The U.S. Navy’s unmanned surface vessels (USVs) are proliferating across multiple areas of operation, participating in increasingly more elaborate tests, integrating with partner navies, and being tactically employed. However, recent incidents involving the seizure of USVs highlight an ambiguous legal environment that foreign adversaries can exploit in the gray zone (described by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work as avenues of approach in which adversaries use agents, paramilitary organizations, deception, infiltration, and persistent denial to achieve their goals).
Medium displacement unmanned surface vessel Sea Hunter sails in formation during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), July 28, 2022. Twenty-six nations, 38 ships, three submarines, more than 30 unmanned systems, approximately 170 aircraft, and 25,000 personnel participated in RIMPAC from June 29 to Aug. 4 in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. The world’s largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity while fostering and sustaining cooperative relationships among participants critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world’s oceans. RIMPAC 2022 is the 28th exercise in the series that began in 1971 (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Aleksandr Freutel).
February 28, 2023 | Originally published by Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office on January 20, 2023