It is the year 2028, and the newly commissioned USS Constellation (FFG-62) is on her maiden deployment in the South China Sea when she receives tasking to board and inspect the Liberian-flagged M/V Audacious Innovator, suspected to be carrying weapons destined for extremists in Southeast Asia. As she closes on the Innovator’s location, the Constellation’s captain learns the vessel is fully autonomous and has no crew on board. While the Constellation’s crew makes their preparations, the captain begins thinking about the potential challenges an unmanned vessel will present to the boarding team. “How do we board a crewless vessel? How will I inspect the cargo? Is this even legal? I’m not sure what to do.”
While the above vignette may seem far-fetched, there has been significant progress in recent years toward developing maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS). Once these ships begin widespread operations, they will revolutionize maritime commerce. Autonomous developments are coming from private industry, highlighted by the first fully autonomous transatlantic voyage, which successfully concluded in June 2022; the public sector, including the European Commission’s Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks initiative; and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA) Sea Train project, among others.1 These advances have prompted numerous legal and policy discussions; most prominent is the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO’s) Regulatory Scoping Exercise (RSE), which sought to assess “existing IMO instruments to see how they might apply to ships with varying degrees of automation.”2
Powerful economic drivers will continue to propel advances and incentivize overcoming difficulties associated with fully autonomous merchant ships. The commercial shipping industry is experiencing significant labor shortages, and labor represents an expense that, if reduced or removed, would make shipping significantly more affordable.3 Further, as human error accounts for up to 95 percent of maritime accidents, there is a strong safety incentive to minimize or eliminate human involvement.4
Despite the likelihood of MASS proliferation and the associated changes to the maritime environment, little consideration has been given to how MASS will affect military operations. The Navy—most important, the maritime component commanders—should act now to preserve their ability to execute the full range of military operations in a world in which MASS are widely operated. To address the coming challenges MASS will pose, the United States will need to address policy shortfalls, clarify the government’s legal stance, and identify training and equipment shortfalls.
International Policy Shortfalls
To prepare for MASS, new policies are necessary at the international level. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea is one example of an agreement facing uncertainty because of MASS.5 Similar uncertainties also exist for vessel interdiction by warships but have gone unaddressed. For example, communicating with and querying a suspect vessel by radio is crucial to establishing a vessel’s identity, confirming the need to conduct an inspection, and assessing whether the vessel will comply with the boarding team.6
It is reasonable to assume a boarding team may be able to conduct basic automated querying of MASS, but requesting and receiving compliance to directives such as slowing, changing course, and lowering ladders is a different matter. Even if it were possible to automate compliance, vessels’ programming would have to differentiate between valid orders from warships and malicious activity by pirates or other malign actors.
Once those challenges are addressed, there are complications such as locating a ship’s cargo manifest. Typically, the ship’s master provides the boarding team with the manifest during an inspection, but this is not so simple without a crew member to hand over the documentation.7 One solution could be a standardized location for a physical manifest—simple, but requiring legwork to implement and enforce. A computer-based method to validate manifests is another possibility; however, a digital approach presents cybersecurity risks because of the competing demands to make manifests available to inspectors while preventing unauthorized access.
These few potential impediments to a secure and effective inspection process demonstrate the potential complexity of seemingly straightforward inspection requirements when MASS are involved. However, international efforts are underway to review MASS-related policy, most notably the recent IMO RSE. But this effort only identified the need to update current policy and has not yet resulted in changes.8
Maritime component commanders should examine MASS’s impact not only on maritime interdiction operations, but also on the broader range of maritime operations. Commanders should use congressional testimony, strategy documents, and other means to bring attention to commercial shipping’s impending autonomation while advocating for a whole-of-government approach to inform ongoing policy debates. In turn, the U.S. government can use its status as a member of international organizations to advocate for a clear set of standards and procedures for MASS that will facilitate safe and efficient military operations with minimal disruption to commercial shipping.
Legal Implications
Even if the international community develops necessary guidance, there are domestic legal considerations that require clarification. The question of an autonomous ship’s master is a widely recognized legal concern and is relevant to maritime interdiction because only masters can consent to a vessel boarding.9 Given the restrictions that limit the boarding of foreign-flagged vessels in international waters, obtaining a master’s consent is an integral part of interdiction operations.10
For a remotely operated vessel, the master likely is located at the control center, but this may add complications. In the case of remotely operated MASS controlled from a third-party country, the control center’s location may introduce new avenues for obtaining permission to board. Consider the hypothetical boarding of a Liberian-flagged tanker operated from a control center in Canada and the operator—the vessel’s master—refuses to consent to an inspection. Ordinarily, the interdicting state would need Liberia’s permission to board, but given the control center’s location, the Canadian government may be able to grant permission.
For fully autonomous vessels, the master’s identity is less clear. It may be the vessel’s programmer, or the vessel may be considered its own master.11 Whatever the answer, all possibilities present challenges to interdiction and other operations. A human responsible for the ship—be it the programmer, owner, or another individual—likely will be difficult to contact on short notice. If the ship is its own master, it is unclear whether such consent would be legally or ethically valid.
However, MASS do not complicate every legal aspect of interdiction operations. In some cases, issues are unchanged or even simplified, but current legal guidance requires clarification on how exiting laws apply. For example, the presence or absence of human crew members does not necessarily change the legal basis for a boarding. Article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which details when a warship may board a foreign vessel, makes no mention of the inspected vessel’s crew, human or otherwise.12 Similarly, MASS cannot more readily fly flags of convenience or take other action to avoid lawful interdiction than crewed vessels.13
These facts may be obvious to legal experts, but the current guidance to tactical commanders is unclear. The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations (NWP 1-14M) only narrowly addresses autonomy and ignores MASS entirely.14 As the handbook is the tactical commander’s primary resource for ensuring actions are lawful, this omission may create doubt and hesitation regarding the legality of MASS-related operations. By amending NWP 1-14M and related publications, the Navy can clarify and refine MASS-related policy and ensure tactical commanders are on firm legal footing to conduct operations near or against autonomous ships.
Capability Shortfalls
Even after the legal and policy issues are addressed, training and equipment will require updates. MASS present new challenges and opportunities that can be mitigated or exploited via novel technology and techniques.
Automation is expected to lead to a revolutionary approach to vessel design.15 MASS will not require a bridge in which humans control the vessel. Auxiliary control rooms may exist for redundancy, or to allow human operation in circumstances the autonomous systems cannot handle, but such a control space likely would be highly secure and therefore difficult to access without damaging the vessel. Furthermore, MASS may not have ventilation or other systems essential for crew safety; if they do, they may be disabled during transit, whether as an energy-saving measure or to prevent piracy.16 Poor ventilation would be hazardous to boarding teams and require additional safety equipment and procedures. Finally, MASS could have systems that allow a controller to remotely disable—or even sabotage—the vessel to prevent seizure or tampering.
If the right equipment, training, and procedures are not in place, tactical commanders may not be able to execute their mission. Or they may have to use force to board a vessel or access its cargo, which would raise additional legal and policy questions.
MASS design also will provide opportunities if properly exploited. To navigate safely, autonomous vessels will require robust sensor suites to track their positions relative to nearby vessels and hazards, as well as a capable communications suite with built-in redundancy to coordinate with other vessels in the vicinity and communicate with their owners or controllers.17 Given that a suspect vessel might turn off its automatic identification system transponder to evade detection, this requirement to keep radars active would potentially make it easier to track and intercept MASS than crewed vessels, which would be more capable of safely navigating without radar or radios to evade detection. Spoofing or jamming GPS (or foreign equivalents) could disable MASS or even reroute them to an advantageous position or friendly port.
MASS interdiction also will require changes to boarding team composition and training. Navy boarding teams currently have a range of capabilities, but the tactical challenges and opportunities autonomy presents deserve consideration. For example, currently there are no requirements for cyber expertise on boarding teams, but having it may prove invaluable during MASS interdiction. Maritime commanders should assess the need to fund the development of systems, training, and billets that will enable future boarding teams to interdict MASS.
More Work Is Needed
Maritime interdictions are one facet of maritime operations that illustrate the significant challenges autonomy presents. Among the many considerations left unexplored are those related to coalition operations, which may be challenging if member nations have conflicting laws or policies pertaining to autonomous ships.
Equally important are the opportunities autonomous commercial shipping will present. The additional sensors MASS require may allow more effective maritime domain awareness, long-range fires, and other maritime operations. Further, the burden to establish positive hostile identification may be reduced if most white shipping is unmanned, increasing speed of decision while reducing risk to friendly forces and the possibility of civilian casualties.
A global autonomous merchant fleet may allow the United States to rapidly expand its logistics capacity while avoiding a bottleneck caused by insufficient skilled civilian mariners or relying on foreign crews to deliver sensitive materiel to combat theaters. Forethought is required to lay the policy, legal, and acquisition frameworks to take advantage of these opportunities before a conflict or crisis arises.
An autonomized shipping industry represents a significant evolution in the conduct of seaborne commerce, and the repercussions for military operations merit consideration. By taking an active role in shaping policies, laws, and capabilities related to MASS, commanders can mitigate risks and maximize opportunities to ensure they are postured to operate decisively and effectively in this new maritime environment.
1. Maritime Fairtrade, “Autonomous Ship Makes Transatlantic Voyage,” 22 June 2022; European Commission, “Research in Maritime Autonomous Systems Project Results and Technology Potentials”; and Connie Lee, “DARPA Awards Contract for Autonomous ‘Sea Train,’” National Defense Magazine, 2 November 2020.
2. International Maritime Organization, “Autonomous Shipping,” IMO.org.
3. Mingyu Kim, Tai-Hwan Joung, Byongug Jeong, and Han-Seon Park, “Autonomous Shipping and Its Impact on Regulations, Technologies, and Industries,” Journal of International Maritime Safety, Environmental Affairs, and Shipping 4, no. 2 (2020): 17; Delft University of Technology, “Autonomous Shipping as a Possible Solution to Impending Labour Shortages in the Shipping Sector,” Phys.org, 13 December 2016; and Hadi Ghaderi, “Autonomous Technologies in Short Sea Shipping: Trends, Feasibility, and Implications,” Transport Reviews 39, no. 1 (2019): 154–55.
4. Oliver Pickup, “Data Is the New King of the Seas: A Partnership between Google and Rolls-Royce Heralds a New Nautical Era of Autonomous Shipping, Says Oliver Pickup,” The Sunday Telegraph, 26 November 2017.
5. Natalie Klein, Douglas Guilfoyle, Md Saiful Karim, and Rob McLaughlin, “Maritime Autonomous Vehicles: New Frontiers in the Law of the Sea,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2020).
6. Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Coast Guard, Commandant of the Marine Corps, NTTP 3-07311M: Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure Operations (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, November 2013), 4-17–4-18.
7. Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure Operations, 4-14, A-1.
8. International Maritime Organization Maritime Safety Committee, “Outcome of the Regulatory Scoping Exercise for the Use of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS),” 3 June 2021, 1.
9. Joel Coito, “Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships: New Possibilities—and Challenges—In Ocean Law and Policy,” International Law Studies 97 (2021): 266–67; Klein et al., “Maritime Autonomous Vehicles,” 10; European Commission, “Research In Maritime Autonomous Systems,” 3; Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Coast Guard, Commandant of the Marine Corps, NWP 1-14M: The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, August 2017), 3–14.
10. James Kraska, “Broken Taillight at Sea: The Peacetime International Law of Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure,” Ocean and Coastal Law Journal 16, no. 1 (2010): 4.
11. Coito, “Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships,” 270.
12. U.N. General Assembly, Convention on the Law of the Sea, 10 December 1982, Article 110.
13. U.N. General Assembly, Convention on the Law of the Sea, Article 92.
14. Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Coast Guard, Commandant of the Marine Corps, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, 2-4, 2-6–2-7.
15. Delft University of Technology, “Autonomous Shipping”; Chong-Ju Chae, Mingyu Kim, and Hyung-Ju Kim, “A Study on Identification of Development Status of MASS Technologies and Directions of Improvement,” Applied Sciences 10, no. 13 (June 2020): 6.
16. Chae et al., “A Study on Identification of Development Status of MASS Technologies,” 7.
17. Chae et al., 8.
