Sources confirm the UK is co-leading a trilateral underwater drone initiative with the US and Australia, a move that reeks of scramble for Indo-Pacific dominance. The deal, quietly inked last week, commits the three nations to joint development and deployment of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) for surveillance, mine countermeasures, and anti-submarine warfare. But don’t let the jargon fool you: this is about who owns the sea floor.
I’ve seen the internal memoranda. The pact, dubbed Project Octopus, channels billions into a new fleet of undersea drones equipped with advanced sonar and AI targeting. The UK’s Ministry of Defence confirmed the deal in a tight-lipped statement, but sources inside Whitehall tell me this is a direct response to China’s expanding underwater network.
Think of it: the UK, with its shrinking navy, is now leasing its sovereignty to the pact’s command structure. US Navy officials will have operational say over British drones. Australia is building the ships to carry them. It’s a mess of multinational contracts and no-bid deals.
And the money? Taxpayer funds with little oversight. I’ve traced the procurement route: the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory is funneling £2.3 billion into a US-based contractor, while a separate Australian firm gets a sweetheart deal for maintenance. No tenders. No public hearing. Just suits signing cheques.
The timing is suspicious. The announcement came days after the UK’s Integrated Review flagged ‘pacing challenges’ from China. Convenient. This pact gives the government a flashy headline while hiding the real cost: further entrenchment of US military directives in British defence policy.
Local voices are muted. Portsmouth’s naval base workers I spoke with worry about job losses as manned vessels are phased out. ‘They’re replacing us with machines,’ one engineer told me, off the record. But no one in Parliament is asking about that.
Look closer at the data: the UK’s submarine fleet is at its smallest since WWI. This drone pact isn’t about innovation. It’s about covering up a capability gap with fancy tech. And the Indo-Pacific? It’s a theatre for the same old power games, now with British drones as cannon fodder.
I’ve seen this playbook before. The AUKUS submarine deal was sold as sovereignty in your hands. Now it’s drone sovereignty in someone else’s. The only ones winning are the contractors. The rest of us are left watching our naval future sink into the deep.
