Perspective
The U.S. Navy has been forthcoming in its strategies designed to ensure peace and stability on the global commons working with allies and partners. These strategies have contributed to the security and prosperity of all nations touched by the oceans. Whether manifested in documents such as “Advantage at Sea” and “Americas Warfighting Navy,” these high-level documents provide a clear vision of how the U.S. Navy intends to accomplish these goals.
While these visionary documents remain important, achieving these goals requires documents with more granularity that describe ways, means and ends to achieve the desired outcomes. Over the past decade, these ways, means, and ends have been articulated in “Navigation Plans” issued by successive U.S. Chiefs of Naval Operations. These “Navigation Plans” serve two purposes. One is to be transparent to the nation and the U.S. Congress regarding the Navy’s goals and objectives. Another is to assign responsibilities to senior flag officers.
The new navigation plan
In September 2024, the chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, issued her “Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy.” Adm. Franchetti describes this “Navigation Plan” as the strategic guidance to the U.S. Navy.
The plan articulates two overarching objectives: an imperative to be ready for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027 and enhancement of the Navy’s long-term advantage. This plan has several components and perhaps the most intriguing part is to scale robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed. This focuses on capitalizing on the inherent advantages that uncrewed systems bring to any navy.
Adm. Franchetti’s predecessor, Adm. Michael Gilday, articulated the goal of a “500-Ship Navy,” also known as the “Hybrid Fleet,” which includes 350 crewed ships, and 150 uncrewed vessels. Adm. Franchetti has embraced this goal of a hybrid fleet and her plan to scale robotic and autonomous systems and integrate them with crewed platforms points directly to the goal of a 500-ship hybrid fleet.
Two recent real-world events have worked to accelerate the U.S. Navy’s development and fielding of uncrewed vessels. The first is the Ukrainian Navy’s use of uncrewed surface vessels to deny the Russian Navy the use of the Western Black Sea, as well as threaten Russia’s supply lines to occupying forces in Crimea. The second is Yemen’s Houthi rebels use of drones against commercial vessels as well as against U.S. and partner navies in the Red Sea.
The “why” behind the commitment to uncrewed systems
Uncrewed capabilities not only keep sailors out of harm’s way, but they provide opportunities to greatly expand the sea service’s warfighting capacity at less cost than traditional Navy vessels. The “Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy” adds more granularity to the “why” behind the Navy’s commitment to uncrewed surface vessels.
The “Navigation Plan” puts special emphasis on the “Hybrid Fleet.” As Adm. Franchetti noted, absent a large infusion of resources, it will not be possible to build a bigger traditional navy in a few short years. Therefore, the hybrid fleet concept explained above is seen as a viable path to put enough hulls in the water to accomplish the Navy’s myriad global missions.
The Hybrid Fleet is moving forward. Navy officials have been laying the keel for the future hybrid fleet via experimentation and other efforts, such as standing up Task Force 59 and Task Force 59.1, establishing the Disruptive Capabilities Office, and “operationalizing” the integration of uncrewed vessels into numbered fleets beginning with the U.S. 4th Fleet.
Getting autonomous vehicles to the fight
One of the reasons that the “Navigation Plan” describes the Navy’s confidence in the ability of uncrewed surface vessels to perform as expected next to the Navy’s crewed ships is the fact that over the past decade, the U.S. Navy, along with allied and partner navies, has inserted small- and medium-sized commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) uncrewed systems into Navy and Marine Corps events to perform a wide range missions.
That said, small and medium uncrewed surface vessels (along with their air and undersea counterparts) must get to the area of operations to perform their various missions. Given that there is limited space aboard Navy ships, another means must be found. This requires a Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) to serve as a “truck.” The Navy wants LUSVs to be low-cost, reconfigurable vessels based on commercial ship designs. Some potential candidates for this mission include the Navy’s program of record LUSV, the MARTAC T82, and the Ranger and Nomad USVs operated by Unmanned Surface Vessel Division 1.
This is not a platform-specific solution, but rather a concept. When Navy operators see a capability with different size unmanned COTS platforms in the water successfully performing vital missions they will likely press industry to produce even more-capable platforms to perform these tasks.
George Galdorisi is a career naval aviator and national security professional. His 30-year career as a naval aviator culminated in 14 years of consecutive service as executive officer, commanding officer, commodore, and chief of staff. He is a 40-year Coronado resident and enjoys writing, especially speculative fiction about the future of warfare. He is the author of 16 books, including four consecutive New York Times best sellers.
