Numerous forward deployed, unmanned, underwater systems “might be the poor man’s version of the nuclear deterrent,” the director general of warfare innovation for the Royal Australian Navy said Thursday, US Naval Institute News reports.
Capt. Adam Allicia, speaking at a Hudson Institute online event, said these systems “help us get over those long distances” that figure into any Indo-Pacific operation. The idea, he added, “is to rotate them in and out” to maintain at least a persistent presence for deterrence.