Ukraine's unexpected victory in the Battle of the Black Sea has not received enough attention, but it may be a landmark achievement in naval history. Ukraine, without a standing navy of its own, has neutralized at least one-third of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, broken the Russian naval blockade, and resumed grain exports to the Black Sea. Ukrainian exports are now approaching pre-war levels, a major boon to the wartime economy.
How did Ukraine achieve this unlikely feat? Part of the answer is its use of powerful anti-ship cruise missiles, including the domestically produced Neptune, which sank the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, in 2022. But Ukraine has also made a remarkable innovation by developing its own unmanned surface vessels capable of tracking Russian warships in swarms.
Both the Magura V5 and Sea Baby are essentially unmanned speedboats that can carry explosives and even launch missiles. They are equipped with cameras and satellite links so that remote controllers can steer them to targets. They can reach speeds of up to 50 mph and are made from materials that are difficult to detect by radar. Best of all, they are cheap to manufacture and pose no risk to Ukrainian personnel. Drones costing just a few hundred thousand dollars are sinking multi-million dollar warships that would have taken years to build.
“Anyone who thinks this isn't a game-changer for the future of warfare is being wishful thinking,” P.W. Singer of the think tank New America told me.
James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and former NATO commander, agrees. “We are at an absolute inflection point in naval warfare,” he told me in an email. “Large surface ships are highly exposed to threats from air, surface, and underwater drones. The sooner great navies like the U.S. understand that, the better their chances of surviving large-scale combat in this turbulent 21st century. Like the battleships destroyed at Pearl Harbor, the end of the aircraft carrier is upon us. Surely it's time to shift the procurement rheostat from manned ships to more numerous and much cheaper unmanned vessels.”
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At a conceptual level, U.S. military leaders recognize that the nature of warfare is changing. My colleagues David Ignatius and Josh Rogin recently highlighted the U.S. military’s efforts to incorporate drones into operations. The Navy has conducted extensive testing of unmanned systems in the Persian Gulf and has established two unmanned surface fleets in the Pacific. Navy commanders recognize that drones that can operate above and below the surface, as well as on the ocean’s surface, could be crucial in defeating a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan.
However, the US military is still wedded to manned “legacy” platforms and has not committed the necessary resources to cutting-edge unmanned systems. The Replicator initiative announced last year is a positive step. It is a Defense Department-wide attempt to get around cumbersome procurement rules and introduce drones to the US operational forces as soon as possible. But the Replicator budget is only $500 million per year and is supposed to cover all the services. In contrast, the Navy’s shipbuilding budget for FY2025 is $32 billion, most of which is dedicated to manned warships such as frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers (up to $13 billion each) that are likely to be easy targets for Chinese drones, submarines and missiles.
This is not just the Navy's fault. Like other military services, the Navy is at the mercy of the “iron triangle” of defense contractors, Defense Department bureaucrats, and lawmakers. In 2022, the Navy tried to retire nine littoral combat ships that were plagued by mechanical problems and would not win a viable conflict with China, but Congress ordered five of the ships to remain operational, citing the negative impact of retiring them to their constituencies. The littoral combat ship program may end up costing taxpayers $100 billion without providing any useful warfighting capability.
There's plenty to blame, but at the end of the day, the Navy remains essentially a 20th century fighting force. “The Navy has clearly been too slow to adopt drone technology,” retired Rear Admiral and former Director of Naval Studies Lorin Selby told me. “The good news is that it's finally being recognized that drones have and will continue to play a role in naval warfighting. The bad news is that the budget hasn't yet reflected that.”
Similarly, Brian Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, which advises the Navy on new technologies, said in an email, “I think the Navy is missing out on the potential of unmanned ships. … The Navy has been experimenting with larger unmanned ships for years, but those efforts have not translated into a program moving forward with procurement, which is disappointing.”
It's not just the U.S. Navy that's “missing an opportunity.” So are the U.S. allies that stand to benefit most from drones. When I visited Taiwan last year, I was struck by how little effort the island has made to integrate unmanned systems into its military. Taiwan continues to spend precious defense dollars on manned ships and aircraft, and even artillery systems and tanks.
Taiwan allocates just 1% of its military budget to drones and aims to field only 700 military drones and 7,000 commercial drones, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bing West wrote in a recent National Review article. By contrast, impoverished Ukraine produces at least 1 million drones a year and loses as many as 10,000 in combat each month.
West argues that Taiwan should “reallocate at least $4 billion to develop a fleet of one million drones, ranging from simple kamikazes to AI-enhanced predators.” If a Chinese invasion fleet of 2,000 ships (rivaling the Allied fleet on D-Day in 1944) was heading for Taiwan, Taiwan could attack each Chinese vessel with 500 drones. The Philippines faces a Chinese maritime threat and is also a U.S. ally that needs to turn to drones for its own defense.
According to TX Hames, a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University, the rise of unmanned systems has made defense more advantageous than offense, making it harder for attackers to make headway. This is good news from the U.S. perspective, given that the U.S. is a status quo power and is trying to stop China from redrawing the map of the Western Pacific in its favor. But the U.S. and its allies have not fully taken advantage of this new technology. “The Navy is an inherently conservative organization,” Hames told me. “So I expect change to happen quite slowly.”
The problem is that the US and its allies can't afford to wait. Under the direction of President Xi Jinping, the Chinese military is rapidly building up its military to be able to seize Taiwan if called upon by 2027. There is no time to waste in preparing an effective defense, and drones need to be on the front lines.
