Red Sea air defence and underwater-drone surveillance

Sal Mercogliano distinguishes the escort needs of a drone-threatened Red Sea route from a possible underwater-drone threat off the US West Coast. In his assessment, repeated aerial attacks call for the sensors and air-defence capacity of ships such as the Burkes. He criticizes assigning ships unsuited to that environment merely because they are available. Reports of Chinese long-range underwater drones raise a different surveillance and anti-submarine problem. The passage asks whether attack submarines should absorb that work when the fleet lacks dedicated surface ASW escorts; it does not establish that such drones were already operating off the American coast.