exploited using new mining techniques to support the production activities (as well as those aboard vessels with the facilities).  Most manned naval aviation will be over by the end of this timeframe.

One key variable will be whether the militarization of space occurs.  If it does, there will be more emphasis placed on the subsurface drones and undersea production facilities outlined above, as well as a greater push for acceptance of increasing levels of drone autonomy.  In the event of satellite communication disruptions, the network-node motherships can disperse new relay drones to regain control of their network of drones.  For those drone unable to relink to the network the level of autonomy automatically increases upon loss of the connection, allowing the dispersed platforms to continue to carry out their missions.

Rex Buddenberg, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School:
Reread my answer to question 4 – the best clues to a 50-year-ahead question may be found by looking back an equal amount of time.  A lot of the ‘maritime domain awareness’ data exists already.  I’ve seen the yammer about sensors over the years too.  But the extant data is tucked away in some stovepipe.  The big change is that this awareness will increase through integration of information systems.

Sebastian Bruns, Fellow, Institute for Security, University of Kiel, Germany:
“It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” (Attributed to, among many other people, Yogi Berra)

The Optimist

2018:  The last of the four new Baden-Württemberg-class frigates is delivered on time and on budget.  Plans for three more frigates are in the making.  The versatile K-131 (MKS 180) corvette is being put into service since 2015.  Eight instead of the planned six vessels are procured.  A marked rise in maritime awareness throughout Germany has led to an increased budget and the establishment of a coordinating position in the Office of the German Federal Chancellor (head of government).  The new, lean German Navy is strongly integrated in international operations and mandates.  It plays a crucial role in regional stabilization operations and actively and visibly supports NATO missions.

2023:  The first of the new Joint Support Ships is already in service, the second is on the building ways.  Plans for the replacement of the F-123 and F-124 frigates are on schedule and on budget.  Seapower has been officially recognized as a key tool for German foreign policy by way of a Quadrennial Defense and Security Strategy.  The new, lean German Navy is strongly integrated in international operations and mandates.  It plays a crucial role in regional stabilization operations and actively and visibly supports NATO missions.

2028:  The Joint Support Ships and Germany’s strong leadership role in NATO’s Pooling & Sharing Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA) project have allowed Germany to play a wider role in international expeditionary operations.  Although the threat level for Germany and German maritime units has steadily increased over the past 15 years, no warship has been lost to enemy action.  The new, lean German Navy is strongly integrated in international operations and mandates.  It plays a crucial role in regional stabilization operations and actively and visibly supports NATO missions.

2063:  The German Navy has been fully integrated into a larger North-Central-European Maritime Force.  It plays a crucial role in regional stabilization operations and actively and visibly supports NATO missions.  The effects of climate change have long been added to the toolbox of naval forces.

The Pessimist

Bye Bye Baden
Bye Bye Baden

2018:  The F-125 frigates will be delayed by years.  Budget cuts and the sudden demise of the German shipbuilding industry have led to a dramatic loss of building capacity. Politics demand a very isolationist approach to international politics, and the last of the four Baden-Württembergs is subsequently cancelled.  After more than a decade of development, plans for a corvette of the K-131 (MKS-180) class are scrapped.  Only one unit of the planned eight ships has been delivered.  Facing increasingly scarce resources and questionable political priorities, Germany continues to support a Common European Security and Defense policy, or what is left of it.

2023:  Not a single Joint Support Ship has been delivered after inter-service rivalry and broader political trends have torpedoed the whole program.  Facing a dramatic loss of reputation after years of dragging its feet in dealing with the Euro crisis, Germany has lost all of its influence within NATO.  The F-124 and F-125 are pulled out of ballistic missile defense (BMD) roles in the Mediterranean and elsewhere.  The effects of climate change wreak havoc on many countries and regions of the world.

2028:  The German Navy increasingly returns to being a coastal force, integrated with what remains of an ambitious project to organize a German Coast Guard much like the U.S. model.  The North and Baltic Sea with occasional visits to European allied nations are the major operational tasking.  Germany has pulled out of NATO SNMG-1 (-2).  International maneuvers and exercises largely by-pass Germany.

2063:  In the interest of not ending up writing fictional absurdity, I will choose not to answer this question.  My major fears have all been mentioned in the other three pessimist predictions.

Felix Seidler, seidlers-sicherheitspolitik.net, Germany:
In 5 and 10 years, our navy will not look different from today.  However, the known unknown is the impact of the Euro Crisis.  Ever-more pressure on our federal budget could lead to the cancellation of projects like the Joint Support Ship or the de-commissioning of several surface vessels.  In terms of operations, nothing will change.  Germany will continue to contribute to maritime UN, NATO, and EU missions as it does now, because it is the most palatable way for Germans to show themselves as an active ally.  Contributing ground troops to missions is highly unpopular over here; hence, sending ships is more comfortable for our decision makers.

How our navy looks in 25 years (2037) and in 50 years (2062) depends on the success or failure of European integration.  If the EU handles its economic crisis and, thereafter, pursues a track to deeper integration, our armed forces will gradually integrate further with those of other European countries.  The more European integration in politics, the more integration follows among European armed forces.  However, the huge question mark is the political will among European governments to pool sovereignty on such a level.  At this time it is highly unlikely.

If European integration fails and Europe turns back to the nation state, Germany is likely to give up all blue water ambitions and focus on coastal defense in the North Sea and the Baltic.  In 2060 Germany is projected to be only the 10th largest economy in the world with a population of around 65-70 million (1/3 older than 60).  Thus, due to its demographic and economic decline, Germany is likely to pursue a much-less ambitious foreign and national security policy, and may even be reluctant to use force abroad.  In this scenario, the German Navy may spend most of the time in its shipyards.

CDR Chuck Hill, USCG (Ret.):
Unfortunately the U.S. Coast Guard will not look different enough, if the relatively low level of capital investment continue.  Ships being planned now will not be built for 5-10 years.  The last of the Offshore Patrol Cutters, expected to replace our medium endurance cutters, will not be fully operational until approximately 2029, and all will likely still be in the fleet in 50 years.  The oldest of them will only be 44 years old, younger than ships we are replacing now.

I do believe we will see less distinction between search aircraft and rescue aircraft.  Other systems are likely to replace the pure search functions of our fixed wing aircraft, while rescue aircraft will gain greater speed and range as they employ newer technology.  Hopefully in 25 years we will see a new generation of rescue aircraft that have sufficient range and speed to eliminate the separate requirement for long-range search aircraft.

There will also, hopefully, be more information-sharing with other agencies, including comprehensive vessel tracking.

LTJG Matt Hipple, USN:
I can’t imagine.  Drones and missiles versus potential laser-based kill systems and airborne reflectors for over-the-horizon (OTH) interception or deflection.  Ships of increased size due to fuel and power draws for laser systems, if they work, coupled with a mass of smaller automated ships.  Autonomy all depends on what our level of acceptance is for the independence of the machine versus the level of risk we’ll accept from interference, interception, and hijacking.  Of course, perhaps it’ll merely be a pile of rusting LCSs hiding in Singapore.

YN2(SW) Michael George, USN:
I see the U.S. Navy as a little more contracted from what it is today.  With other country’s navies growing, they will want to control their own waters surrounding their country and not as easily permit the United States to do so.  This will impact the size of our fleet overall.

LCDR Mark Munson, USN:
If I’m being cynical, I’m not really sure that the future U.S. Navy won’t just be an incrementally better version of today’s fleet (probably smaller due to fixed/smaller budgets and cost growth, and without any major changes in strategy calling for a drastically different kind of fleet).  The current focus on Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) will hopefully bear fruit in a fleet that is stealthier, capable of striking from greater range, and has a better ability to detect threats and manage that command and control/threat data within an afloat task force.

LT Jake Bebber, USN:
The signs are clearly pointing to a smaller U.S. Navy, despite the growth in worldwide maritime commitments.  We are already at our smallest point in the last hundred years and show no signs of reaching our goal of a 313-ship Navy anytime soon.  The Navy faces a choice on force structure:  we can attempt to mitigate our smaller size by improving the quality of our limited number of platforms (which are becoming ever more expensive), or we can rethink how we fulfill our maritime mission by producing more platforms with more limited capabilities.  A smaller force demands that we will not have a presence in many areas of the world, and our influence there will wane.  We have to accept that.  Or we can rethink our platforms’ design and mission to mitigate costs and allow the U.S. to maintain a maritime presence in regions critical to national security.  We will have to accept the commensurate risk associated with platforms with more limited (and less costly) capabilities.

Anonymous, USN:
The U.S. Navy will be smaller and weaker at the rate that budgets and policies are going.  Just the other day I openly questioned whether or not we’ll be able to call America’s Navy the finest Navy in the world in 10, 25, or 50 years.