Council on Geostrategy – Professor Andrew Lambert writes that while the prospect of AUV submarines powered by AI roaming the deep ocean, striking submarine cables, ships and land targets at will may add a frisson of uncertainty to current anxieties, the technology is costly and offers limited return for continental powers focused on sea denial and area defence. It is more likely that, in the short term, AUVs develop into effective components of mixed underwater and three-dimensional security and combat forces which will enhance sea control, rather than challenge it. AUVs operating as fugitives in a hostile ocean will find it difficult to achieve tactical, let alone strategic effect.