- Overview: The naval balance in the Indo-Pacific is shifting toward artificial intelligence. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has officially deployed swarms of highly advanced, autonomous drone submarines near the contested Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
- Key Points:
- The Ghost Fleet: These robotic submarines, resembling small, dark torpedoes, operate without human crews. They patrol the ocean floor for months, relying entirely on AI to map the seabed and track foreign warships.
- Acoustic Espionage: The primary mission of this drone swarm is intelligence gathering. They silently record the acoustic signatures (propeller noises) of US and allied submarines operating in the region.
- Swarm Blockade Potential: In the event of a kinetic war over Taiwan or the South China Sea, these drones can be rapidly armed with explosives to act as smart, moving sea mines.
- Diplomatic Outrage: The Philippines has fiercely protested this deployment, accusing Beijing of executing aggressive “grey-zone” surveillance deep within its sovereign maritime borders.
- Q6. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a nation’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) generally extends up to how many nautical miles from its coastal baseline?
- 12 Nautical Miles
- 24 Nautical Miles
- 100 Nautical Miles
- 200 Nautical Miles
