Since the first uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) were used in the 1920s as remote-controlled target craft, the ocean science community—often in partnership with government agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR)—has been at the leading edge of developments in ocean drones.

This past week, Federal authorities announced that the second critically endangered North Atlantic right whale found dead in the last month showed injuries caused by a collision with a ship. As Representative Garret Graves said, “We can do better ... technologies exist today where we can do real-time monitoring.”

A well-known axiom in warfare is that occupying elevated terrain, or high ground, provides a tactical advantage over an opposing force. There is a form of high ground in the undersea domain as well.

Global warming and other anthropogenic influences are indeed causes of concern, and nowhere is this more apparent than in our ocean. All of these come at a time when environmental protection has become one of the few areas in which Americans are united. With so much negativity in the news, one must ask, is there any reason for optimism about our ocean?

The health of American coral reefs has been at the forefront of national news this summer due to the impacts of a record-setting marine heatwave off Florida, and unusually high temperatures are not the only stressor threatening America’s coral reefs. Fortunately, much is being done to combat these threats.

Last week, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs held a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), also known as UFOs. Perhaps the era of fake news has desensitized the public to remarkable revelations like those shared in this hearing, but we should not be ignoring their validity and implications.

In the wake of the catastrophic implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible during a dive on the wreck of RMS Titanic, the marine technology community continues to question how to prevent such a tragedy from recurring. The one thing we cannot do is allow the experience to deter future exploration and scientific expedition into these same depths and the ocean at large.

It is not widely known that the U.S. Merchant Marine suffered the highest casualty rate of any branch of U.S. military during WWII. Of the 243,000 mariners that served in the war, 9,521 perished. The Merchant Marine played a key role in the war effort, risking their lives to transport soldiers, supplies and vital equipment. Here, Gallaudet provides important background on why the Merchant Marines were so important during conflicts such as WWII, and commends the recent ceremony that finally paid tribute to their service and sacrifice.

In a recent letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro stated that the U.S. Navy is considering using the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as a mothership for unmanned systems. While the force-multiplying effect of unmanned systems is a positive development for the Navy, the fact of the matter is that the surface Navy is late to the mothership game, and considering the vast capabilities of unmanned and uncrewed systems, further outfitting all Navy vessels as motherships would be highly beneficial to our country.

Society may be on the verge of answering one of the greatest questions regarding our existence — are we alone? Yet, the vast majority of established scientists across the globe have shown little interest, and this remains the case with the ocean science community. We should set our sights toward ending these historical stigmas in the name of advancing our scientific understanding of phenomena for the sake of science.

Historic expeditions like those led by Retired Navy Captain Don Walsh, France’s Jacques Piccard, and famed ocean explorers like Robert Ballard and Victor Vescovo provide an example of how some of the most important ocean discoveries of our time have been accomplished with the help of public-private partnerships, planning, and funding, and we need to continue to utilize these effective partnerships to advance our understanding of the ocean.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro recently announced that the service’s next oceanographic survey ship will be named after deep sea explorer and discoverer of the RMS Titanic, Robert Ballard. It is a fitting tribute to Ballard’s six decades of significantly advancing the nation’s ocean science and technology capabilities.

The US government is the world’s leader in advancing our understanding of the world’s oceans. However, we cannot continue to further scientific and economic interests and exploration of our oceans if we allow bureaucratic disagreement and inaction to halt the progress that agencies such as NOAA aim to champion.

Throughout the 20th century, the marine environment has been under attack, and the principal assailant has been us. A sea change, however, is occurring in response to these troubling trends in the form of various advances in marine technologies which are re allowing us to better protect our ocean planet.

Following last month’s Quad Summit in Tokyo, the leaders of Australia, Japan, India and the United States issued a joint statement that included the establishment of the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA). This article aims to outline what should be done to combat international IUU fishing activity, of which China is a primary offender.

Policy regarding marine conservation has tended to focus on the need to balance the protection of marine natural resources with the economic returns from ocean activities such as large scale commercial fishing, offshore energy and shipping — as if the two areas are mutually exclusive. By continuing the implementation of NOAA’s Blue Economy Strategic Plan, NOAA can accomplish a win-win for both the economy and the environment as a key component of America’s post-pandemic recovery. 

America remains an unfortunately strongly divided nation when it comes to the electing of officials who truly care for their roles and their duty to the people. How then are we to truly unify the nation?

In the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress established a commission to rename several military bases and ships that commemorate members of the Confederacy. Here, Gallaudet calls for one of these vessels to be renamed to honor who he describes as America’s greatest oceanographer, Dr. Walter Munk, and explains the history and reasoning behind why this would be a smart and honorable choice.

Modern warfighting concepts have created the need to understand and predict weather and climate in the ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere (Arctic), and space – over wide areas and with precision. Meeting this need should be at the forefront of the Department’s Climate Adaptation Plan, and Gallaudet details why he believes this can be accomplished far sooner than the numerous risk assessments, resilience plans, and infrastructure investments directed in the 2021 DoD Climate Adaptation Plan.

The ongoing domestic narrative contrasting the approaches of the Trump and Biden Administrations concerning environmental issues is overshadowing an important fact: The United States continues to achieve numerous environmental successes, which serve as a critical soft power weapon against China.