It is not inconceivable that by the 2040s, much of the fighting will be done by the robots, with their human masters kept well behind harm’s way.
Future naval forces will exploit a mix of traditional crewed vessels and unmanned autonomous systems that operate over, on and under the waves. These autonomous systems will be able to generate a lethal effect on the future battlespace and, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggested, be “…capable of both independently identifying a target and employing an onboard weapon to engage and destroy the target without manual human control.” <1> The introduction of lethal autonomous weapon systems has some significant implications for future warfare.
Firstly, the development of autonomous systems opens the prospect for re-introducing mass onto the future battlespace. Since the 1980s, the decisive factor in war has been gaining and sustaining a knowledge edge over an opponent to enable a qualitative advantage as the principle means to ensure victory. That remains important, but the rising unit cost of ever more capable military platforms has seen the numbers of those platforms steadily shrink, such that all but the largest military forces are becoming increasingly boutique and brittle in a manner that raises constraints on operational readiness. In peacetime, the quest for a qualitative edge generates long acquisition cycles, and high development and sustainment costs. This generates the risk of a fiscal death spiral in capability acquisition that ultimately makes large numbers of complex and expensive platforms prohibitively expensive. Witness the fate of the US’s B-2A bomber and F-22 fighter.
With autonomous systems, this trend can be potentially reversed. The key must be embracing a fast innovation cycle that avoids long-term sustainment costs. Such an approach is already being considered for the US Air Force’s next generation air dominance programme under a ‘digital century series’ model, encompassing both crewed and autonomous platforms in a future air combat system. <2><3> The same approach could be applied to other domains, including for naval warfare. If autonomous systems can be produced quickly and cheaply, then rather than seeing a small number of expensive and complex systems being acquired over a very long time at great cost, the possibility of ‘swarms’ of cheap, expendable and fully autonomous platforms and loitering weapons in the future battlespace might emerge, in which quantity will have a quality of its own. <4>
Also of key importance in the development of autonomous systems is artificial intelligence (AI) to enable fully autonomous weapons and platforms, rather than systems that are remotely controlled (human ‘in the loop’) or given only limited autonomy (‘on the loop’). This is especially important if swarming on the battlespace, including at sea, is to be a realistic option. It is simply impractical for direct human control of large numbers of unmanned systems to be viable. The accelerating pace and growing complexity of modern warfare means that AI will be essential if autonomous systems are to be effectively employed. <5>
AI will emerge on delivery platforms and in the weapons themselves, allowing them to identify targets, and choose when and how to strike without necessarily needing human intervention. This is already apparent with the development of weapons such as the AGM-158C long-range anti-ship missile (LRASM), which can network and operate as a swarm and work out the best tactics to attack a particular target. <6> With the incorporation of AI, war at ‘machine speed’ will generate a race to be the first major power to use AI in war comprehensively. <7>
There’s a significant ethical and legal dilemma that emerges as a result. For western liberal democracies, a key issue in using lethal autonomous weapon systems is doing so in a manner consistent with the laws of armed conflict that define rules of engagement. For liberal democracies like Australia and India, there is debate on developing trusted autonomy in future systems and defining how far to go in allowing fully autonomous weapons and platforms.
This requirement may act as a constraint on the ability of these states to use lethal autonomous weapon systems, but authoritarian peer adversaries may not face similar constraints, and against a peer adversary equipped with autonomous weapons and willing to use them in an unconstrained manner, the military advantage might shift to our opponents.
The US Navy is already moving towards a mixed fleet of crewed and autonomous vessels. <8> It is developing advanced capabilities such as the Sea Hunter unmanned surface vehicle (USV) and ‘Orca’ large unmanned underwater vehicle (XLUUV). <9> These are moving rapidly towards becoming operational systems, and they point to a future naval warfare environment where autonomous robotic systems operate alongside traditional warships and submarines. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is already embracing this path and has recently released its own ‘remote and autonomous systems-artificial intelligence’ (RAS-AI) strategy document that charts a course through 2040 to develop and incorporate such capabilities. <10> Local development of the Ocius Technologies’ ‘Bluebottle’ USV opens up prospects for hundreds of such platforms, operating as a network to undertake surveillance tasks in a manner that can support maritime domain awareness missions and a range of military tasks. <11> Although the RAN does not have specific capabilities for armed autonomous platforms being developed currently, the release of the RAS-AI strategy highlights a path to such platforms before the 2040s.
India is also pursuing unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) capability for undersea surveillance purposes. <12><13><14> China is also seeking to develop advanced UUV and USV capabilities, with UUVs on display at the recent 70th-anniversary military display. <15> Analysts suggest that the Chinese HSU-001 Large Displacement UUV that was displayed at the parade is large enough to carry unattended sensors or mines, but is likely to be tasked with intelligence gathering missions near the surface. The HSU-001 is less than half the size of the US’s XLUUV, and like the US’s ‘Snakehead’ UUV, will likely be deployed from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surface ships or a drydock on a submarine. <16> On USVs, the Chinese have chosen to make an exact copy of the US Navy’s Sea Hunter, which is likely to have greater displacement than the US Navy platform. <17><18>
The combination of these UUV and USV platforms will contribute towards establishing a ‘Great Underwater Wall’ around the South China Sea. <19> This will be a network of sensors positioned on the seabed, combined with mobile unmanned platforms on and below the waves, operating autonomously and utilising AI to coordinate their actions. The goal will be to prevent an adversary from deploying submarines into the region sufficiently close to China to either threaten PLAN warships, or be able to launch land-attack cruise missiles against land targets. As such, Chinese UUV and USV development needs to be seen through the context of the broader concept of anti-access and area denial, and their development and eventual deployment will be designed to further reduce the ability of the US to intervene militarily in the event of a regional crisis, perhaps over Taiwan.
With China moving forward with its own unmanned systems at sea, how states such as Australia and India can use unmanned systems to respond to the growing Chinese naval capability becomes a key issue, now and in the future.
Firstly, numbers do matter. The rapidly modernising and growing Chinese PLAN has overtaken the US Navy in numbers of battle force ships, at 350 ships and submarines, including over 130 major surface combatants, compared to the US Navy’s 293 ships. <20> With this larger and more modern fleet, which will continue to grow, it is likely that over time the PLAN will be able to assume a more visible and substantial presence in the ‘far seas’ of the Indian Ocean, as China seeks to assert its interests and presence along the twenty-first century maritime silk road.
This could see the PLAN exploiting Chinese-established commercial ports to support its naval forces, as well as a growing prospect for increasing the number of PLAN aircraft carrier battlegroups — perhaps four to six aircraft carriers being built — and a growing number of more advanced large amphibious ships that can operate combat aircraft, akin to escort carriers, which are likely to establish a presence along the maritime silk road. <21>
Though the main strategic direction for the PLAN remains Taiwan and the near and middle seas within the first and second island chains, there is a clear indication that China is building power projection capabilities that will challenge the security interests of states along the Indian Ocean littoral. Responding to this larger and more assertive PLAN means regional navies must have a forward presence and sufficient combat mass to counterbalance and deter China from acting in a manner inimical to their interests. It makes sense to invest more in advanced autonomous systems on and under the waves and in the air to complement crewed platforms, given the inherent advantages of autonomous systems in terms of lower acquisition and sustainment cost, reduced risk absent a crew, and the potential benefits of exploiting rapid innovation cycles. But such systems must be acquired in sufficient numbers to make their impact worthwhile. Numbers matter. And the benefits of autonomous systems will be reduced if they are not fully or mostly autonomous. Remotely piloted UUVs and USVs, limited in range, endurance and payload, make little sense, given the operational and tactical factors that are now confronting regional naval forces.
Indeed, advanced autonomous systems at sea can be launched from traditional submarines and surface ships, but they will be smaller and have a more limited range and payload. The focus of capability acquisition in autonomous systems must be on more capable fully autonomous capabilities, with the Orca UUV and Sea Hunter USV being the exemplar.
Unmanned systems still need to ‘plug and play’ with the rest of the fleet to be useful, so developing secure and resilient command and control in the future battlespace becomes ever more important. That could have significant implications for how major powers in the Indian Ocean region think about the use of space and ‘near space’ based UAV capabilities, and to mitigate the growing threat posed by Chinese counterspace capability.
In addition, the pace at which China develops its autonomous weapons capabilities should determine how quickly states like Australia and India respond. The RAN’s RAS-AI Strategy has a 20-year timeline, with armed UUVs only appearing by the 2040s and USV operations emphasising non-kinetic operations until the 2040s. This relaxed pace may prove insufficient to meet the likely development of ever-more sophisticated PLAN unmanned and autonomous weapons capabilities, and is likely to slip behind what will probably be faster US development of autonomous systems such as Orca and Snakehead.
Finally, advances in AI, together with the implications of swarming networks of UUVs and USVs, and the prospects offered by quantum technologies to transform secure communications, sensing and computing functions in war, may reduce the opacity of the oceans for submarines — necessitating greater reliance on UUVs rather than putting crewed platforms at risk. The question then becomes how ‘depopulated’ the future maritime battlespace will become in the coming years. It is not inconceivable that by the 2040s, much of the fighting will be done by the robots, with their human masters kept well behind harm’s way.
<1> Kelley M. Sayler, Emerging Military Technologies: Background and Issues for Congress, Washington DC, Congressional Research Service, 2020.
<2> Valerie Insinna, “US Air Force’s next-generation fighter inches forward with a new program head”, Defense News, October 3, 2019.
<3> Malcolm Davis, “Mystery US jet shows there’s a faster path to Australia’s future fighter,” The Strategist, September 17, 2020.
<4> Malcolm Davis, “Cheap drones versus expensive tanks: a battlefield game-changer?,” The Strategist, October 21, 2020.
<5> Margarita Konaev, “With AI, We’ll see faster fights, but longer wars,” War on the Rocks, October 29, 2019.
<6> Lockheed Martin, “LRASM: Long-range anti-surface cruise missile”.
<7> Zachary Fryer-Biggs, “Coming Soon to the Battlefield: Robots that can kill,” The Atlantic, September 3, 2019.
<8> Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service, December 23, 2020.
<9> Mallory Shelbourne, “Navy to use Sea Hunter in Fleet Exercises as Unmanned Systems Experimentation Continues,” USNI News, September 30, 2020.
<10> Australian Naval Institute, “Chief of Navy launches the RAS-AI Strategy 2040".
<11> Ocius Technologies, “Innovative Autonomous Solutions for persistent maritime surveillance”.
<12> Abhijit Singh, “How India, too, is on a quest for undersea dominance, to counter the Chinese navy’s growing presence,” Observer Research Foundation, August 31, 2018.
<13> “Adamya AUV: India’s Submarine launched Autonomous Underwater Vehicle,” Defence Update.
<14> “Indian Navy to Procure Unmanned Surface Vehicles and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles,” Defpost, July 20, 2018.
<15> HI Sutton, “Chinese HSU-001 LDUUV – Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle,” Covert Shores, October 2, 2019.
<16> David R. Strachan, “China Enters the UUV Fray,” The Diplomat, November 22, 2019.
<17> HI Sutton, “New Intelligence: Chinese Copy of US Navy’s Sea Hunter USV,” Naval News, September 25, 2020.
<18> HI Sutton, “New Evidence of China’s Copy of US Navy Sea Hunter USV,” Covert Shores, September 25, 2020.
<19> Jeffrey Lin and P.W. Singer, “The Great Underwater Wall of Robots: Chinese exhibit shows off Sea Drones,” Popular Science, June 22, 2016.
<20> US Department of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020, pp. vii.
<21> Rick Joe, “Whispers of 076, China’s Drone Carrying Assault Carrier,” The Diplomat, August 21, 2020.
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