The U.S. Navy’s New Navigation Plan: Anticipating the Impact on Uncrewed Surface Systems

In September 2024, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, issued her Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy. Admiral Franchetti describes this Navigation Plan as the strategic guidance to the U.S. Navy.

This Navigation Plan embodies “Project 33” in recognition of the fact that Admiral Franchetti is the 33rd Chief of Naval Operations. Project 33 articulates two overarching objectives:

• An imperative to be ready for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027, and
• enhancing the Navy’s long-term advantage.

While this Plan has several components, the goal to scale robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed focuses on capitalizing on the inherent advantages that uncrewed systems bring to any navy. This is perhaps the most intriguing part of the Navigation Plan and one that will likely have a major impact on the maritime industry.

Momentum to enable the U.S. Navy to leverage uncrewed systems has been building for almost two decades, beginning with the Navy’s Strategic Study Group report titled The Unmanned Imperative and other reports and studies up to and including the Navy’s UNMANNED Campaign Framework.

These aspirational documents have now found purchase in the Navigation