Israel’s maritime forces have entered a new phase in which robotics and autonomy are no longer experimental add-ons but central instruments of naval strategy. The shift is visible in three concentric developments. First, large uncrewed underwater vehicles have moved from concept demonstrations to exportable systems. Second, unmanned surface vessels and modular USV payloads are being fielded and trialed for mine countermeasures, anti-submarine support, and persistent surveillance. Third, platform design and procurement choices for crewed vessels increasingly assume teaming with unmanned systems rather than treating those systems as peripheral. Together these trends indicate an operational calculus that prizes risk transfer, persistent sensing, and distributed denial at sea. They also force hard choices about command, control, and accountability.
The most concrete symbol of the change is the BlueWhale autonomous underwater vehicle from Israel Aerospace Industries. BlueWhale is a large, long-endurance UUV designed for intelligence, surveillance, mine detection, and acoustic collection. By the spring of 2025 IAI had moved the system beyond isolated demonstrations to export activity, announcing a sale and cooperative arrangement with Greece that shows the system is seen as operationally useful beyond Israel’s own littorals. This represents a material step for maritime autonomy: a heavyweight UUV that can operate for weeks shifts certain submarine and mine countermeasure mission sets from expensive crewed platforms to lower risk uncrewed alternatives.
Parallel to underwater autonomy, Israeli defence firms have been pushing surface autonomy for years. Domestic USV designs have been trialed for anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures, and maritime security roles. Elbit Systems’ Seagull family, for example, has been promoted as a modular USV capable of hosting sonars, MCM payloads, and even a shipborne mini-UAS for organic aerial surveillance. The practical logic is obvious. Sonar tow bodies, synthetic aperture sonars, and expendable or remotely operated mine identification vehicles are dangerous and time consuming when launched from crewed ships. A persistent unmanned surface platform can reduce exposure, increase sortie tempo, and sustain coverage over chokepoints and approaches.
Industry cooperation and cross-border projects underline that Israel is not pursuing these changes in isolation. In 2023 IAI exhibited an unmanned surface vessel developed jointly with the Emirati firm EDGE, a clear indicator that the market and strategic demand in the wider region are driving productization of maritime autonomy. Export and partnership activity accelerates capability refinement because foreign navies bring different requirements, doctrines, and operational environments. That feedback loop matters: systems matured through multinational exercises and export programs are more likely to reach the reliability levels required for routine naval use.
Operational concepts are evolving as platform designers take autonomy into account in hull design. The newest Israeli Dolphin class boat, sometimes reported with an enlarged sail, has generated speculation that future submarines may incorporate release bays or service trunks for unmanned vehicles and aerial drones. Whether the enlarged structures will be used for vertical launch systems, unmanned deployment, or both remains partly in the realm of analysis and open-source conjecture. The important point is methodological: naval architects and force planners are contemplating submarines and surface combatants as node hubs in an integrated manned-unmanned system rather than as isolated weapons.
Those technological and procurement trends are strategically coherent but ethically and operationally messy. Robotics buys endurance and reduces frontline human risk, yet it increases the complexity of command responsibility. Who is responsible when an autonomous sensor suite misclassifies a contact and that error cascades into kinetic action? How will rules of engagement adapt when persistent UUV patrolling reveals activity that a human commander never personally observed? These are not rhetorical questions. They are practical problems that must be solved in doctrine, training, and industry contracts before autonomy is trusted in contested waters.
There are also limits worth stating plainly. Long-endurance UUVs face harsh maintenance, logistics, and recoverability constraints in rough seas and electronic warfare environments. Communications latency and contested satcom mean autonomy must be robust to information isolation. Swarm or massed unmanned concepts require industrial scale and logistics that few navies possess today. In short, autonomy shifts some risks but does not eliminate them, and it introduces new single points of systemic failure if engineering and operational practice do not keep pace with ambition.
For the IDF and the Israeli Navy the rational path forward is pragmatic adaptation. Continue to field UUV and USV systems where they demonstrably reduce human exposure or deliver unique persistence. Invest in human-machine integration so that sailors and commanders understand both the capabilities and failure modes of their robotic partners. Institutionalize attribution, logging, and after-action analysis so the accountability trail for autonomous decisions is auditable. Work export and multinational exercises to harden systems against real-world complexity and to refine doctrines under allied operational patterns.
Finally, a word of philosophical caution. The maritime domain magnifies the illusion that machines can substitute for judgment. The sea is a continuous, ambiguous environment where sensor returns are rarely categorical. Investing in autonomy will increase situational awareness, but it will not resolve moral ambiguity. If Israel’s maritime robotics program succeeds, it will be because engineers and ethicists, sailors and lawyers, and industry and government learned to treat autonomy not as a panacea but as a tool that must be embedded in a robust human-in-the-loop culture.
The IDF’s maritime robotics focus is therefore both a technological opportunity and a test of institutional maturity. Autonomy will reshape how Israel projects power, protects sea lanes, and defends littoral approaches. The ultimate question is not whether machines can do the job. It is whether political and military institutions can absorb the change while preserving clear lines of responsibility and sound judgment under pressure.