Russia and the UK are racing to develop uncrewed boats and submarines and AI powered-sensors, as they battle for drone warfare dominance in the Atlantic Ocean.
Vladimir Putin appears to be spooked by plans for a British autonomous Naval fleet, with affiliated media saying Russia must work to match its capabilities.
The Royal Navy is implementing the marine system – named the Atlantic Bastion initiative – to protect the UK and NATO from Russian attacks.
A UK Ministry of Defence spokesperson said the North Atlantic are is subject to “continuous and escalating underwater challenges posed by the evolving Russian submarine fleet”.
In response, Russia’s defence ministry-linked outlet Rybar said that Russian ships and “countermeasures need to be prepared now”.
It pointed to the UK’s £24m automated system contract to develop uncrewed systems gathering acoustic data in counter-submarine operations.
Rybar said it was part of efforts by the UK to create an “extensive network of autonomous and remotely controlled platforms for anti-submarine defence”, across air and sea.
Neil Dee, Senior Naval Platforms Analyst at defence intelligence company Janes, said that uncrewed assets are “an area of increasing focus for navies, not least in terms of critical underwater infrastructure protection.”
The assets are cheaper to operate, can undertake dangerous missions without risking human lives, and can patrol for longer because they don’t need to carry life support systems or stop to resupply.
However, Dee said the technology is still emerging and that many uncrewed assets would still require human support for things like maintenance.
Uncrewed technology is coming to define modern warfare, with drones causing more civilian casualties in Ukraine than any other weapon.
The UK Government last week announced £2bn new investment in autonomous systems and plans for up to 12 new attack submarines for the Royal Navy.
The Ministry of Defence is understood to be considering investing in new automated naval capabilities, with discussions ongoing with multiple industry partners.
In November, British engineers successfully tested a new type of autonomous submarine.
Built by BAE systems, which holds many contracts with the UK Ministry of Defence, the submarine has been designed to monitor and protect underwater infrastructure.
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This week’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) – an externally-led analysis into the state of the UK’s Armed Forces – said that the UK must develop a new hybrid Navy using manned and unmanned systems.
The review said that “rapid advances in technology [were] driving the greatest change in how war is fought for more than a century” and “the UK must pivot to a new way of war.”
Dee said: “Atlantic Bastion is the Royal Navy’s plan to counter Russian submarines in the North Atlantic and includes the deployment of unmanned surface and underwater vehicles operating alongside the Navy’s City (Type 26)-class anti-submarine warfare frigates, which are currently under construction.
“The Royal Navy also recently unveiled Excalibur, the service’s largest unmanned underwater vehicle to date, which is to be used for trials.
“In the future, systems like Excalibur are expected to operate alongside the Royal Navy’s manned frigates and submarines and undertake anti-submarine warfare, infrastructure protection, and intelligence gathering tasks, among others.”
Nato has ‘overwhelming advantage’ in maritime sphere
Russia has become increasingly aggressive in the maritime domain since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
It stands accused of cutting undersea cables which provide power and internet traffic to Europe, sending spy vessels into the English Channel, and operating a “shadow fleet” of tankers which carry sanctioned oil and conceal their movements and ownerships.
These threats are part of the growing “hybrid” or “grey zone” warfare from Russia to the West, in which it carries out hostile but deniable attacks, often on critical infrastructure, which stop short of provoking full-scale war.
Naval experts Dr Sidharth Kaushal and René Balletta said that Russia views the maritime domain as “critical to the strategic balance – in other words, the capacity to both strike an adversary’s homeland and deflect strikes on Russia itself.”
However, they said the naval sphere “remains an area of overwhelming Allied advantage”, with Russia struggling to generate the capabilities it would like to combat Nato.
Should the Kremlin feel threatened by the expansion of uncrewed naval capacity, it may have to divert resources from other military pursuits.
“Investments in deflecting Allied maritime power will prove unavoidable for Russia, and will divert critical resources from its recapitalisation of other joint capabilities,” they said in a paper on Russian naval power.
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