The Silent Frontier: Undersea Warfare
Beneath the vast, rolling waves of the world’s oceans, a silent battle is intensifying.
The undersea domain, long the realm of covert operations and hidden warfare, is rapidly emerging as a critical frontier in global defense strategies.
Over the past five years, evidence has mounted: nations are not just competing but clashing beneath the surface, racing to claim technological supremacy and strategic control in the depths.
This underwater competition, often out of sight, is shaping up to be one of the most pivotal battlegrounds of the 21st century.
As technology advances and the stakes rise, understanding the undersea domain’s complexities and challenges becomes not just a matter of national security but a pressing global imperative.
A brief aside
If you’re reading this, you’re likely a warrior, a former warrior, or someone that supports our warriors either directly or through building the technology that they use.
Regardless, I implore you to check-in on one another.
Many of our warriors and former warriors carry invisible scars.
Many don’t know how to ask for help.
One such warrior—my friend and former executive officer (second-in-command should something have happened to me)—succumbed recently to the inner demons that he’s battled for years.
Dave saved my ass many times in Afghanistan. He was conscientious and thoughtful. He cared for soldiers and always had their welfare at the front of his mind. He was an incredible chief of staff that required virtually no supervision.
And he suffered, deeply.
Now, his family will be the ones to suffer. They will carry his scars and wounds with them.
So, please, if you’re in a position to do so, check-in with anyone you think may bear such psychological injuries.
Current State of Undersea Warfare
Four or five years ago, I was running operations in the Middle East, around the Arab Peninsula.
Houthi rebels in Yemen had begun using unmanned surface vessels (USVs) in attacks against Saudi, American, and other vessels in the area.
These were not terribly sophisticated; they were little more than a motor boat retrofitted with a remote controlled steering mechanism and laden with explosives.
But they added a new threat to consider.
And the conversations in the halls of our special operations command turned to yet another threat: unmanned underwater vessels (UUVs)—also known as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs).
Fortunately, it wouldn’t be until earlier this year that this threat materialized from the Houthis.
Today, it seems like the conversation of UUVs and AUVs is everywhere.
Last year, Anduril unveiled its Ghost Shark XL AUV. Last week, it announced that it had completed its first prototype of the AUV to be built in Australia for the Australian military.
Also last week in Norway, Kongsburg announced that it had completed factory testing of its new long range Hugin Endurance AUV.
Three weeks ago, defense behemoth Northrop Grumman unveiled its sleek Manta Ray AUV.
Ukraine has made extensive use of underwater drones in its defense, largely crippling Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and continues to pioneer development of new AUVs for attack.
H.I. Sutton at Covert Shores keeps a decent list of large underwater drones. Sutton also provides plenty of writing on underwater warfare in general.
Here in America, there was a brief fight between the Department of the Navy and Congressional lawmakers over the production rate of Virginia-class submarines. The Navy wanted to cut production in 2025 to a single submarine; some lawmakers worried that it would have adverse rippling effects.
Several months ago, Congress green-lit and last week funded the sale of the nuclear submarines to Australia under the AUKUS agreement.
My point is, that there’s an ongoing explosion in development and interest for AUVs and other subsurface warfare capabilities.
Technological Advancements
Underpinning the development of these systems, are several key technologies including propulsion, sensors, navigation, communication, power.
Most of these technologies have advanced evolutionarily.
Yet, as we’ve discussed in other domains, sensors have advanced much faster.
These sensors, coupled with advanced autonomy algorithms allow these AUVs to sense where they are and navigate underwater.
Advances in novel communications technology including subsurface to surface, and surface to space, allow remote control of these systems in either a human-in-the-loop or human-on-the-loop configuration.
I rather expect that all of these advances—especially when combined with manufacturing methodologies that lower the cost of per-system production—will mean a significant shift in naval warfare.
Just as low-cost attritable mass has shifted favor from the defense to the offense in air and ground domains, so too will it in naval warfare.
Proliferation of U-boats and submarines led to the creation of large carrier task forces that aggregated together for protection. That is how navies have fought for the past 75+ years.
But these advances in AUVs and subsequent proliferation could force us to reconsider that structure, seeking instead new ways to protect both commercial maritime activity and our capital ships.
Strategic Importance
Admittedly, I’m not a naval expert. I’ve never served in the navy. The closest I got was as a Sea Cadet in the 6th grade.
I have studied some of the naval theorists like Mahan, Corbett, and Till. That doesn’t make me an expert here.
Still, I think we can extrapolate a few critical points. Namely, there could be a shift away from Mahan’s concentration of naval fleets and a need to reinforce the strategic chokepoints, such as the Strait of Hormuz or the Malacca Strait.
Secondly, we’ll need to invest in greater sensors of critical undersea infrastructure to avoid repeats of the Chinese ship damaging the Baltic Sea pipeline or the damage to the Red Sea cables.
Adversaries will increasingly target this infrastructure, seeking to paralyze our communications and energy capabilities while also rendering us vision-impaired.
Conclusion
Naval warfare is changing.
Activity under the sea is heating up, and this undersea domain will grow in importance in future conflicts.
We must prepare for it now, by investing in key technologies and capabilities that allow us to counter the threats posed by adversaries’ inexpensive, widely proliferated, attritable systems while simultaneously investing in our own mass produced systems.
We must also build resilience in our undersea infrastructure and find ways to harden it through increased sensors and communications mesh networks.
And, as always, we must
Keep building!
Andrew