Future Fleet Research Program
CNA’s Future Fleet Research Program coordinates all analyses that support the fielding of naval robotic and autonomous systems (RAS). We organize our work for the Navy, Marine Corps, and joint force around two primary categories:
Hedge force: Recent conflicts demonstrate the growing reliance on small, increasingly autonomous systems to hedge against risks and enable fleet targeting and lethality through non-traditional sea denial. CNA is deeply involved in technical, experimental, tactical, and operational analyses to support the joint force’s rapid testing, selection, and employment of new hedge capabilities.
Future fleet architecture: The Navy’s future fleet must integrate small attritable systems, larger uncrewed platforms, and the conventional battle force to achieve affordability and decisive effects in all phases of conflict. CNA analysts are essential partners in supporting the Navy’s iterative development of a future force architecture and the concepts underlying fleet employment.
Across both categories, CNA’s experts deliver empirically grounded insights across a wide range of analyses, including assessing:
- Doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policy
- Force design, warfighting requirements, and the innovation industrial base
- Fleet, naval, and allied operationalization
- Technical evaluation and experimentation
- Adversary uncrewed systems employment
- Drones Over Ukraine
- Russia and China Have Drawn Closer: Three Ways to Wedge Them Apart
- Russia and China Respond to the 12-Day War in Iran
- Russia and China Respond to the 12-Day War in Iran
- To Bootstrap US Maritime Industry, Link Allies, Innovators
- The Calm Before the Swarm: Drone Warfare at Sea in the Age of the Missile
- The US Navy Risks Outsourcing Control of Its Drones
- How the West Can Match Russia in Drone Innovation
- To Robot or Not to Robot? Past Analysis of Russian Military Robotics and Today’s War in Ukraine
- Battlefield Drones and the Accelerating Autonomous Arms Race in Ukraine
- A Checklist for Ethical Autonomy
- Why Hasn’t Russia Established Air Superiority?
- NSS Event: Nuclear Cooperation with Strategic Competitors
- The Iran Protests and Crackdown
- The Drone Ultimatum: Modern Warfare: Drones, AI, and USVs
- The Insider: Drone Warfare at Sea in the Age of the Missile
- Ukraine's Spiderweb Drone Strikes
- The Drone War Over Ukraine
- Innovations on the Battlefield in Ukraine
- Drones and AI on the Battlefields of Ukraine
- PRC Concepts for UAV Swarms in Future Warfare
- Port Security and Emergency Response Using Autonomous Systems
- Russia’s Use of Uncrewed Systems in Ukraine
- Dimensions of Autonomous Decision-making
- When Nuclear Weapons Return to Belarus
- When Nuclear Weapons Return to Belarus
- The Shooting Party: Russia's Evolving Threat Perceptions Since 2022
- The Shooting Party: Russia's Evolving Threat Perceptions Since 2022
- Hacking and Firewalls Under Siege: Russia’s Cyber Industry During the War on Ukraine
- Hacking and Firewalls Under Siege: Russia’s Cyber Industry During the War on Ukraine
Most of the products for the Future Fleet Research Program are classified or have distribution limited to the Department of Defense. Readers with appropriate credentials can find some of these reports on the CNA SIPR site.