Attempting to draw lessons from the ongoing naval conflicts in the Black Sea and off the coast of Yemen is unavoidable: these heated clashes are fought over communication, which often yields to sensationalism, even romanticism. In addition, the particularities of these two theaters prompt precautions to be taken before any generalization. In the Black Sea, two riparian states clash for sea control. Ukraine aims to secure trade routes, while Russia seeks territorial gains, all within a relatively small and enclosed sea. In the Red Sea, we see an “all-out” continental disrupter descending toward the sea in a banning posture tinged with geopolitical blackmail. So, in our quest for lessons, let us not draw hasty parallels between the two theaters, and let us be cautious about extrapolating to war at sea. And, equally important, without denying the obvious changes taking place in the Black Sea and the Red Sea, we must be careful not to see what is new where it does not exist
But we have no choice: with conflicts at sea historically rare, it would be guilty of missing an opportunity to draw key lessons from them. Thus, while attempting to avoid the pitfalls of interpretation that have marked military history, we propose here a provisional decalogue of the current naval conflict.
First lesson: the innermost nature of naval combat remains stable
Before looking for an inflection, let’s begin by highlighting a few tactical constants that have not taken a turn. In particular, the clashes in these two key maritime conflict zones show that naval combat is inherently destructive, swift, and decisive.
First, it is destructive. Since 2022, the Black Sea has become a new “Ironbottom”[1]: wrecks litter the shores of Ukraine and Crimea, and attrition against the Russian fleet trapped in the Black Sea is Ukraine’s top priority. It does so by skillfully combining a rain of cruise missiles with a horde of naval or air drones, and possibly soon submarines, whose numbers and lethality are steadily increasing, as evidenced by the gaping holes in the hulls of Russian ships.[2] In the Red Sea, the destruction of ships linked to Israeli interests, which is also the objective of the Houthi forces, has extended by extension to the US and British naval forces which have struck Yemen, while the Houthis are not left out in the race for lethality.[3] While Western naval vessels have so far been spared, the Houthis have already managed to damage well-protected vessels, such as Saudi Arabia’s Al Madinah frigate in 2017. In both the Black and Red Seas, decision-making at sea is carried not by conventional deterrence, influence, cyber attack, or sheer force, but by the volume of wreckage sent to the seabed.
Second, it is rapid. Naval actions remain fleeting: surprised by the strike of two anti-ship missiles in April 2022, the cruiser Moskva took on water in a few minutes before sinking a little later, while the Russian ships surprised by drones were all quickly distraught. The fate of the ships docked is even more expeditious. In the Red Sea, the reaction time to ballistic missile strikes is seconds and minutes when compared to One-Way Attack (OWA) drones. While naval operations are long-term, combat actions always bear the stamp of fulgurance.
Lastly, it is decisive. Tactically, we have to note that the first blow received whistles the end of the game. This is the case for the cruiser Moskva, despite its size and natural resilience, but also for smaller Russian vessels struck by Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs). Unprepared berthing strikes are also indisputable: the sailing of an affected ship will not take place for a long time, if ever again. Strategically, the decisive aspect of naval casualties is even sharper. The Ukrainian navy’s fate was thus decided in the early days of the conflict, with its disappearance and its place in the hands of the Ukrainian intelligence and secret services, which are using the support of both the Western “land mass” and “enablers” to regain a capacity to act at sea. On the Russian side, the consequences are immediate once the Black Sea is closed to outside reinforcements: behind closed doors in the pontiff basin, Russia’s naval mass shrinks inexorably, despite a great deal of structural and digital resilience. In short, today, as yesterday, taking shots at sea is a sustainable swing on the wrong side. Orcas and piranhas understood this.
Moreover, the conflicts in the Black Sea and Red Sea confirm the primacy of offense and initiative: a purely defensive or even passive stance is risky at the tactical level. The Russian Navy has offered countless examples in the Black Sea, from Mosul to the many instances of ships struck in the immediate vicinity of Crimea, at anchor or on coastal patrol, thinking they were protected from the shadow of land defenses. In the Red Sea, the primacy of the offensive lies beneath the differences in approach between the purely defensive European Operation Aspides[4] and the more offensive Anglo-Saxon posture. More broadly, there is a marked advantage of “free” structures over the more hierarchically “constrained” structures, which stifle initiative and restrict the use of force, whether by culture (Russian Navy in the Black Sea) or to avoid collateral damage (Western navies in the Red Sea). Thus, piranhas win against orcas primarily because they can do pretty much anything they want, and thus take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
Second lesson: defending oneself at sea is expensive
Commitments in the Black Sea and Red Sea remind us, first of all, that there is no immunization in principle in an environment where the threat can come from any direction, with an ever-changing degree of sophistication: any player in naval combat, indiscriminately, from minesweeper to cruiser, is vulnerable at sea.
The Clausewitzian demonstration of the superiority of the defensive over the offensive cannot be transposed into the fluid space that is the sea, which is inherently unfavorable to the defensive. Survival comes at a high price. For example, in the Black Sea, a ship needs effective surveillance and self-defense systems to combat even a rudimentary USV threat.[5] In the Red Sea, sophisticated combat systems, coupled with modern and expensive missiles[6] such as the Aster or the Missile Standard, are needed to intercept even rudimentary ballistic or anti-ship missiles. In both theaters, there is also a need to escort civilian commercial vessels with several combat vessels[7], whether they are Russian vessels protecting the Syrian Express[8] in the Black Sea between Novorossiysk and the Dardanelles[9], or Western vessels in the Red Sea. A few “rudimentary disruptors” of the piranha breed can thus put on the teeth, by their very existence, a large volume of naval means of the killer whale breed.
What is true at sea is also true on the coast: defending a naval base is very expensive for the Russians, as can be seen from the devices deployed to protect the military port of Sevastopol (light artillery pieces, radars, lookouts, protective nets, attack helicopters on alert, etc.) or the pillars of the Crimean bridge, also targeted by an attack by Ukrainian naval drones a few months ago (permanent protection ships, powerful smoke bombs to mask them from the optical guidance systems of Ukrainian drones, etc.).
In addition to robust defense systems, these engagements confirm a crucial and costly need for naval resilience. Tactical resilience, on the one hand, to take a hit: this was what was lacking at the cruiser Moskva, which had a low level of resilience due to a highly interlinked system[10], defects in safety components and likely poor training. Systemic resilience, on the other hand, in terms of logistics and maintenance: Russia’s industrial fabric is thus put to the test in the Black Sea, as links with better-equipped ports are made tricky. Moreover, the threat of Ukrainian strikes on Sevastopol obliges Russia to maintain a permanent emergency-gear capacity, impeding maintenance and de facto causing machine-potential wear and tear.
Let us remember, then, that defensive operations at sea require a double “ticket of entry” to bear fruit: on the one hand, we accept that they are expensive and, on the other hand, that they are well thought out. But let us not forget either that an excessive focus on the vulnerability of certain naval platforms can prove misleading: the US Navy lost 11 aircraft carriers during the Second World War, an outcome that did not prevent this type of unit from establishing itself as the new capital ship, because of its unparalleled offensive value… and the defensive effort that was deployed to ensure its protection.
Just because defense is difficult at sea, one should not think it is unattainable; only if one believes it to be unattainable, defense against piranhas becomes impossible.
Third lesson: the sea – even when small – is not yet transparent
The war in Ukraine gives the undeniable impression that the aero-land battlefield has become transparent (satellite images accessible to the general public, permanent surveillance by drones, immediate detection of the slightest mobile phone in transmission, etc.), and that this impression also applies to the Black Sea: satellite images of Russian ships in port are updated almost continuously, while small Ukrainian surface drones easily “find” their targets after long journeys of several hundred nautical boats.
But the players in naval combat in the Black Sea do not actually have the same tactical omniscience as the players in aero-land combat who play each other’s survival with each other every time they “step out” of their hiding places on the front lines. For example, despite criss-crossing the land front with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Russia suffers from a lack of maritime surveillance capabilities, which deprives the Black Sea Fleet of advance warning of attackers. After recalling old Be-12 seaplanes designed in the 1950’s, the effectiveness of which is visibly lacking, Russia has established helicopter patrols that are proving more effective, but with limited coverage. Russia’s A-50 radar became a prime target for Ukrainian ground-to-air defense. All of this creates the potential for temporary “pockets of opacity” into which Ukrainians rush to strike Russian capabilities, while seeking to extend that opacity. The Ukrainian operation to take over Vichki Boika’s oil and gas rigs in September 2023 was designed to destroy Russian radar and stockpiles of ammunition and helicopter fuel. The attack on the MSP-17 platform in August 2024 was aimed at destroying a Russian GPS jammer.
Conversely, on the Ukrainian side, despite Western support, most USV attacks have occurred near the coast, where targets are easily detectable visually, but much less on the high seas, where temporary dilution is still possible.
It should be noted here that the natural mobility of naval forces remains a major asset, as it complicates the targeting cycle (find, fix, track, target, engage, assess) by delaying each of these steps. While not a guarantee of full immunity, the Black Sea strike figures show that mobility remains a good initial protection[11]: the majority of Russian casualties from Ukrainian strikes were on targets at berth, at anchorage or in routine and predictable transit in the immediate vicinity of the coast.
In the Red Sea, Houthi land strikes, which are sometimes highly precise, can also give the impression of reading openness in the maritime approaches to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. However, this information comes primarily from the passivity of the targets (AIS emission, use of known navigation rails, use of VHF radio, etc.) and from the assistance of other actors (e.g. Iranians). Conversely, military units that are more discreet and exhibit more unpredictable behavior are less easily targeted. Finally, let’s not forget that many UAVs of the OWA type miss their targets simply because they are on the move.
In the end, while modern technology makes concentration of forces more complex and reduces the opacity of the environment, this opacity is not yet dissipated, while the multiplicity of sensors at the same time increases the opportunities for disappointment. Orcas and piranhas therefore still have good opportunities to surprise each other in the future.
Fourth lesson: the sea is a bidirectional amplifier of land combat
“The real importance of sea power is its influence on land operations,” Corbett (1854-1922) emphasized. This maxim is harsh, and clashes in the Black and Red Seas confirm that the sea, before it is an end, is an especially powerful means of influencing the course of events ashore. In the Black Sea, Russia’s actions in the early months of the war demonstrated how the advantage – albeit relative – in the maritime environment can produce gains on land, from threatening to disembark in Odessa (and thereby station a portion of Ukrainian troops there at the early stages of the invasion), to using the amphibious maneuver to disembark troops across the Dnieper whose bridges had been severed, to contributing to the air defense of the Crimean peninsula, to strike the land with cruise missiles with impunity, to blockade major ports civilians such as Mariupol, Berdiansk, Melitopol, Kherson and Odessa. The sea amplifies the earth’s maneuver, becoming “the multiplier or divider of the earth’s power, reinforcing or reducing the decisive effort which is ultimately that of the armies, the one which saves or conquers the territories.”[12]
Conversely, the land mass has a decisive influence on naval action: this phenomenon, which Admiral Castex (1878-1968) called “the reaction of the land on the sea”, increases with technical progress on the one hand, and takes on a particular scale in the landlocked maritime areas on the other.[13] This is evident off the coast of Yemen, where the Houthis, although without a combat navy, create a major degree of disorder on a good part of world maritime traffic by acting exclusively from the land. In the Black Sea, despite the early suppression of their navy, Ukrainians quickly leaned back to their ground base to strike Russians at sea, as when they attacked the cruiser Moskva (hit by two Neptun missiles fired from a coast battery), battled around Snake Island (where Ukrainian drones taking off from the mainland repeatedly hit Russian Raptor patrol boats), or hit USVs (remotely operated from the ground). The Russians, forced to abandon the island of Snakes and return to the Crimea, have learned the catchphrase “a ship is a fool to fight a fort.” To a lesser extent, this adage also applies to Westerners in the Red Sea, while dozens of US and British strikes have failed to seriously undermine the Houthis’ potential to harm them.[14]
More generally, the events off the coasts of Yemen and Ukraine remind us that the orca approaching an enemy coast where piranhas proliferate has a clear disadvantage there, which is worsening in the long term: subjected to leveling means such as mines or implemented from the ground such as aircraft, missiles or drones, it must deploy maximum efforts from the early stages of the conflict … but it must also have the necessary political will.[15]
Ultimately, the sea can be decisive, but it is no panacea, as Castex warned about the Black Sea: “The master of the sea…can achieve serious results in the Black Sea theater of operations…only if he has at his disposal powerful land-based assets, fully comparable to those of his adversary. The naval force is the multiplier of the armed forces’ effort, the only decisive force […]. But if the coefficient multiplies zero, the product is also equal to zero.”[16]
Fifth lesson: naval combat is increasingly intertwined with maritime challenges
Two seemingly antagonistic phenomena are at work. On the one hand, maritime challenges are becoming globalized, and thus are moving, in theory, away from sovereign protection by military actors whose vocation is to remain the guardians of their immediate national interests. But, on the other hand, the consideration of these same issues by the navies is inescapable, because the impacts of a disruption of the existing order are more numerous, more interlinked and more publicized than before. Yet it is the latter trend that dominates. Observations of the Black and Red Seas suggest that the historical nexus between trade and naval power, at the heart of Mahan’s Seapower theories (1840-1914), is more relevant than ever.
In the Black Sea, the conflict began in what became known as a race war, in which a number of civilian ships were struck by missiles or mines before being replaced a few months later by a grain corridor. From an early age, maritime infrastructure became naval targets, such as in Odessa or Mykolaev, but also the Kerch Bridge, its ferry terminal[17], the oil and gas platforms of the Gulf of Odessa[18], and even the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic Sea. Conversely, some of Ukraine’s recreational infrastructure was used as a departure area for USV. As a result of the threat of USVs[19], the Russian Navy had to mobilize naval assets to protect its logistical flow to Syria before redirecting this logistical flow, which now comes from the Baltic Sea and reaches Tartus via Gibraltar[20]. Finally, navies had to re-engage with river-based solutions to find workarounds for the closure of Turkish straits to naval vessels.
In the Red Sea, as the Houthis’ targeting of commercial interests in countries with ties to Israel has increased, the challenge of protecting commercial traffic has brought back escorted convoys at a level not seen since the Persian Gulf tanker war of the 1980’s. On the other hand, rumors of the deliberate targeting of submarine cables have not been confirmed, as the incidents may have been caused by anchors from commercial ships. If this had been the case, a new type of seabed surveillance mission would probably have emerged, bringing in its wake close cooperation between naval power instruments and those involved in the submarine cable business.[21]
And tomorrow, the issue of clearing landmines in the Black and Red Seas will open a new chapter in this community of interest.
Apart from strategic consequences which have been widely discussed (reorganization of sea lanes, impact on world trade, etc.), this intertwining also entails tactical consequences: more and more, the actors of naval combat must know how to operate in the middle of many actors with sometimes divergent interests, but which occupy, or even compete, the same global space. In the Red Sea, Western ships operating in the protection of merchant vessels have to manage “clandestine vessels” that sometimes latch onto convoys at the last moment, regularly sailing close to Iranian merchant vessels and dhows that are hard to confirm serve as point-of-reference vessels to the Houthis, while in the sky drones from a large number of nations swarm.[22] In the Black Sea, Ukraine used a civilian commercial ship to deliver four French-built patrol boats to Romania in December 2023. This entanglement requires a high level of knowledge and intelligence at the lowest tactical level in order to distinguish between orcas and piranhas in the midst of a vast fauna of turbid water fish.
Sixth lesson: tactical mastery of the sea is never absolute
Corbett’s famous strategic principle is repeatedly confirmed at the tactical level: sea control is always relative, in time and in space. Failure to understand this risks deep disillusionment.
In the Black Sea, no warring party can credibly claim control of maritime space. On the one hand, after initial domination in the Gulf of Odessa, Russian naval forces retreated eastward, and Ukrainians managed to carry iron into Russian-held maritime approaches,[23] in the Sea of Azov or south of the Black Sea, using aerial or surface drones. The attack on the Russian ship Ivan Khurs by naval drones at more than 200 water vessels in Odessa is a testament to this. On the other hand, the Russians never really stopped their regular forays into the western Black Sea, and they, too, have relied on “weak” tactics to strike in the denial zone, such as when surface drones hit the Zatoka Bridge near Odessa in February 2023. In fact, Ukrainians never locked the Gulf of Odessa. This is a far cry from the “freeze” on Ukraine’s land front at sea.
To the south of the Red Sea, the Houthis’ freedom of air and sea action has not been fully curtailed, despite the deployment of substantial Western military assets coupled with ground strikes.
Control of the sea is still incomplete and relative, and is likely to remain so for a long time. Even the Royal Navy, which had overwhelming naval superiority during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), had only partial control in a few key areas. At sea, and especially near shore, there is no impregnable “stronghold” secured by barbed wire: even the weakest piranha can always try something, provided he never resigns himself to a purely wait-and-see defensive posture.
Seventh lesson: the interpenetration of environments and fields is a tactical reality that brings instability to all levels of war
In an age of intersecting environments and fields, even tenuous advantages in outer space, information fields, or electromagnetic fields can be decisive for success on land or at sea. The party that is most agile and best able to take advantage of the novelty in these areas receives immediate dividends.
Ukraine’s naval war thus attests to the power of narrative and communication. Still, Ukraine’s struggles on the ground have led to symbolic naval victories: the reopening of Snake Island and President Zelensky’s visit to celebrate the 500th day of the war; helping out with oil rigs; routine drone strikes (of which the only images published are, of course, those that succeed); multiple attacks on the Kerch Bridge; and even, in September 2023, striking at the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters, the mastermind of Russian naval operations. And so much if the military effect is small while improving Ukrainian morale, such as the remarkable attack on the Russian S400 ground-to-air system in Crimea by a missile fired from a launch in the Gulf of Odessa in August 2023 or the daring jet-ski raid in Crimea in early October 2023. When the land front is frozen, the flowing ocean space continues to offer opportunities for action and thus for displays of force that Ukrainians have made the most of in the information field. The sea can also be used to convey strategic messages, as evidenced in August 2023 by the staging of warning shots and the control of the cargo ship Sukru Okan, days after the end of the agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain to leave southern ports. In the Red Sea, the dramatic images of the hijacking of the Galaxy Leader in November 2023 or the destruction of the Tutor in June 2024 had a major impact, both in the trading floors and in the civilian maritime community. This is even though, in practice, the ratio of “number of successful Houthi attacks/number of Houthi attacks launched” has only decreased since the beginning of the events in the Red Sea.[24]
Some analysts are even correctly contemplating a paradigm shift: belligerents become capable of mounting operations whose sole purpose is to support their narratives. Of course, the ability to take human risks to “score points” in the cognitive field, despite trivial tactical gains, is not entirely new, but it does demonstrate the importance of increasing interpenetration of environments and fields, and the resulting instability.
In the electromagnetic field, the lever of asymmetry, it seems, was seized mostly by the Russians. Both in terms of listening and blurring, the US has a head start with its competitors in the Black Sea, although this aspect of naval conflict is not well documented in open sources.
Finally, in the space environment, it is Ukrainians who benefit from Archimedes’ leverage of the constellations of low-earth-orbit communication satellites, which makes possible the coordination of Ukrainian assets[25], the development of certain applications (for land warfare in this case)[26], and, above all, the implementation of USVs that are doing so much harm to Russians. Ultra-redundant and secure, shielded from Russian hacking and bombing attempts, the Starlink constellation, however miles from the naval battlefield, acts like David’s slingshot in Ukrainians’ hands.
All these interdependencies between environments and fields contribute to the instability of naval combat action.
Eighth lesson: technological progress at sea and on land is relentlessly reversing itself
The naval wars in the Black and Red Seas show that the dialectic of will is at its maximum in the technological field, and that no weapon can reign supreme in a context of permanent adaptation. As Joseph Henrotin explains, “the technological advantage is inherently transitory because, under the law of constant tactical factor, it follows a dialectical logic.”[27]
This is true in all confrontational environments: Ukraine’s TB2 drones have been losing initial effectiveness to Russian ground-to-air systems, with an in-flight lifetime of around 30 minutes today. Likewise, the overall effectiveness of ground-to-air defense against cruise missiles from both sides increased by 20-30% in March-April 2022, reaching 50-60% in June 2022. Moreover, jamming tactics have been adapted to drones, resulting in the monthly downing of 10,000 Ukrainian drones, 50% of which are jammed. This was in response to an upsurge in anti-jammer kinetic strikes. And so on.
In the Black Sea, the Russian fleet’s initial technological superiority has been circumvented through the combined use of Western intelligence, Neptun missiles, and ever-expanding and sophisticated surface drones. And, in contrast, the effectiveness of Ukraine’s surface drones has been tempered by the use of Russian Lancet-style helicopters and remotely operated munitions in FPV mode. In addition, some Russian drones are now reportedly also equipped with the Starlink system, thus nullifying this advantage hitherto reserved for Ukrainians[28]
In the Red Sea, in response to the Western response, the Houthis are progressively firing increasingly precise shots, including at great distances, diversifying their vectors (surface drones, anti-ship missiles, guided or unguided ballistic missiles, OWA aerial drones) and adapting their slots and flight patterns so as not to be seen by fighter aircraft and to saturate the surface-to-air defenses of the Western frigates. The West responds with jamming and adaptation of its self-defense systems…until a new Houthi breakthrough.
War at sea is a relentless technological race, in which even the best runner always ends up being overtaken by a competitor.
Ninth lesson: game changers, if they exist at all, are not always the kind one imagines
The use of drones in Ukraine and the Red Sea has reinforced a popular notion that game-changers have revolutionized naval warfare: the prophecies of “rules of war” retold with each new technological breakthrough thus saturate the mainstream media. Let us try to go further, as this view is, fortunately, not unanimous.[29]
Firstly, the innovation strategy[30] aimed at reversing the balance of power through technological breakthroughs has limitations. Historically, innovation as a weapon of weakness has not always been successful. Witness, for example, the Confederates’ innovative drive during the Civil War: the battleship Merrimack neutralized the northern wing, the passes were protected by submerged torpedoes, and the Davids attacked opposing ships by detonating explosives against their hulls while fastened to the end of a spar. But the South’s ships were never more than expedient, shielded with rolled rail: limited resources and a lack of shipbuilding industry prevented the South from scaling sufficiently to weigh in.[31] Will Ukrainian piranhas do better with Western aid? This remains to be confirmed over time.
Moreover, the term game-changer is not always based on solid motives. In the case of Ukraine’s surface drones, for example, the miniaturization and democratization of satellite positioning and communication systems, such as Starlink, has been the game-changer, allowing machines that were not particularly new to fly long distances, and that were heavily inspired by the Houthi drones that attacked the Saudi frigate Al Madinah in 2017. A parallel could be drawn with the German tanks of 1940, which were less technically advanced than the French tanks, but which doctrine and radio allowed to use much more efficiently.
Moreover, game changers are not always what you would expect. While drones have been popularized for their novelty (despite their almost centuries-old existence), less visible ones have had a similarly significant impact, starting with mines. Less visible, less technically advanced, and less publicized because they are less “new” and more questionable because of their indiscriminate nature, they probably acted as a strong deterrent to Russia’s attacks on Odessa by sea at the start of the conflict, and still play a decisive role today in keeping Russian ships off the Ukrainian coast.
Finally, we are far from recognizing the true potential of what we now call game-changers. For example, with regard to drones, let us acknowledge that the potential for surprise linked to the mass (use in swarms) and the introduction of a high degree of autonomy (robots) has not been fully exploited so far in Ukraine, at least not in the naval aspect of the conflict: at most ten USVs (as in the case of the Ivanovets patrol craft in February 2024) or twenty UAVs (attack of 9 January 2024 with 18 UAVs) have been used simultaneously, which is nothing compared to the future swarms that the robotic era promises tick. Moreover, what we are witnessing in Ukraine and the Red Sea is a simple “deportation” of human-operated prostheses, which act in a juxtaposed manner, with no autonomy to detect, classify, and target. The drones we see at work are highly “monovalent”: they often perform only one task: reconnaissance or strike, but not both. The highest degree of sophistication consists in having drones that “wait” on predetermined patterns to hit opportunity targets. But we are not there yet…and powerful antidotes may have emerged in the meantime, reversing some of the “disruptive” effects that others have been clamoring for.
Without diminishing their usefulness, let us therefore acknowledge that drones remain, for the time being, a means of compensating for a lack of heavier capabilities, and that they shine especially in coastal warfare. They therefore represent both a tremendous opportunity and a limit for concealing the difficulties in designing more sophisticated platforms.[32] Only their capacity to deploy in numbers, offshore and in a resilient and coordinated manner can make them decisive actors in the control of the sea.
In the end, there is no single deterministic system of superiority at sea. Victory results from a combination of forces and a combination of effects depending on the nature of the confrontation and the objectives to be achieved. Indeed, this is what makes a “full” navy capable of intervening across the full spectrum of naval action, without the capability “deadlock” that it faces, both necessary and relevant.
Tenth lesson: Paradoxically, humans remain more than ever at the heart of naval combat
The events in the East and the South are prima facie evidence of a tendency to avoid exposing the increasingly valuable human resource. For Ukraine, which is handicapped by the demographic equation vis-à-vis Russia, the USVs are replacing men who are not wanted to be exposed and who make it possible to use these deported means of warfare. In the Red Sea, efforts are underway to protect crews of commercial vessels whose loss would jump insurance rates. This dynamic is consistent with the tendency to lose more machines and fewer men in combat.
But with fewer seafarers at sea, gradually surrounded by swarms of robots and assisted by artificial intelligence, paradoxically everything indicates that they remain crucial in order to implement an ever-increasing number of sensors and effectors, manage the extra complexity not supported by the automata, mitigate the limitations and failures of the machines, and intelligently prepare for the next steps that will probably see their place shrink even further. For the time being, it should be remembered that it is still the aircrews who set the limits of acceptable endurance in a combat zone, as suggested by the public testimony of recently committed commanders in the Red Sea[33] (there are no Black Sea sources in this area).
Moreover, a decisive factor of superiority emerges from the confrontations between orcas and piranhas: creativity, which remains, for the time being, a quality of human essence. In the Black Sea, each warring party will likely brainstorm to prevail against a backdrop of technological neutralization: Ukrainians have invented jet-ski raids on the Crimean coast and imagined submarine drones, while the Russians have deployed helicopter gunships to destroy rival drones and are deploying armed watchmen to the rear of their ships. In the Red Sea, the Houthis, far from being referred to as “sandal warriors” (which is sometimes wrongly attributed to them), have made remarkable use of available resources, demonstrating, for example, their impressive ability to appropriate and adapt Iranian technology. The constant adaptation of their modes of action is the hallmark of human creativity. One example among others: on June 12, 2024, when the Tutor was attacked, it was first struck by an aerial projectile, causing it to stand still, which allowed the Houthis to launch a USV attack (which would have been more difficult against a maneuvering ship…) in the form of a remotely operated skiff[34] with mannequins on board to disturb the defense by making it hesitate to open fire against a manned target. A fine example of human ingenuity behind a machine fight.
Finally, recent naval engagements demonstrate that organizations remain reflective of the people who drive them. Ukraine has bold and resourceful teams, which are learning quickly from their mistakes and led by a highly responsive leadership. Confronted with it, the Russian Navy seems visibly slower to adapt, less innovative, and probably more rigid. This is reflected in the relatively low state of preparedness of the first Russian ships to be hit by drones or missiles, which is probably not unrelated to recent changes in Russia’s naval hierarchy. As for Yemen, the attacks in the Red Sea show that determined men with nothing to lose can make a decisive impact on world trade despite limited resources.
When equipment fails, fails, or runs out, all that is left is people to make a difference.
These ten lessons are likely to be amendable and incomplete, and only history will judge their relevance and reliability over time.
While imperfect, may they remind us that there is no inevitability at sea, and that the combination of will to win, ingenuity, and effective external support can defeat or seriously erode a high-ranking navy’s capabilities. From ancient burns to Italian combat swimmers during World War II, from the attack on the destroyer USS Cole in 2000 to a Houthi drone attack on the Saudi frigate Al Madinah in 2017, inferiority never stopped piranhas from hitting killer whales hard at sea. Moreover, orcas, when programmed to face other orcas, are never as disturbed as when they face piranhas… David wins because he is David, not because he is trying to turn into a miniature Goliath.[35]
And make no mistake: today, we read these lessons from the perspective of an orca navy confronting potential piranha assailants in France. But beware, the fish comparisons could be reversed: in the Pacific, a large Asian country could play the role of the orca, and we could play the role of piranhas…
[1] Ironbottom Sound is the name given by the U.S. Navy to the area at the eastern end of the New Georgia Strait between Guadalcanal, Savo Island and the Solomons, due to the many ships sunk during the Battle of Savo Island during the Pacific War.
[2] As of July 7, 2024, Ukraine had damaged or destroyed 27 Russian vessels, according to Ukrainian Vice Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa, 36 percent of the 74 vessels of all sizes available to the Russian Black Sea Fleet at the start of the conflict.
[3] The Tutor attack on June 12, 2024, involved a surface drone loaded with 400kg of explosives, far more than an air drone or ballistic missile can carry.
[4] See an analysis of European posture in the Red Sea in AUSSEUR Pascal, “ASPIDES. Une opération purement défensive qui ne règle rien. Des enjeux géopolitiques oubliés” interview by the blog Brussels2, April 10, 2024.
[5] It should be noted that the Ukrainian USVs strike primarily the “weak”, that is, logistic units, amphibious units, and small, poorly armed warships.
[6] Whose “cost-effectiveness” ratio was widely debated during the first engagements of rudimentary drones of class 20 k€ by missiles of class 1 M€.
[7] The operations launched in the years 2010-2020 in the Strait of Hormuz (e.g. Agenor for the European Union) were not of the same standard: they were more concerned with accompanying civilian vessels through remote surveillance than with escorting them to defend them against threats of direct attacks. The requirement in terms of defense is not at the same level.
[8] This term refers to the maritime logistics link, based on oil tankers and bulk carriers, set up between the Russian ports in the Black Sea and the Syrian ports of Banias and Tartous since mid-2010.
[9] In October 2023, in response to the Ukrainian USV threat, a few Syrian Express ships “stuck” a Russian frigate and two corvettes, accompanied by a maritime patrol aircraft, for their transit in the Black Sea, using two different routes.
[10] It can be noted that civilian vessels struck in the Red Sea, which are “filled with voids”, do not sink despite the blows to the goal. This is a comparative disadvantage of modern naval vessels: they are better defended, but when they strike, they are paradoxically more vulnerable.
[11] LAVERNHE Thibault, “De l’inconvénient d’être fixe, et de l’avantage d’être mobile” Le Marin, November 13, 2023. URL: https://lemarin.ouest-france.fr/defense/lil-de-castex-de-linconvenient-detre-fixe-et-de-lavantage-detre-mobile-b80879fc-83c0-4a55-a604-a09ee6760119
[12] CASTEX Raoul (Admiral), Théories stratégiques, Volume V, Economica, Paris, 1997, p. 170.
[13] CASTEX Raoul (Admiral), Théories stratégiques, Volume III, Economica, Paris, 1997, p. 157.
[14] It should be noted, however, that for some analysts, these strikes were voluntarily measured, with strategic signaling to observers of the conflict in the Red Sea being more valuable than direct military effect.
[15] HOLMES James, “Houthi Rebels Cry Havoc! And Let Slip the Drones of War,” Proceedings, February 2024.
[16] CASTEX Raoul (Admiral), Théories stratégiques, Volume V, Economica, Paris, 1997, p. 519.
[17] Ukrainians attacked the Slavyanin civilian ferry in the port of Kavkaz by air drone on July 23, 2024, potentially as the last ship capable of carrying freight cars in the region, and as such was an important part of the Russian ammunition supply chain for the occupied Crimean peninsula.
[18] That have a dual purpose in supporting maritime surveillance radars.
[19] The Ukrainians struck the TM Sig on 05/08/23 at anchor, the Sparta IV on 17/08/23 at sea, the Yaz on 14/09/23 at sea and the Ursa Major on 14/09/23 at sea.
[20] In February-March 2024, the oil tanker Sig and the RoRo Sparta-IV and Ursa Major were thus redirected to St Petersburg instead of their usual destination, which is Novorossiysk in the Black Sea, from Russian bases in Syria. This “hook” extends the lead time for supplying Russian forces by two weeks.
[21] See, for France, the Ministerial Strategy for Seabed Control – February 2022.
[22] In late February 2024, a German frigate operating in the Red Sea mistakenly targeted a US MQ-9 Reaper drone with its weapons systems.
[23] PCG Ivanovets struck on 01/02/24 off the coast of Crimea in front of Lake Donuzlav, LST Kunikov struck on 14/02/24 in the immediate vicinity of the Russian coast, FSG Sergei Kotov struck on 04/03/24 off Cape Takil (southwestern tip of the Kerch Strait).
[24] As of June 2024, out of 110 reported Houthi attacks, 22 had been successful
[25] According to Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, “Starlink is the blood of [their] entire communications infrastructure today.” More than 30,000 Starlink terminals were delivered to Ukraine in the first 15 months of the war.
[26] BOUNAT Ulrich, “Les différentes facettes de l’innovation de l’armée ukrainienne” Revue Défense Nationale, February 2023, pp. 30-36.
[27] HENROTIN Joseph, “ Mon game changer est plus gros que le tien – Retour sur le renouveau d’une mythologie technologique ” DSI special edition 87, December 2022-January 2023.
[28] The Russian USV Murena 300S unveiled in August 2024 is said to have a potential Starlink antenna, according to the analysis outlet Covert Shores. URL: http://www.hisutton.com/Russia-USVs-ARMY-2024.html
[29] In particular, the French Director of Military Intelligence said, “There is no game changer. It is often claimed that the weaponry supplied to Ukraine or produced by Russia will change the course of war. I have no faith in that. …an operational capability is the product of a combination of many factors. “There is no magic weapon, no game changer, no silver bullet that can turn the tide of war overnight.” Closed hearing of Lieutenant-General Jacques Langlade de de Montgros, Director of Military Intelligence, on the military situation in Ukraine, 12 July 2023, URL: https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/16/comptes-rendus/cion_def/l16cion_def2223094_compte-rendu
[30] The term “innovation” is itself debatable. See in particular the illuminating typology proposed by Olivier Schmitt to characterize the levels of military change (adjustment – adaptation – innovation – rupture). Much of the “innovation” in the Black and Red Seas is really about adjustment and adaptation. SCHMITT Olivier, Préparer la Guerre – Stratégie, innovation et puissance militaire à l’époque contemporaine, PUF, Paris, 2024, 460 pp.
[31] BERNERON-COUVENHES Marie-Françoise, ” Les révolutions technologiques des XIXe et XXe siècles et la puissance sur mer” in La puissance maritime, Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, 2004, p. 268
[32] The Ukrainian USV based on a Yamaha jet-ski, which was found washed up on a Turkish beach in July 2024, is as much evidence of inventiveness as it is a regression by resorting to expedients.
[33] See, for example, the testimony of the Commanding Officer of HMS Diamond, recently engaged in the Red Sea. “On board HMS Diamond as it faces Houthi attacks,” BBC News, March 25, 2024. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68640568
[34] Traditional wooden boat widely spread in the Red Sea.
[35] This is why David refuses the sword and the breastplate offered to him by King Saul (First Book of Samuel, Chapter 17, verses 38 and 39). On the errors of the temptation of “symmetric imitation,” see SANDOR Fabian, “The Illusion of Conventional War: Europe Is Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Conflict in Ukraine,” Modern War Institute, April 23, 2024, URL: https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-illusion-of-conventional-war-europe-is-learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-the-conflict-in-ukraine/
