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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)

Drones/Unmanned

Do USVs Have a Future in Latin American and Caribbean Navies?

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By Wilder Alejandro Sanchez

Written by Wilder Alejandro Sanchez, The Southern Tide addresses maritime security issues throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The column discusses regional navies’ challenges, including limited defense budgets, inter-state tensions, and transnational crimes. It also examines how these challenges influence current and future defense strategies, platform acquisitions, and relations with global powers.

Unmanned surface vessels (USVs) are sailing full steam ahead, as evidenced by their (deadly) efficiency in attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces against Russian targets across the Black Sea. Though the security landscape in Europe is dramatically different from that of the Western Hemisphere, new technologies are always of interest to any armed service and USVs should be no exception. Whether USVs have a future in Latin America and the Caribbean merits deeper exploration.

Recent Developments

It is beyond the scope of this commentary to list or analyze all USV developments, but it is important to note that new platforms continue to be built and utilized worldwide. In the Black Sea, Ukraine has continued to use its deadly Sea Baby USVs. Several governments and industries want to develop USVs to add to their fleets. In the United States, the Navy’s “newest Overlord Unmanned Surface Vessel Vanguard (OUSV3), was recently launched from Austal USA’s shipyard in Mobile, Alabama,” the service reported in January. Also, the Louisiana-based shipyard Metal Shark is developing the USV Prowler and the micro USV Frenzy. As for future platforms, in Europe, the Netherlands announced its first domestic design for a USV to be used by the Dutch Navy. And in Asia, Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) and the US software company Palantir Technologies signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 14 April to also co-develop a USV. USV development is flourishing around the globe.

In the Western Hemisphere, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has become a testing ground for USV technology. In late 2023, ten Saildrone Voyager USVs were launched from Naval Air Station Key West’s Mole Pier and Truman Harbor to help improve domain awareness during US Fourth Fleet’s Operation Windward Stack. According to SOUTHCOM, “Windward Stack is part of 4th Fleet’s unmanned integration campaign, which provides the Navy a region to experiment with and operate unmanned systems in a permissive environment … all designed to move the Navy to the hybrid fleet.” The command aims to use its Area of Responsibility (AOR) as an innovation hub for the US military, partners and allies, and the defense industry.

(Sept. 13, 2023) – Commercial operators deploy Saildrone Voyager Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) out to sea in the initial steps of U.S. 4th Fleet’s Operation Windward Stack during a launch from Naval Air Station Key West’s Mole Pier and Truman Harbor. (U.S. Navy photo by Danette Baso Silvers/Released)

Regarding the late-2023 test, SOUTHCOM’s 2024 Posture Statement explains, “U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. Fourth Fleet held its Hybrid Fleet Campaign Event, hosting 47 Department of Defense Commands, 10 foreign partners, and 18 industry partners to foster innovation and experimentation to inform the Unmanned Campaign and Hybrid Fleet.” This experimentation has included advanced kill chains, contested operations, survivability, and sustainment at sea.

Under General Laura Richardson’s command, SOUTHCOM aims to “integrate tomorrow’s technology into our operations and exercises today” by investing in robotics, cyber technology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to “overmatch our adversaries and assist the region’s democracies.” Expanding SOUTHCOM’s missions to include testing new technologies, including USVs, is another tactic to expand the command’s importance within the US military.

Latin American-made USVs are also on the horizon. In early 2024, the Brazilian shipyard Emgepron announced a partnership with the local start-up Tidewise to manufacture the USV Suppressor. A company press release states that the Suppressor is the first platform developed in the Brazilian or Latin American defense market. Two variants of the Suppressor will be built: the seven-meter Suppress or seven and the 11-meter Suppressor 11. While regional navies have robots for underwater operations like search and rescue, USVs are not yet operated across the region.

A concept image of the Suppressor USV. (Emgepron image)

Do USVs have a future in Latin America and the Caribbean?

While the possibility of inter-state warfare across Latin America and the Caribbean is minimal (Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s belligerent statements notwithstanding), there are several non-combat maritime missions in which USVs could be helpful. Dr. Andrea Resende, professor at Brazil’s University of Belo Horizonte (Centro Universitário de Belo Horizonte: UNIBH) and Una Betim University (Centro Universitário Una Betim: UNA), and Christian Ehrlich, director of the Institute for Strategy and Defense Research and a recent graduate from Coventry University with a focus on maritime security, have both made this argument.

Dr. Resende notes that USVs could be used by the Brazilian Navy and other regional navies as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) vehicles to locate suspicious vessels. For example, USVs could locate vessels engaged in the trafficking of illicit narcotics, the famous narco-boats or narco-subs. Moreover, USVs could locate illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing vessels. There is a tendency to think that distant water fishing fleets (DFW) are the primary perpetrators of IUU fishing in the Western Hemisphere, particularly from China. But, in reality, DWF fleets primarily operate in the South Atlantic and South Pacific, while local artisanal fishing vessels work illegally across Latin America and the Caribbean. USVs would help locate smaller IUU fishing vessels, which are more challenging to locate than a vast fleet of hundreds of ships.

In other words, USVs offer over-the-horizon capabilities for regional navies and coast guards to locate different types of vessels. Imagine an offshore patrol vessel (OPV) deploying a helicopter, a rigid inflatable boat, and a USV; quickly becoming a small fleet with vast surveillance and interception capabilities.

Moreover, USVs have practical applications for other non-combat and non-security operations, like search and rescue missions and scientific operations. Ehrlich noted that USVs can also be helpful for offshore infrastructure, “particularly to protect offshore oil platforms.” The platforms can also be used for near-shore operations, like port security.

POV video captured by Saildrone Explorer SD 1045’s onboard camera showing large waves and heavy weather conditions inside Hurricane Sam in the Atlantic Ocean at 1414UTC, Sept 30, 2021.

USVs vs UAVs and UGVs

Will USVs eventually be a component of Latin American and Caribbean fleets? The short answer is yes, but when exactly this will occur is debatable as acquisition programs vary depending on each service and, unsurprisingly, budgetary issues.

A parallel can be made with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have become quite popular with regional militaries. Virtually every service across the region operates UAVs. In May alone, the United States donated six Aerovironment UAV systems to El Salvador’s military for border patrol operations. Meanwhile, the Brazilian UAV company Xmobots announced the training of 21 Brazilian Army personnel to operate the company’s Nauru 100C UAV. There is a clear proliferation of UAVs across Latin America and the Caribbean.

A ScanEagle UAV on display in a launcher, during the 106th anniversary celebration of Naval Aviation, at the Brazilian Navy São Pedro da Aldeia Naval Air Base, Rio de Janeiro, August 26, 2022. (Brazilian Navy photo)

On the other hand, as this analyst wrote in Breaking Defense, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) have not found much interest in Latin America. The Brazilian Army is reportedly interested in European-made UGVs; however, UGVs have yet to become popular among Latin American armies compared to the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.

Will USVs become the next UAV or the next UGV? So far, there are not enough data points for a proper prediction. Emgepron’s Suppressor project suggests that at least one company is willing to test the water, so to speak, to see if there is regional interest. If successful, Emgepron could quickly corner the Brazilian defense market with its homegrown USV.

In his comments to CIMSEC, Ehrlich brought up an important issue: long-term vision. For the maritime security expert, “the culture of regional navies” is the major obstacle to acquiring (or attempting to develop locally) USVs. Regional ministries of defense and navies continue to be focused on “operating traditional systems due to a doctrine that does not foment innovation.” Ehrlich mentioned that only the Brazilian Navy is interested in acquiring or developing USVs, including for potential combat missions.

Meanwhile, Dr. Resende explained that a critical factor is the budget of regional armed forces, which tend to suffer “cyclical crises” for various reasons. “Hence, the budgets for investing in the acquisition and training to utilize USVs may be limited.” Moreover, for Dr. Resende, the future of USV technology is part of a broader discussion of the present and future missions of armed forces since they face “greater restrictions as compared to the armed forces in the Global North.”

Ehrlich’s comments about vision and institutional ambition to develop new capacities are a useful lens for gauging these developments. Unsurprisingly, a Brazilian company, Emgepron, is the first in the region to attempt to develop a USV, given the Brazilian Navy’s strong interest in developing the defense industry. Several other South American shipyards are engaged in ambitious projects, including constructing frigates, offshore patrol vessels, transport vessels, and even an icebreaker; however, the Brazilian defense industry still leads the way. Perhaps if the Brazilian Navy positively reviews the Suppressor USV, other regional navies may also be interested in acquiring it.

Finally, there are obvious physical and technical requirements for a ship to transport and operate a USV, which means some basic adaptations will be needed for any ship to utilize this new technology. Navies with older vessels or a surface fleet composed of small vessels will be less likely to acquire USVs, though they could be utilized for port security and other near-shore operations, so they do not have to voyage far from a naval base.

As the war in Ukraine continues, a revolution regarding military technology is underway, and the word “Unmanned” has become very popular. Latin American and Caribbean militaries have quickly adopted UAV technology; however, UGVs have yet to be widely utilized. Likewise, regional naval forces have yet to show major interest in unmanned surface vessels beyond Brazil, and budgetary, doctrinal & technical issues are still obstacles to greater adoption. While USVs could help Latin American and Caribbean naval forces achieve their missions, not all services are in a position to acquire them. More research is necessary to understand which navies, and ministries of defense, have the long-term vision and interest in this technology. In Latin America and the Caribbean, USVs are on the horizon, but they are not yet ready to dock.

Wilder Alejandro Sánchez is an analyst who focuses on international defense, security, and geopolitical issues across the Western Hemisphere, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. He is the President of Second Floor Strategies, a consulting firm in Washington, DC, and a non-resident Senior Associate at the Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Follow him on X/Twitter: @W_Alex_Sanchez.

Featured Image: RNMB Harrier USV. (Royal Navy photo)

Drones/Unmanned

Naval Escalation in an Unmanned Context

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By Jonathan Panter

On March 14, two Russian fighter jets intercepted a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper in international airspace, breaking one of the drone’s propellers and forcing it to crash into the Black Sea. The Russians probably understood that U.S. military retaliation – or, more importantly, escalation – was unlikely; wrecking a drone is not like killing people. Indeed, the incident contrasts sharply with the recent revelation of another aerial face-off. In late 2022, Russian aircraft nearly shot down a manned British RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft. With respect to escalation, senior defense officials later indicated, the latter incident could have been severe.1

There is an emerging view among scholars and policymakers that unmanned aerial vehicles can reduce the risk of escalation, by providing an off-ramp during crisis incidents that, were human beings involved, might otherwise spark public calls for retaliation. Other recent events, such as the Iranian shoot-down of a U.S. RQ-4 Global Hawk in the Persian Gulf in 2019 – which likewise did not spur U.S. military kinetic retaliation – lend credence to this view. But in another theater, the Indo-Pacific, the outlook for unmanned escalation dynamics is uncertain, and potentially much worse. There, unmanned (and soon, autonomous) military competition will occur not just between aircraft, but between vessels on and below the ocean.

Over the past two decades, China has substantially enlarged its navy and irregular maritime forces. It has deployed these forces to patrol its excessive maritime claims and to threaten Taiwan, expanded its nuclear arsenal, and built a conventional anti-access, area-denial capacity whose overlap with its nuclear deterrence architecture remains unclear. Unmanned and autonomous maritime systems add a great unknown variable to this mix. Unmanned ships and submarines may strengthen capabilities in ways not currently anticipated; introduce unexpected vulnerabilities across entire warfare areas; lower the threshold for escalatory acts; or complicate each side’s ability to make credible threats and assurances.

Forecasting Escalation Dynamics

Escalation is a transition from peace to war, or an increase in the severity of an ongoing conflict. Many naval officers assume that unmanned ships are inherently de-escalatory assets due to their lack of personnel onboard. Recent high-profile incidents – such as the MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-4 Global Hawk incidents mentioned previously – seem, at first glance, to confirm this assumption. The logic is simple: if one side destroys the other’s unmanned asset, the victim will feel less compelled to respond, since no lives were lost.

While enticing, this assumption is also illusory. First, the example is of limited applicability: most unmanned ships and submarines under development will not be deployed independently. They will work in tandem with each other and with manned assets, such that the compromise of one vessel – potentially by cyber means – often affects others, changing a force’s overall readiness. The most serious escalation risk thus lies at a systemic, or fleetwide, level – not at the level of individual shoot-downs.

Second, lessons about escalation from two decades of operational employment of unmanned aircraft cannot be imported, wholesale, to the surface and subsurface domains – where there is little to no operational record of unmanned vessel employment. The technology, operating environments, expected threats, tactics, and other factors differ substantially.

Our understanding of one variant of escalation, that in the nuclear realm, is famously theoretical – the result of deductive logic, modeling, or gaming – rather than empirical, since nuclear weapons have only been used once in conflict, and never between two nuclear powers. Right now, the story is similar for unmanned surface and subsurface vessels. Neither side has deployed unmanned vessels at in sufficient numbers or duration, and across a great enough variety of contexts, for researchers to draw evidence-based conclusions. Everything remains a projection.

Fortunately, three existing areas of academic scholarship – crisis bargaining, inadvertent nuclear escalation, and escalation in cyberspace – provide some clues about what naval escalation in an unmanned context might look like.

Crisis Bargaining

During international crises, a state may try to convince its opponent that it is willing to fight over an issue – and that, if war were to break out, it would prevail. The goal is to get what you want without actually fighting. To intimidate an opponent, a state might inflate its capabilities or hide its weaknesses. To convince others of its willingness to fight, a state might take actions that create a risk of war, such as mobilizing troops (so-called “costly signals”). Ascertaining capability and intent in international crises is therefore quite difficult, and misjudging either may lead to war.2

Between nuclear-armed states, these phenomena are more severe. Neither side wants nuclear war, nor believes that the other is willing to risk it. To make threats credible, therefore, states may initiate an unstable situation (“rock the boat”) but then “tie their own hands” so that catastrophe can be averted only if the opponent backs down. States do this by, for example, automating decision-making, or stationing troops in harm’s way.3

The proliferation of unmanned and autonomous vessels promises to impact all of these crisis bargaining strategies. First – as noted previously – unmanned vessels may be perceived as “less escalatory,” since deploying them does not risk sailors’ lives. But this perception could have the opposite effect, if states – believing the escalation risk to be lower – deploy their unmanned vessels closer to an adversary’s territory or defensive systems. The adversary might, in turn, believe that his opponent is preparing the battlespace, or even that an attack is imminent. Economists call this paradox “moral hazard.” The classic example is an insured person’s willingness to take on more risk.

Second, a truly autonomous platform – one lacking a means of being recalled or otherwise controlled after its deployment – would be ideal for “tying hands” strategies. A state could send such vessels to run a blockade, for instance, daring the other side to fire first. Conversely, an unmanned (but not autonomous) vessel might have remote human operators, giving a state some leeway to back down after “rocking the boat.” In a crisis, it may be difficult for an adversary to distinguish between the two types of vessels.

A further complication arises if a state misrepresents a recallable vessel as non-recallable, perhaps to gain the negotiating leverage of “tying hands,” while maintaining a secret exit option. And even if an autonomous vessel is positively identified as such, attributing “intent” to it is a gray area. The more autonomously a vessel operates, the easier it is to attribute its behaviors to its programming, but the harder it is to determine whether its actions in a specific scenario are intended by humans (versus being default actions or error).

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles?

Scholars have begun to address such questions by studying unmanned aerial systems.4 To give two recent examples, one finding suggests that unmanned aircraft may be de-escalatory assets, since the absence of a pilot means domestic publics would be less likely to demand blood-for-blood if a drone gets shot down.5 Another scholar finds that because drones combine persistent surveillance with precision strike, they can “increase the certainty of punishment” – making threats more credible.6

Caution should be taken in applying such lessons to the maritime realm. First, unmanned ships and submarines are decades behind unmanned aerial vehicles in sophistication. Accordingly, current plans point to a (potentially decades-long) roll-out period during which unmanned vessels will be partially or optionally manned.7 Such vessels could appear unmanned to an adversary, when in fact crews are simply not visible. This complicates rules of engagement, and warps expectations for retaliation if a state targets an apparently-unmanned vessel that in fact has a skeleton crew.

Second, ships and submarines have much longer endurance times than aircraft. Hence, mechanical and software problems will receive less frequent local troubleshooting and digital forensic examination. An aerial drone that suffers an attempted hack will return to base within a few hours; not so with unmanned ships and submarines because their transit and on-station times are much longer, especially those dispersed across a wide geographic area for distributed maritime operations. This complicates efforts to attribute failures to “benign” causes or adversarial compromise. The question may not be whether an attempted attack merits a response due to loss of life, but rather whether it represents the opening salvo in a conflict.

Finally, with regard to the combination of persistent surveillance and precision strike, most unmanned maritime systems in advanced stages of development for the U.S. Navy do not combine sensing and shooting. Small- and medium-sized surface craft, for instance, are much closer to deployment than the U.S. Navy’s “Large Unmanned Surface Vessel,” which is envisioned as an adjunct missile magazine. The small- and medium-sized craft are expected to be scouts, minesweepers, and distributed sensors. Accordingly, they do little for communicating credible threats, but do present attractive targets for a first mover in a conflict, whose opening goal would be to blind the adversary.

Inadvertent Nuclear Escalation

During conventional war, even if adversaries carefully avoid targeting the other side’s nuclear weapons, other parts of a military’s nuclear deterrent may be dual-use systems. An attack on an enemy’s command-and-control, early warning systems, attack submarines, or the like – even one conducted purely for conventional objectives – could make the target state fear that its nuclear deterrent is in danger of being rendered vulnerable.8 This fear could encourage a state to launch its nuclear weapons before it is too late. Incremental improvements to targeting and sensing in the past two decades – especially in the underwater realm – have exacerbated the problem by making retaliatory assets easier to find and destroy.9

In the naval context, the risk is that one side may perceive a “use it or lose it” scenario if it feels that its ballistic missile submarines have all been (or are close to being) located. In particular, the ever-wider deployment of assets that render the underwater battlespace more transparent – such as small, long-duration underwater vehicles equipped with sonar – could undermine an adversary’s second-strike capability. Today, the US Navy’s primary anti-submarine platforms aggregate organic sensing and offensive capabilities (surface combatants, attack submarines, and maritime patrol aircraft). The shift to distributed maritime operations using unmanned platforms, however, portends a future of disaggregated capabilities. Small platforms without onboard weapons systems will still provide remote sensing capability to the joint force. If these sensing platforms are considered non-escalatory because they lack offensive capabilities and sailors onboard, the US Navy might deploy them more widely.10

Escalation in Cyberspace

The US government’s shift to persistent engagement in cyberspace, a strategy called “Defend Forward,”11 has underscored two debates on cyber escalation. The first concerns whether operations in the cyber domain expose previously secure adversarial capabilities to disruption, shifting incentives for preemption on either side.12 The second concerns whether effects generated by cyberattacks (i.e., cyber effects or physical effects) can trigger a “cross-domain” response.13

These debates remain unresolved. Narrowing the focus to cyberattacks on unmanned or autonomous vessels presents an additional challenge for analysis, because these technologies are nascent and efforts to ensure their cyber resilience remain classified. Platforms without crews may present an attractive cyber target, perhaps because interfering with the operation of an unmanned vessel is perceived as less escalatory since human life is not directly at risk.

But a distinction must be made between the compromise of a single vessel and its follow-on effects at a system, or fleetwide level. Based on current plans, unmanned vessels are most likely to be employed as part of an extended, networked hybrid fleet. If penetrating one unmanned vessel’s cyber defenses can allow an adversary to move laterally across a network, this “effect” may be severe, potentially affecting a whole mission or warfare area. The subsequent decline in offensive or defensive capacity at the operational level of war could shift incentives for preemption. Since unmanned vessels operating as part of a team (with other unmanned vessels or with manned ones) are dependent on beyond-line-of-sight communications, interruption of one of these pathways (e.g., disabling a geostationary satellite over the area of operations) could have a similar systemic effect.

The Role of Human Judgment

Modern naval operations already depend on automated combat systems, lists of “if-then” statements, and data links. For decades, people have increasingly assigned mundane and repetitive (or computationally laborious) shipboard tasks to computers, leaving officers and sailors in a supervisory role. This state of affairs is accelerating with the introduction of unmanned and autonomous vessels, especially when combined with artificial intelligence. These technologies are likely to make human judgment more, not less, important.14 Many future naval officers will be designers, regulators, or managers of automated systems. So too will civilian policymakers directing the use of unmanned and autonomous maritime systems to signal capability and intent in crisis. For both policymakers and officers, questions requiring substantial judgment will include:

The “moral hazard” problem. If unmanned vessels are perceived as less escalatory – because they lack crews, or because they carry only sensors and no offensive capabilities – are they more likely to be employed in ways that incur other risks (such as threatening adversary defensive or nuclear deterrent capabilities in peacetime)?

The autonomy/intent paradox. When will an autonomous vessel’s action be considered a signal of an adversary’s intent (since the adversary designed and coded the vessel to act a certain way), versus an action that the vessel “decided” to take on its own? If an adversary claims ignorance – that he did not intend an autonomous vessel to act a certain way – when will he be taken at his word?15

The attribution problem. Since unmanned vessels have no crews, local troubleshooting of equipment – along with digital forensics – will occur less frequently than it does on manned vessels. Remotely attributing a problem to routine component or software failure, versus to adversarial cyberattack, will often be harder than it would be with physical access. Will there have to be a higher “certainty threshold” for positive attribution of an attack on an unmanned vessel?

The “roll-out” uncertainty. How will the first few decades of hybrid fleet operations (utilizing partial and optional-manning constructs) complicate the decision to target or compromise unmanned vessels? If a vessel appears unmanned, but has an unseen skeleton crew – and then suffers an attack – how should the target state assess the attacker’s claim of ignorance about the presence of personnel onboard?

The cyber problem. Do unmanned systems’ attractiveness as a cyber target (due to their absence of personnel, often highly-networked employment) present a system-wide vulnerability to those warfare areas than lean more heavily on unmanned systems than others? Which warfare areas would have to be affected to change incentives for preemption?

Since unmanned vessels have not yet been broadly integrated into fleet operations, these questions have no definitive, evidence-based answers. But they can help frame the problem. The maritime domain in East Asia is already particularly susceptible to escalation. Interactions between potential foes should, ideally, never escalate without the consent and direction of policymakers. But in practice, interactions-at-sea can escalate due to hyper-local misperceptions, influenced by factors like command, control, and communications, situational awareness, or relative capabilities. All of these factors are changing with the advent of unmanned and autonomous platforms. Escalation in this context cannot be an afterthought.

Jonathan Panter is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Columbia University. His research examines Congressional oversight over U.S. naval operations. Prior to attending Columbia, Mr. Panter served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the United States Navy. He holds an M.Phil. and M.A. in Political Science from Columbia, and a B.A. in Government from Cornell University.

The author thanks Johnathan Falcone, Anand Jantzen, Jenny Jun, Shuxian Luo, and Ian Sundstrom for comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

1. Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Eric Schmitt, “Miscommunication Nearly Led to Russian Jet Shooting Down British Spy Plane, U.S. Officials Say,” New York Times, April 12, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/world/europe/russian-jet-british-spy-plane.html.

2. James D. Fearon, “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 49, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 379-414.

3. Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, [1966] 2008), 43-48, 99-107.

4. See, e.g., Michael C. Horowitz, Sarah E. Kreps, and Matthew Fuhrmann, “Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation,” International Security 41, no. 2 (Fall 2016): 7-42.

5. Erik Lin-Greenberg, “Wargame of Drones: Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Crisis Escalation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution (2022). See also Erik Lin-Greenberg, “Game of Drones: What Experimental Wargames Reveal About Drones and Escalation,” War on the Rocks, January 10, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/game-of-drones-what-experimental-wargames-reveal-about-drones-and-escalation/.

6. Amy Zegart, “Cheap flights, credible threats: The future of armed drones and coercion,” Journal of Strategic Studies 43, no. 1 (2020): 6-46.

7. Sam Lagrone, “Navy: Large USV Will Require Small Crews for the Next Several Years,” USNI News, August 3, 2021, https://news.usni.org/2021/08/03/navy-large-usv-will-require-small-crews-for-the-next-several-years.

8. Barry D. Posen, Inadvertent Escalation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991); James Acton, “Escalation through Entanglement: How the Vulnerability of Command-and-Control Systems Raises the Risks of an Inadvertent Nuclear War,” International Security 43, no. 1 (Summer 2018): 56-99. For applications to contemporary Sino-US security competition, see: Caitlin Talmadge, “Would China Go Nuclear? Assessing the Risk of Chinese Nuclear Escalation in a Conventional War with the United States,” International Security 41, no. 4 (Spring 2017): 50-92; Fiona S. Cunningham and M. Taylor Fravel, “Dangerous Confidence? Chinese Views on Nuclear Escalation,” International Security 44, no. 2 (Fall 2019): 61-109; and Wu Riqiang, “Assessing China-U.S. Inadvertent Nuclear Escalation,” International Security 46, no. 3 (Winter 2021/2022): 128-162.

9. Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, “The New Era of Counterforce,” International Security 41, no. 4 (Spring 2017): 9-49; Rose Goettemoeller, “The Standstill Conundrum: The Advent of Second-Strike Vulnerability and Options to Address It,” Texas National Security Review 4, no. 4 (Fall 2021): 115-124.

10. Jonathan D. Caverley and Peter Dombrowski suggest that one component of crisis stability – the distinguishability of offensive and defensive weapons – is more difficult at sea because naval platforms are designed to perform multiple missions. From this perspective, disaggregating capabilities might improve offense-defense distinguishability and prove stabilizing, rather than escalatory. See: “Cruising for a Bruising: Maritime Competition in an Anti-Access Age.” Security Studies 29, no. 4 (2020): 680-681.

11. For an introduction to this strategy, see: Michael P. Fischerkeller and Robert J. Harknett, “Persistent Engagement, Agreed Competition, and Cyberspace Interaction Dynamics and Escalation,” Cyber Defense Review (2019), https://cyberdefensereview.army.mil/Portals/6/CDR-SE_S5-P3-Fischerkeller.pdf.

12. Erik Gartzke and John R. Lindsay, “Thermonuclear Cyberwar,” Journal of Cybersecurity 3, no. 1 (March 2017): 37-48; Erica D. Borghard and Shawn W. Lonergan, “Cyber Operations as Imperfect Tools of Escalation,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 13, no. 3 (Fall 2019): 122-145.

13. See, e.g., Sarah Kreps and Jacquelyn Schneider, “Escalation firebreaks in the cyber, conventional, and nuclear domains: moving beyond effects-based logics,” Journal of Cybersecurity 5, no. 1 (Fall 2019): 1-11; Jason Healey and Robert Jervis, “The Escalation Inversion and Other Oddities of Situational Cyber Stability,” Texas National Security Review 3, no. 4 (Fall 2020): 30-53.

14. Avi Goldfarb and John R. Lindsay, “Prediction and Judgment: Why Artificial Intelligence Increases the Importance of Humans in War,” International Security 46, no. 3 (Winter 2021/2022): 7-50.

15. The author thanks Tove Falk for this insight.

Featured Image: A medium displacement unmanned surface vessel and an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter from Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 73 participate in U.S. Pacific Fleet’s Unmanned Systems Integrated Battle Problem (UxS IBP) April 21, 2021. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Petty Officer Shannon Renf)

Drones/Unmanned

Every Ship a SAG and the LUSV Imperative

3 Comments

By Lieutenant Kyle Cregge, USN

The US Navy’s strike capacity is shrinking. As highlighted in Congressional testimony with senior leaders, the Surface Navy is set to lose 788 Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells through the end of the Davidson Window in 2027. This 8.85% of current Surface Navy VLS capacity represents the equivalent of eight Arleigh Burke-class destroyers leaving the fleet as the Ticonderoga cruisers are retired. However, even the most aggressive and expensive shipbuilding alternative would not return equivalent VLS numbers to the surface fleet until the late 2030s. Present maritime infrastructure capacity further strangles efforts to buy additional Arleigh Burke destroyers, Constellation-class frigates, and Virginia-class submarines. These complex multi-mission ships cost billions of dollars and years of investment in build times, and yet service life extension proposals are equally unsavory. From extending aging Ticonderoga cruisers to arming merchants or Expeditionary Fast Transports, none are cheap, scalable, or sustainable in the long-term. All this while the world’s largest navy, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), continues its building spree at speed and scale, delivering combatants equipped with long-range anti-ship missiles meant to challenge America’s role as balancer in Eurasia.

Figure 1. Click to expand. Surface Ship VLS Data, Adopted from the CBO’s analysis of the Navy’s FY23 Shipbuilding Plan.

Where can the Surface Navy focus its efforts for future growth given the financial constraints and maritime industrial base capacity? What capabilities are most likely to enable a replaceable, lethal force to deter or deny Chinese aggression from the Taiwan Strait to the Second Island Chain?

The Surface Navy must build and deploy the Large Unmanned Surface Vehicle (LUSV) at scale as small surface combatants, to economically restore and grow VLS capacity over the next decade. A concept for its implementation and other USVs like it, “Every Ship a SAG,” proposes a distributed future force architecture, where every manned ship can operate far afield from each other, while each is surrounded by multiple VLS-equipped and optionally manned LUSVs. Doctrinally, a Surface Action Group (SAG) is defined as a temporary or standing organization of combatant ships, other than aircraft carriers, tailored for a specific tactical mission. Together, these manned-unmanned teams will form more lethal SAGs than a single ship or manned surface action group operating alone. Led by Surface Warfare Lieutenants as Unmanned Task Group Commanders, this USV-augmented SAG offers a lethal instantiation of the next-generation hybrid fleet.

“Every Ship a SAG” provides a scalable and flexible model for incorporating current and future unmanned systems with the existing surface fleet. The fleet could rapidly up-gun conventional platforms and even amphibious ships, Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), or Expeditionary Staging Bases (ESB) with more lethal USVs as teammates. Lastly, “Every Ship a SAG” offers mitigation for many of the concerns levied at Navy USV concepts, including Hull, Mechanical, and Electrical (HM&E) reliability, maintenance, and spare parts; force protection; C5I/Networks; autonomy; and the role of USVs in deterrence. Mutual support from a manned ship reduces operational risk and will enable the small crew led by the Surface Warfare Early Commander to embark on their USV to execute critical manned operations during dangerous or restricted waters evolutions. These small teams then debark to a designated mothership and perform USV mission integration when the USV is in an unmanned mode. “Every Ship a SAG” offers a critical next step between today’s nascent USV capability and a more advanced, USV-forward, and independent future.

Now is a critical moment in history. LUSVs must be scaled to meet the Navy’s warfighting mission, and Congress must resource the supporting pillars to ensure effective outcomes. When every manned US Navy ship is a Surface Action Group, this distributed hybrid fleet will be more lethal, survivable, and ready to fight and win maritime wars against peer adversaries.

Defining “Every Ship a SAG”

The Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations have consistently argued for the introduction of unmanned systems and their incorporation into the fleet. Leaders have envisioned LUSV as a 200-300ft low-cost, high endurance, and reconfigurable corvette accommodating up to 32 VLS cells. The ship is programmed to be bought in Fiscal Year 2025 with subsequent buys out to 2027 with a three-ship purchase at $241 million per ship. The Navy’s unmanned strategies have referred to LUSVs as “adjunct magazines,” providing greater strike and anti-surface warfare weapons. This vision is appropriate, but has narrowly scoped the ship’s offensive technical capabilities. Myriad experts have penned compelling, lengthy vignettes illustrating USVs in the fleet, with advantages including sensor networking, depth of fire, survivability, and many others.

The “Every Ship a SAG” construct offers a vision for weaponized USVs that is easily understood; from the average fleet sailor to senior leaders to (maybe most critically) Congress. In addition, the concept acknowledges the current fleet design both in Strike Groups and Surface Action Groups, while facilitating the introduction of unmanned ships within a task organization framework common to manned units. Operationally, LUSVs will meet specific, near-term needs in support of national strategies via distributed sea denial and strike, while enhancing the lethality of the surface fleet through increased missile magazine distribution and capacity. When integrated into the force, LUSVs will increase the survivability of the fleet by complicating an adversary’s ability to target and attack surface forces. What does this look like in practice?

In a peacetime environment and workup cycle, the Unmanned Operations Center (UOC) and USV Divisions in Port Hueneme, California, or a local Fleet Maritime Operations center, would manage the traditional “manning,” training, and equipping functions of ship workup cycles towards integrating into Strike Groups and SAGs. These LUSV Divisions would be led by Early Command Junior Officers. In fact, the Surface Community has already begun selecting officers for Unmanned Task Group Early Command roles both in Port Hueneme and in Bahrain with Task Force 59.

Having been assigned to units for scheduled deployments, LUSVs would attach to the designated ships in the deployment group, providing greater flexibility to Combatant Commanders in force packages. Just as the MH-60 Romeo community deploys expeditionary detachments of pilots and aircrew to cruisers and destroyers, these Early Command officers and a small crew would embark a ship, or series of ships, serving in a variety of modalities as expert controllers, emergency maintainers, and expeditionary operators. A key distinction between the helicopter detachment concept and command is the interchangeability of USVs, moving from independent expeditionary command with a manned crew, to embarking on a mothership or series of motherships supporting unmanned operations.

Figure 2: A top-level view comparing USV employment models with generalized benefits and limitations. (Author-generated graphic)

As demonstrated in Figure 2, LUSVs would operate at distances where the manned ship can provide mutual support and respond if needed. This might include periods within the visible horizon but also episodic surges well over the horizon for specific missions. From a lethality perspective, the additional VLS cells and sensors (in the Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle) offer enhanced battlespace awareness and depth of fire than is available with a single ship. While others have argued for pushing attritable USVs far forward towards threats, treating every manned ship as a SAG with its LUSVs in escort will address many of the issues highlighted by leaders, including Congressional representatives.

Concerning reliability and maintenance, the Navy has based LUSV prototypes on existing commercial ship designs while conducting further land and sea-based testing and validating its critical technologies and subsystems. While designed to operate for extended periods without intervention, the Unmanned Expeditionary Detachment will be able to support emergent repair or troubleshooting if necessary.

For concerns of autonomy or ethical use of weapons from unmanned units, LUSVs will rely on human-in-the-loop (HITL) for command and control of weapons employment decisions. Therefore an on-scene commander simplifies network and communications requirements between the manned fleet and its LUSV escorts. Others have also argued for unmanned systems to be attritable, and to be sure, it would be preferable to lose an LUSV to a manned ship. However, these will still be multi-million dollar combatants with exquisite technology that should not fall into an adversary’s hands – much in the same way how Fifth Fleet dealt with Iranian attempts to capture a US Saildrone in 2022. Having a local manned combatant nearby will support kinetic and non-kinetic force protection of the LUSV, regardless of the theater or threat.

USVs Ranger and Nomad unmanned vessels underway in the Pacific Ocean near the Channel Islands on July 3, 2021. (US Navy Photo)

Finally, treating an LUSV as a force multiplier with a certain number of VLS cells is in line with previous arguments to count the fleet via means other than ship hulls, and simplifies the LUSV’s deterrent value as just another ship that delivers a specific capability at a discount, just as other manned ships do.

Sequencing and Scaling “Every Ship a SAG”

No vision for USV integration into the Surface Force would be complete without considering how these systems would fit into the career pipeline of current and future Surface Warfare Officers and their enlisted teams. In an “Every Ship a SAG” model, LUSV ships would start as individual early commands for post-Division Officer Lieutenants, whereas multiple LUSVs would be organized into a Squadron, led by a post-Department Head Early Command Officer. The Surface Community executed this model with its Mark VI Patrol Craft before their recent retirement, and similarly these squadrons would be organized under the nascent USV Divisions, who have a direct line to the experimentation and tactical development done by the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC), and specifically for unmanned systems, in Surface Development Squadron One (SURFDEVRON).

Cmdr. Jeremiah Daley, commanding officer, Unmanned Surface Vehicle Division One, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, and Capt. Shea Thompson, commodore, Surface Development Squadron One, tour USV Sea Hunter at Naval Station Point Loma, California, (Sept. 28, 2022, DOD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

The surface community is leading the charge towards a hybrid fleet by advancing USV operational concepts and integrating unmanned experience into a hybrid career path. The first salvo in this career movement was launched in 2021, with the establishment of the Unmanned Early Command positions, but scaling this hybrid model is both critical and beneficial. The community will only benefit from commanding officers with expertise and insights in employing a hybrid surface fleet. As pipelines are clarified and unmanned opportunities grow, officers would transition from one expeditionary tour leading a detachment controlling and maintaining an LUSV, back into Division Officer, Department Head, Executive, and Commanding Officer roles in traditional at-sea commands directing the employment of the same LUSVs. Just as the SWO Nuke community develops expertise in both conventional and nuclear fields at each level of at-sea tours, a future hybrid fleet necessitates competencies in fields like robotics, engineering, applied mathematics, physics, computer science, and cyber.

Lastly, SWO professional experiences and investments in training and education for the use of unmanned systems would further Navy and Department of Defense objectives around Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Digital Transformation. With unmanned systems, deploying new HM&E or weapons payloads may be a simpler task compared to accelerating fleet data collection and its subsequent use in software development and delivery. Task Force 59 explicitly linked these issues as the Fifth Fleet Unmanned and Artificial Intelligence Task Force.

“Every Ship a SAG” on a Digital Ocean

Some may question whether “Every Ship a SAG” aligns with the already successful work of Task Force 59, directed by Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander, Naval Forces Central Command, and Captain Michael Brasseur, the Task Force’s Commodore. Captain Brasseur has long advocated for increased AI and Unmanned Integration into the Navy, going back to his time as Co-Founder and first Director of NATO’s Maritime Unmanned Systems Innovation and Coordination Cell (MUSIC^2). He convincingly argued for a “Digital Ocean” Concept where drones:

“Propelled by wind, wave, and solar energy… carry  sensors that can collect data critical to unlocking the untapped potential of the ocean…. [to] exploit enormous swaths of data with artificial intelligence- enhanced tools to predict weather patterns, get early warning of appearing changes and risks, ensure the free flow of trade, and keep a close eye on migration patterns and a potential adversary’s ships and submarines.”

Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, left, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, shakes hands with Capt. Michael D. Brasseur, the first commodore of Task Force (TF 59) during a commissioning ceremony for TF 59 onboard Naval Support Activity Bahrain, Sept. 9. TF 59 is the first U.S. Navy task force of its kind, designed to rapidly integrate unmanned systems and artificial intelligence with maritime operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. (Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Dawson Roth)

Captain Brasseur has implemented his prudent and innovative vision in the Fifth Fleet Area of Responsibility. Task Force 59 is a success whose model is likely to be adopted in other theaters. Rather than conflict with the “Digital Ocean” model, “Every Ship a SAG” complements this work in line with missions of the US Navy as Congressman Mike Gallagher recently updated and codified in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. The Wisconsin Representative edited the Title 10 mission of the Navy such that the service “shall be organized, trained, and equipped for the peacetime promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States and prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea.” In short: a “Digital Ocean” and all it enables serves the peacetime promotion of American national security interests and prosperity, especially in coordination with our allies and partners.

“Every Ship a SAG” postures the Navy for prompt and sustained combat operations incident to the sea. Both missions have been a part of the U.S. Navy since its inception, and both visions are applicable as unmanned ships enter our fleets. Further, LUSVs retain additional utility below the level of armed conflict. To support UOC training, experimentation, and manned ship certifications, LUSVs would serve as simulated opposition forces during high-end exercises, reducing demand on manned sustainment forces, or enabling higher-end threat presentations. Precisely in these scenarios are the venues whereby the fleet can integrate new systems and networks while bridging toward operational concepts for unmanned systems as LUSVs earn increased confidence. In the interim and foreseeable future, however, “Every Ship a SAG” remains the scalable, flexible model for deployed LUSVs within current fleet operations. 

Sober Acknowledgement of Critical Pillars

Unmanned ships and various other transformational technologies are not a panacea for the current and future threats facing the US Navy. Even the promises and methodologies proposed here rely upon critical readiness pillars, each of which could warrant deep individual examinations but are worth mentioning.

Even if the US Navy built a certain number of LUSVs to replace lost VLS capacity, failure to resource them or manage them effectively would still likely doom the program. The fleet must understand and plan for the “total cost of ownership” of a hybrid fleet. These units will still require manpower at various levels and a maintenance infrastructure to sustain them in fleet concentration areas. Nor can the fleet avoid at-sea time to test, integrate, and experiment with these systems, much in the same way that RADM Wayne E. Meyer emphasized, “build a little, test a little, learn a lot,” with the success of the Aegis Weapons System. The Navy has made efforts to assuage Congressional concerns about reliability through investment in land-based testing. Yet the Surface Navy will need continued, reliable resourcing to continue that testing afloat while integrating LUSVs with traditional forces and experimenting with future concepts.

Characterizing those costs are beyond what is available in open-source, but wide-ranging demand for talent is imposing costs across the public and private sectors. Similarly dire is the state of munitions, as highlighted at the Surface Navy Association National Symposium by Commander, Fleet Forces Command, Admiral Caudle who “noted that [even] if the Navy had ready its 75 mission-capable ships, ‘their magazines wouldn’t all be full.’” Put simply: no amount of LUSVs built at economic costs will be worth anything if they lack the appropriate weapons to place in their launchers.

Lastly, the adaption of agile practices to implement better software, data, AI models, etc., is critical for the fleet to field increasingly capable and autonomous USVs. The Department of Defense and the Navy have made various investments in this direction. These include but are not limited to the Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) “The Forge” working to accelerate ship combat system modernizations and development of the Integrated Combat System; to the Naval Postgraduate School’s new Office of Research and Innovation, to the type-command AI Task Forces. Each is working to provide value across various programs in the digital space. Resourcing, integration, and acceleration of those efforts are crucial.

Figure 3: Proposed priority pillars for success for the LUSV program, paired with a collection of Wayne Hughes’ Cornerstones of Naval Operations from Fleet Tactics and a posthumous article.

Individually, each pillar is a wicked problem, but we must take a sober look at those requirements while examining the same realities in the maritime industrial base. The reality appears that little can be done in the near term to accelerate new ship deliveries of complex multi-mission combatants built in Bath, Maine, and Pascagoula, Mississippi. At present, Fincantieri Marine in Wisconsin is the sole yard for FFG-62, while the remaining large shipyards pursue some collection of ESBs, littoral connectors, and generally, more multi-mission units. Fundamentally, a ship like LUSV is the only near-team option to accelerate a pre-war ship buildup given the PLAN’s construction speed.

As the world’s only Navy with a near-term plan and resourcing to meet and exceed 355 ships, the PLAN along with its fellow services has delivered longer-range weapons at greater capacities than the United States for years. By all available open-source data, the US Navy is falling behind the PLAN in the marathon of naval power while the PLAN accelerates toward future advantages.

Figure 4: Comparison of U.S. to PLAN fleet count totals, based on Congressional Research Service reporting on Chinese Military Modernization since 2005.i

Naval writers and thinkers can parse arguments about quantity versus quality, what the right metric is to assess fleet strength, or whether in a joint, Navy vs. Anti-Navy fight, a pure-maritime comparison is warranted. These are valuable discussions. Regardless, the US Navy’s Surface Forces onboard strike and anti-surface warfare capacities will continue to shrink in the near-term while Chinese threats accelerate. Furthermore, the Chinese industrial base capacity far exceeds American capacity at present. The relationship between US Navy leaders and industry could be described as frosty at best, with recent comments from the Chief of Naval Operations to industry including statements to “Pick up the pace… and prove [you have extra capacity]” and from the Commander of Fleet Forces Command stating that he is “not forgiving” industry’s delays.

Given the long-term buys of multi-mission combatants, national shipyards appear unlikely to generate increased efficiencies, accelerated timelines, or better-quality ships if they continue to build only the multi-billion dollar multi-mission combatants they have previously built. Accelerating LUSV procurement across the six shipyards solicited for LUSV concepts would provide increased capital and demand signal for the shipbuilding industry while providing complementary capabilities to the fleet. Yet while the LUSV can and should be a domestic program for growth, corvette-sized unmanned ships with VLS could easily fall into cooperative build plans with the various allies and partners who have frigate-sized, VLS-equipped combatants. The Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) technology-sharing agreement could provide an additional avenue for foreign construction. Further US coordination with Japan and South Korea could also prove fruitful, as the two East Asian allies represent the second and third largest global commercial shipbuilders  behind China.

While refining broader LUSV programs, it is worth considering the differences in shipbuilding costs between choosing LUSVs in a SAG compared to traditional manned combatants. Figure 5 provides a table of notional Surface Action Groups based on the fleet of today through 2027, while Figure 6 presents a table with the future ship programs and their costs.

Figure 5: Hypothetical future SAG LUSV force packages and VLS comparisons with current fleet combatants.
Figure 6: Hypothetical future SAG LUSV force packages and VLS comparisons with future fleet combatants.

Congressional Budget Office estimates for future programs like SSN(X) and DDG(X) present stark realities. The next-generation programs could run costs up to $6.3 billion and $3.3 billion, respectively. By comparison, if the Surface Navy chose to pursue an expanded LUSV buy to recapitalize the 788 VLS cells planned to disappear through 2027, this would require 25 32-cell LUSVs, totaling 800 cells. At $241 million per LUSV, the total (shipbuilding-only) costs would be $6.025 billion, or approximately less than a single SSN(X) or two DDG(X)s. While LUSV has a reduced collection of mission sets by comparison to future submarines and destroyers, it remains a ship that can conceivably be built in at least six American shipyards. Further, future LUSVs purpose-built to support Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) could hypothetically resolve the issue of the margin of the DDG-51 hull form being “maxed out” in space, weight, air, power, and cooling. Rather than a future large surface combatant required to have each capability resident in a single hull, as in DDG(X), a CPS LUSV in escort with a Flight III DDG may represent a proven ship design and better value, that other companies are attempting to support.

Ultimately, there are myriad ways to frame budgetary realities, but LUSV is the only cost-effective method for the surface force to quickly scale VLS capacity within existing force structure and given the present maritime industrial base.

Conclusion

The Surface Navy has a crucial opportunity to strengthen its capabilities and enhance its readiness by building and deploying LUSVs at scale. The “Every Ship a SAG” concept remains rooted in the intellectual work going back nearly a decade to “Distributed Lethality,” “Hunter-killer SAGs,” and their incorporation into Distributed Maritime Operations – only now with unmanned combatants. This manned-unmanned model provides a feasible solution for incorporating unmanned systems into the Surface Warfare Officer career path and forming more lethal Surface Action Groups for the future fight.

“Every Ship a SAG” addresses the concerns raised about Navy USV concepts and presents a clear vision for the future of wartime maritime operations. As the global security situation continues to evolve, the Surface Navy must take decisive action and invest in LUSVs to ensure it is prepared to meet its warfighting mission. It is time for Congress to fully support this effort by providing the necessary resources to bring the “Every Ship a SAG” model to life. Act now and make every ship a Surface Action Group.

Lieutenant Kyle Cregge is a U.S. Navy Surface Warfare Officer. He is the Prospective Operations Officer for USS PINCKNEY (DDG 91). The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the Department of Defense.

References

i. O’Rourke, Ronald. “China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for Congress.” December 1, 2022.

ii. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy DDG-51 and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs: Background and Issues for Congress.” 2011. Pages 6, 12, and 25. Average Costs for New Flight IIA Destroyers based on averaging multi-year procurement of DDGs 114-116, coming to $1,847 Million per ship.

iii. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy DDG-51 and DDG-1000 Destroyer Programs: Background and Issues for Congress.” 2022. Page 25. Table A-1. Per ship cost determined based on “Estimated Combined Procurement Cost of DDGs 1000, 1001, and 1002” in millions as shown in annual Navy budget submissions, using the FY23 Budget submission dividing the three ships’ cost by three.

iv. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy LPD-17 Flight II and LHA Amphibious Ship Programs: Background and Issues for Congress”. 2022. Pages 1 and 6. AND https://www.navy.mil/Resources/Fact-Files/Display-FactFiles/Article/2169795/aircraft-carriers-cvn/

v. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress” 2021. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20971801-rl32418-12 Page 9.

vi. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress.” 2022. Page 9.

vii. Congressional Budget Office. “An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2023 Shipbuilding Plan”. 2022. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58447 Table 7, “Average Costs per Ship Over the 2023–2052 Period for Flight III DDG”.

viii. Ibid, for FFG-62 Frigates.

ix. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy Constellation (FFG-62) Class Frigate Program: Background and Issues for Congress”. 2021. Congressional Research Service.  https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/R44972.pdf

x. CBO. Navy FY23 Shipbuilding Plan Analysis. Table 7. “Average Costs” DDG(X).

xi. Ibid. “Average Costs”. LPD(X), LHA-6, CVN-78.

xii. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress” 2021. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20971801-rl32418-12 Page 9.

xiii. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress.” 2022. Page 9.

xiv. O’Rourke, Ronald. “Navy DDG(X) Next-Generation Destroyer Program: Background and Issues for Congress” 2022. Page 2.

Featured Image: The guided missile destroyers USS Mustin (DDG 89), foreground, and USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG 54) steam through the Philippine Sea during a replenishment at sea Sept. 18, 2013. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Paul Kelly/Released)