Drone warfare is expanding from the skies to the seas, and the United States must be ready. The Russia-Ukraine war, which has become synonymous with aerial drone warfare, has now featured the “first naval battle in history between unmanned boats,” according to the Ukrainian Navy. On September 14, 2026, a Ukrainian Sargan 300 drone boat fired at and sank a Russian unmanned surface vessel (USV) in the Black Se. This is a significant milestone in warfare’s rapid evolution. 

Unmanned naval platforms are also starting to see combat beyond the battlefield laboratory of Eastern Europe. During the Iran conflict, in July 2026, three American one-way attack USVs struck an Iranian submarine and naval facility, the first-ever American use of USVs to strike enemy targets. Just weeks prior, a USV rescued two U.S. Army pilots from nearby waters after an Iranian drone struck their helicopter. 

Nor are recent U.S. unmanned successes confined to the Middle East. They have occurred right in America’s backyard. Reporting from August 5, 2026, indicated that an American USV recently detected, tracked, and helped intercept a U.S. bound narcotics shipment worth $81 million in the Caribbean Sea. 

Now, building on these recent tactical successes requires accelerated U.S. efforts, not complacency. Greater strategic imagination is the first step. The Pentagon needs to think both bigger and smaller about unmanned military platforms. Bigger thinking means integrating them into a single network with manned assets and human warfighters. Smaller thinking means complementing high-end platforms with inexpensive, expendable ones. Today, the U.S. military does neither at scale. 

The American military’s recent success with autonomous platforms, along with the unmanned advances of partners like Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, offers three main lessons for the Pentagon’s next unmanned leap forward. 

First, expendability has its own currency. Ukraine has achieved outsized battlefield effects with lower-end, expendable unmanned platforms, as well as Iran and Russia. This is true for sea-based autonomous systems too. However, one-way attack USVs, like those American forces used against Iran, remain in short supply. That shortfall stems from bureaucratic, not technological, reasons. The Pentagon applies the same rigid standards to unmanned, expendable platforms as to high-end, manned surface combatants. Yet overly rigorous testing and evaluation inhibit production at the pace the battlefield demands. 

Second, as the recent USV rescue of U.S. aviators from the Arabian Gulf demonstrates, unmanned platforms offer more than strike or surveillance functions. In fact, those lower-tech functions may have a greater upside, involving less rigorous testing and faster deployment timetables. Take, for example, the since-axed UCLASS program to build carrier-based surveillance-and-strike drones. Due to a lengthy requirements list, the project became unsustainable. That is subtraction by addition. Now, the Navy is developing the MQ-25 Stingray, an unmanned aerial refueler and a simpler platform meeting a fundamental need. 

Unmanned platforms offer additional unconventional utility, such as logistics resupply and forward basing. For example, an Israeli firm is exploring turning commercial ships into camouflaged floating drone bases. Another has developed heavy-lift drones to move materiel to the battlefield. These concepts address a primary challenge America would face in a future Pacific war: contested logistics across a broad geographic area far from the homeland and near the enemy’s surf and turf. Fortunately, unmanned systems could ease those logistical headaches by offering greater concealment, dispersal, and flexibility, while preserving manpower. 

Another potential evolution is now on the horizon: unmanned amphibious landings. A Ukrainian startup has a prototype autonomous amphibious vehicle that resembles a small truck. It can carry drones, travel underwater with a low radar profile, and drive onto enemy shores. The United States, by acquiring that capability, could facilitate a naval version of Operation Spiderweb, where Ukrainian drones hidden inside cargo trucks infiltrated Russia and neutralized strategic Russian bombers across the country. 

Third, and finally, the Pentagon’s unmanned advances must be complementary. However, they are not presently. This is the “think bigger” half of the equation, and what makes the first two lessons pay off. Expendable autonomous mass, low-cost single-purpose platforms, and distributed unmanned hubs reach their potential only when they work as a team. Recognizing this, Taiwan is seeking over 200,000 one-way attack drones and over 1,200 USVs, including the systems architecture to link them together. 

To prevail in a hypothetical Pacific war, American forces must maintain persistent surveillance of the adversary. That interconnectivity is currently lacking, which impedes readiness. Surveillance drones cannot directly communicate with nearby submarines or USVs, nor fuse data into a common operating picture. 

Linking autonomous platforms, manned assets, and human warfighters in a shared data mesh and command-and-control system would close those gaps. The U.S. military’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control (CJADC2) aims to forge that very integration. Yet CJADC2 remains limited to “fragmented deployments,” according to the Pentagon. Fixing this is a critical next step. 

Innovating in the unmanned domain will require the Pentagon to be more imaginative in how it acquires, tests, and links its manned and unmanned platforms. That requires thinking smaller, by acquiring more expendable unmanned systems, and thinking bigger, by operationalizing a joint-domain network. It should also involve Washington acquiring Israeli, Taiwanese, and Ukrainian unmanned technology and expanding co-production with those U.S. partners at the cutting edge of warfare. 

Successful adaptation also requires the Pentagon to re-examine how it allocates resources. Currently, cost overruns on large, manned surface combatants poorly calibrated to today’s threat landscape constrain the development and acquisition of future unmanned capabilities. Studies indicate that guided-missile destroyers would be highly vulnerable in a Pacific war, and that reliably fixing and returning them to battle would be nearly impossible. Spending on these platforms, while important, takes up a disproportionate share of the Navy’s budget, crowding out unmanned innovation and acquisition. 

The Pentagon’s recent unmanned successes show it is not completely outpaced by warfare’s rapid evolution. Yet this is a marathon, not a sprint. The U.S. will suffer if it does not keep up—particularly in the unmanned domain. 

Vice Admiral Michael Connor, USN (ret.), is a former Commander, U.S. Submarine Forces, and a Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) Generals and Admirals Program participant. He is the former director of the Pentagon’s Naval Warfare Integration Group. Yoni Tobin is a senior policy analyst at JINSA. 

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies.

The Next Chapter of Unmanned Warfare Has Arrived was originally published on Global Security Review.

Proliferation of unmanned systems in modern warfare has popularized the notion that traditional platforms have reached the end of their operational relevance. Particularly, the Russia-Ukraine war has deepened the perception that small, agile, and inexpensive drones have rendered manned platforms in land, air, and sea domain obsolete.

This argument gains credibility while assessing drones’ performance against manned armored vehicles which are now routinely labelled as outdated systems against drone-enabled precision strikes. Yet, what is often depicted in the media is only one side of the coin. Drones often fail to find targets, are intercepted, or manage to hit their target, thus not achieving intended results. Despite proliferation of first-person view (FPV) drones, armored vehicles continue to play a vital role in maneuver warfare and protected mobility. Modern armor strategies have evolved to include combined arms and dispersion rather than mass for increasing survivability and combat efficiency. In the Russia-Ukraine war, several rudimentary measures like installation of cope cages atop turrets, have been implemented by both militaries to enhance the survivability rate of tanks against kamikaze drones. Vehicle mounted jammers have also shown promising results. Defensive technologies, like active protection systems (APS) and electronic countermeasures (ECM), have proven their efficiency against FPV drones. Thus, it can be argued that drones have not turned armored vehicles obsolete; they have forced them to evolve into more refined systems.

Similarly, in the aerial domain, many analysts perceive unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as cost effective alternative vis-à-vis manned aircraft. Yes, UASs have shown impressive evolution. From dropping laser-guided bombs (LGBs) to firing cruise missiles, air-to-air missiles, torpedo, and even smaller drones, drones have come a long way in changing warfare. Increasingly, drones have pushed manned aircraft aside as a more efficient option for operational engagement. In Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan innovatively employed aerial drones to expose Armenian air-defenses’ positions making them vulnerable to subsequent Azerbaijan’s targeted strikes. This unique use of drones as a crucial component of SEAD/DEAD (Suppression & Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses) kill chain marked a watershed moment in modern warfare.

However, the inherent limitations of drones are obvious too. UASs are more susceptibility to electronic warfare (EW) disruption and have unproven records in complex battlespace with dynamics rules of engagement (ROEs). Claims that unmanned systems will soon replace fighter jets overlook the enduring advantages of human decision-making in contested and escalation-sensitive environments. Manned aircraft provide operational flexibility and command judgment that are yet to be replicated through automation alone. The developmental trajectory suggests that instead of perceiving UAVs as one-one-one substitute for piloted aircraft, the future lies in Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) where manned aircraft will serve as command nodes while accompanied unmanned systems will provide mass, persistence, and attainability.

In the naval domain, the successfully employment of kamikaze surface and aerial drones by Ukraine in the Black Sea conflict is now frequently cited as an indicator that large surface combatants will soon turn into relics of past. Besides sinking multiple Russian warships in the Black Sea, Ukraine has even damaged a Russian Kilo class submarine stationed at Novorossiysk harbor using an underwater suicide drone. The Russian Black Sea Fleet, despite having overwhelming superiority over Ukrainian counterpart, has failed to establish sea-control in the Black Sea primarily due to remarkable performance of Ukrainian naval drones.

Similarly, in the Red Sea crisis, the Houthis’ rudimentary drones have challenged the operational persistence of Western naval powers. Kamikaze drones have compelled American, British, French, and German warships to deplete expensive air-defense missiles, which in some cases resulted in pre-mature withdrawal. Close-in Weapon Systems (CIWS) is usually considered a potent point of defense against all types of aerial threats in the maritime domain. However, both gun-based and missile-based CIWS have limited magazine capacity and engagement range. This suggests that against a more capable adversary, drone swarms can saturate warships’ defenses and can cause mission-kill by damaging critical instruments onboard, rendering them inoperable for extended time duration.

Although naval drones have added an additional layer of threat for warships, they do not, in themselves, render them obsolete. Novel defensive capabilities for countering drone threats are already in the developmental phase. Few systems have been deployed and evaluated in real combat. For example, on 03 March 2024, an Italian Andrea Doria class destroyer shot down an incoming kamikaze drone threat in Red Sea using DART projectiles fired from 76mm deck gun, a move far more economically feasible than air-to-surface missile. Similarly, high-energy lasers (HELs) onboard warships are being tested for countering drones. Besides kinetic defensive application, soft-kill measures such as jammers and decoy systems are also emerging as critical components of warships defensive suite.

In addition, the Black Sea and the Red Sea are enclosed bodies of water, offering limited operational space for naval forces and providing tactical advantage to drone-based asymmetric tactics. In blue waters, however, the effectiveness of such drones would diminish considerably. In open seas, it is unlikely that even mass formations of drones would be able to penetrate modern naval armadas. Although suicide drones can be used in formation with cruise and ballistic missiles to outclass adversary air-defenses, but repeating such a feat against time-sensitive and well protected high-value naval ships would be a very challenging undertaking. Thus, it can be argued that sea drones can be employed as enablers or force-multipliers in conjunction with other systems, but not as decisive instruments of naval warfare.

The future of warfare will not be defined by the triumph of drones over manned platforms. Today, drones have turned into a potent tool of warfare and are also an integral part of the kill-chain of modern militaries around the globe. However, limitations cannot be ignored. In practice, drones work less as independent war-winning weapons but are enablers and force-multipliers. In the age of viral narratives and simplified conclusions, misperceptions regarding military technologies are bound to persist. No single military system determines the outcome of war, and no single innovation renders all others irrelevant. Military power is cumulative and contextual.

Ahmad Ibrahim is a Research Associate at Maritime Centre of Excellence (MCE), Pakistan Navy War College (PNWC), Lahore. The views of the author are his own.

Assessing the Credibility of Manned Platforms in Contemporary Drone-Rich Combat Environment was originally published on Global Security Review.