Whether navies choose to develop short-endurance kamikaze drones or long-endurance vehicles with agnostic payloads, unmanned naval warfare has unquestionably arrived
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Admiral Samuel Paparo, the new head of the United States (US) Indo-Pacific Command, recently stated that the US strategy to defend Taiwan from an invasion by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) revolves around a concept called ‘Hellscape’, which envisages an extensive deployment of multi-domain attritable drones across the Taiwan Strait. Adm. Paparo’s comments shadow the ongoing trend of drones becoming a critical asset in naval warfare. In ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, asymmetrical forces have utilised drones to achieve noticeable strategic success. While drones have been deployed for naval operations for some time now, the use of such assets in one-way kamikaze-style attacks is a contemporary development. Furthermore, traditional naval forces are starting to integrate and operate hybrid fleets that combine conventional warships and drones. Network communications are also evolving to facilitate seamless multi-domain command and control between human operators and drones, and sometimes among drones themselves. As such developments reshape the dynamics of modern naval warfare, this article attempts to understand the current discourse of drone development and its impact on naval strategy.
Formidable naval forces worldwide have invested in programmes to develop high-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). The development strategies of these unmanned systems ultimately aim to produce platforms that can perform complex missions currently assigned to conventional naval assets such as patrol aircraft, destroyers, and submarines. While UAVs have experienced operational deployments in continental battle environments for lethal engagements, in the maritime domain, unmanned platforms have been limited to non-lethal missions such as ocean floor mapping, monitoring of critical undersea infrastructure, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, intelligence preparation of the environment, and mine countermeasures.
Formidable naval forces worldwide have invested in programmes to develop high-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).
Gradually, navies are looking to endow drones with autonomous capabilities to enable them to perform pre-programmed missions without human intervention. To this end, naval forces are investing in complementary technologies, such as AI-enabled machine learning algorithms, quantum-encrypted communication networks, and wide bandwidth acoustic and visual sensors. Forces are also working on the concept of multi-domain swarming, wherein multiple unmanned assets across various domains—aerial, surface, and sub-surface—will be connected through an encrypted battlespace network to enable autonomous coordination and execution of an assigned mission. Similarly, Command, Control, Computing, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting (C5ISRT) systems are being innovated to support battlespace effectiveness. The aim is to create fast, resilient, distributed kill chains that maintain continuous battlespace superiority in contested maritime environments.
In contrast to the high-end development programmes undertaken by well-endowed nations, asymmetric forces in Ukraine and Yemen are rapidly innovating low-cost attritable drones. By attaching explosive payloads to commercial UAVs and USVs, unmanned systems are being transformed into kamikaze drones, which make use of the kinetic impact with their targets to deliver lethality. Since these drones are vulnerable to electronic jamming and spoofing and have a high attrition rate, they operate in large numbers to fulfil their mission. They also have a limited range and are usually controlled remotely from an onshore platform through a satellite or radio link. However, many kamikaze drones may have the ability to identify and engage targets even if the link to the operator is broken.
In contrast to the high-end development programmes undertaken by well-endowed nations, asymmetric forces in Ukraine and Yemen are rapidly innovating low-cost attritable drones.
Compared to the steep development and learning curve of high-endurance drones, kamikaze drones are mostly commercial off-the-shelf systems that can be easily produced and operated. The Ukrainian and Houthi forces operating these systems are constantly innovating based on the feedback they receive from the battlespace. This confrontation-fuelled innovation has led to the development of multi-purpose USVs with longer ranges and larger payloads, such as the Magura V5 and Sea Baby in Ukraine and the Toofan-1 in Yemen. Reports suggest that similar innovation is underway for UUVs as well. The rudimentary nature of these kamikaze platforms affords easy scalability, which, in one manner, represents the democratisation of drone warfare.
The Magura V5 Marine Combat Drone
Strategically, these kamikaze drones have delivered outsized outcomes to their users. In the Black Sea, these sea drones have enabled a Ukrainian strategy of sea-denial against a superiorly capable Russian Navy, effectively countering a Russian naval blockade. Over in the Red Sea, the Houthi forces have used these kamikaze drones to target commercial shipping transiting through the Bab al-Mandab Strait into the Red Sea as a response to Israel’s military operation in Gaza. Despite the attempts of several nations to safeguard freight transit in the region, Houthi forces continue to deny a vital shipping route to global maritime commerce. Both the Ukrainians and the Houthis have demonstrated that indigenously produced low-cost drones are the perfect platforms for asymmetric naval warfare.
‘Hellscape’ is essentially a strategy of the US Navy to deploy network-centric swarms of multi-domain attritable drones to nullify the PRC’s naval advantage in the Taiwan Strait. The US Navy envisions that this mass deployment of asymmetric systems will stall the PRC’s invasion, allowing the US and its partner forces time to mount a full counter-invasion response. In support of this strategy, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the ‘Replicator Initiative’ in September 2023, which aimed “to field attritable, autonomous systems at a scale of multiple thousands [and] in multiple domains” within a time-scale of 18 to 24 months. In June 2024, the US Department of Defense awarded contracts worth US$ 984 million for USVs to 49 different firms, signalling that ‘Hellscape’ is more than just deterrence messaging.
The Replicator initiative provides much-needed impetus to US drone manufacturing capacity, which lags far behind China’s. Presently, China leads the worldwide production of commercial and military drones and is cogitating tactics to deploy its own drone swarms for a blockade of Taiwan. PRC forces frequently deploy drones alongside air force jets around Taiwan, terming them joint combat readiness patrols. Moreover, in January 2023, the PRC announced the launch of the world’s first seaborne drone carrier, the Zhu Hai Yun. The PRC’s deployment of an autonomous drone carrier demonstrated that the capability gap between the US and the PRC in critical technologies is narrowing, with Beijing leading research and development in a few key areas. Advancements in quantum technologies, cyber technologies, swarming technologies, electronic warfare, artificial intelligence, and autonomy may well determine battlefield success in a US–China drone conflict over Taiwan.
As countries increasingly deploy UAVs, USVs, and UUVs for various naval operations alongside conventional assets, naval force structures will need to strike a balance between manned and unmanned platforms. Concomitantly, protocols that encompass man-machine teaming are required. The US Navy’s concept of ‘distributed maritime operations’ already envisions a move towards surface action groups to accomplish its objectives, deviating from its long-held strategy to concentrate naval power around carrier strike groups. If AI-enabled disaggregated unmanned platforms take precedence over high-value assets such as aircraft carriers and submarines in naval force structures, there will be sweeping changes in how fleets are funded, developed, built, trained, deployed, operated, maintained, and commanded.
In a future inundated with unmanned systems, navies will need to focus on developing counter-drone and counter-counter-drone technologies. The threat posed by kamikaze drones on the maritime environment has upended the superiority of conventionally structured naval forces, and countering these drones, either through electromagnetic jamming or high-powered microwaves and directed energy weapons, will become vital for naval forces. Additionally, aerial drones can also be fitted with electronic warfare payloads to attain spectrum dominance. Drones are also vulnerable to cyber-attacks, which is especially significant for networked swarms, where the hacking of a single drone can compromise the entire battlespace. Conversely, drone developers need to incorporate technologies that allow resiliency from cyber and electronic warfare.
In a future inundated with unmanned systems, navies will need to focus on developing counter-drone and counter-counter-drone technologies.
The proliferation of drones in the maritime domain will also significantly affect strategic stability. In April 2024, Iran launched the single largest drone attack to date, deploying hundreds of drones and loitering munitions simultaneously against multiple targets in Israel. With the assistance of American, French, British, and Jordanian forces, Israel, with its highly advanced anti-ballistic missile defence system, was able to defend against Iran’s attack but still failed to intercept all the aerial assets. This attack is a template for how unmanned systems could become the lynchpin of sub-conventional warfare. Nations can deploy, engage and target unmanned assets, assuming their actions will be below the conventional threshold of warfare. However, any mishap or miscalculation can lead to an escalation wherein conventional and strategic assets may get involved.
Naval warfare is continuously evolving, and unmanned platforms and associated disruptive technologies have added new dimensions to this field, but the fundamental nature of maritime security remains the same. While manoeuvres and tactics involving complex unmanned systems have been demonstrated in naval exercises and exhibitions, their real-time execution is still pending. Naval strategists worldwide need to closely monitor this evolution in naval warfare, as geopolitical and technological developments indicate the onset of a crucial phase. The contrasting development approaches between well-endowed naval forces and forces seeking asymmetric objectives demonstrate that, in the near future, procurement strategies will need to be flexible and strike a balance between tactical and strategic unmanned platforms. Whether navies choose to develop short-endurance kamikaze drones or long-endurance vehicles with agnostic payloads, unmanned naval warfare has unquestionably arrived.
Tuneer Mukherjee is a researcher of Asian security, with a focus is on naval modernisation in South Asia.
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Tuneer Mukherjee is a researcher of Asian security and his current focus is on naval modernization in South Asia. Previously, he was a Junior Fellow ...
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