Sea Drones and Rules of Engagement: Command and the Politics of Autonomous Violence

The deployment of Sea Drones, in other words, Maritime Autonomous and Unmanned Systems, challenges fundamental concepts central to the study of political violence, including the status of weapons, military operations, accountability, state sovereignty, legitimacy of force, decision-making authority, civilian control of the military, escalation dynamics, and coalition politics. Sea Drones' operational autonomy ranges from remote operation (human-in-the-loop) to a partially autonomous system (human-on-the-loop with veto power), and finally to a fully autonomous decision-making process (human-off-the-loop). At the same time, the Rules of Engagement (ROE), like most doctrinal and operational directives to date, are based on human involvement in military operations, requiring human assessment of potential threats and proportional responses. Therefore, the Sea Drone’s autonomy in decision-making, as described above, presents significant challenges for the ROE, which can be categorized as follows: 1) Attribution of Intent and Decision-Making, 2) Compliance with Proportionality and Necessity, 3) Temporal and Spatial Control, 4) Target Identification and Classification, 5) Legal and Command Accountability, and 6) Interoperability in Coalition Operations. Building on this, the paper evaluates existing ROEs derived from sources such as the 2022 Newport Rules of Engagement Handbook and various military doctrines of different states (e.g., U.S., U.K., Germany, Netherlands). In conclusion, it argues that the lack of a unified and globally accepted ROE for Sea Drones could result in operational friction, as Sea Drones operating under different national rules might engage inconsistently. Moreover, this discrepancy could lead to breaches of engagement and security protocols by allied systems operating under divergent force thresholds. For these reasons, the development of ‘autonomous Rules of Engagement’ is essential.