Why It Matters

The Navy is losing a technological arms race. While commercial companies and rival militaries race to develop robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) that are reshaping modern warfare, the Pentagon's largest service branch remains trapped in organizational gridlock that has prevented it from fielding cutting-edge unmanned systems at scale.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) letter released in June 2026 documents a stark reality: the Navy has spent decades researching autonomous technologies with minimal results, and the service's internal structure actively works against innovation. Recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated that robotic autonomous systems are disrupting naval warfare and challenging traditional naval superiority. The Navy itself acknowledges the threat as it intends to abandon its World War II-era operating model built around carrier strike groups and shift toward a hybrid fleet incorporating smaller, more numerous, and distributed autonomous capabilities.

The Big Picture

The Navy's problem is not a lack of vision or funding. In 2021, Navy leadership published the Unmanned Campaign Framework, a strategic document that explicitly called for shifting from a domain-centric approach to a capability-centric approach, designed to accelerate development of autonomous systems. The framework acknowledged what senior Navy officials had recognized for over a decade: the service's organizational structure and processes needed fundamental change. Four years later, almost nothing has changed.

The Navy's two largest unmanned systems efforts—the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel and the Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle—illustrate the problem. Both programs were initiated using linear development approaches with requirements fully defined and fixed early in the acquisition process. This rigid methodology produced long acquisition time frames, decreased relevance of delivered capabilities, and prevented systems from evolving to address dynamic needs. Commercial companies, meanwhile, are driving a rapid pace of robotic and autonomous systems development that greatly outpaces traditional Navy platform development timelines.

The root cause lies in how the Navy organizes itself. The service's requirements, resourcing, and acquisition processes remain siloed by domain—air, surface, undersea—and focused on traditional platforms like ships, submarines, and aircraft carriers. Under this structure, robotic and autonomous systems compete for resources with major weapons programs, many of which are institutional priorities. The result is predictable: autonomous systems development starves.

The Government Accountability Office completed its investigation into Navy autonomous systems between January 2023 and March 2025, conducting fieldwork at naval warfare centers and squadrons most heavily involved in developing and testing robotic and autonomous systems. GAO interviewed over 200 Department of Defense and Navy officials with responsibilities for autonomous systems efforts.

Leadership turnover has repeatedly disrupted progress in making organizational changes for robotic and autonomous systems. Inconsistent senior leadership and shifting priorities impeded the Navy's progress in establishing an organizational structure for making efficient investments.

The report makes three recommendations to the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations.

  • "Determine how to organize RAS capabilities as a portfolio in a way to provide consistent leadership and meet the Navy’s objectives across warfighting domains;
  • Develop and implement a plan to facilitate capability-centric approaches and iterative development approaches after establishing an organizational structure of the RAS portfolio; and
  • Clearly identify and define the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders for RAS and develop a stakeholder management plan."

The Bottom Line

The Navy has taken some actions that may address GAO's recommendations as part of recent organizational changes. The service has consolidated robotic and autonomous systems acquisition under the Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Robotic Autonomous Systems, a new organizational unit created after the classified version of the GAO report was completed in March 2025.

The move suggests the Navy is responding to pressure from both GAO and Congress. Yet the underlying challenge remains: whether the Navy can sustain organizational focus on autonomous systems development despite competing demands from traditional platforms and leadership turnover.

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