Uncrewed naval aviation will not have one pattern

Will future naval aviation be a mix of crewed and uncrewed aircraft flying in swarms?

A mixed force is plausible, but uncrewed aircraft will not necessarily operate only in swarms and the final balance remains uncertain.

No single prediction can capture how uncrewed naval aviation will develop. A mixed carrier air wing is plausible, but a swarm is only one possible way to employ its uncrewed aircraft. Different missions, technologies, command arrangements, and threats could produce several forms of crewed-uncrewed cooperation. Force planners should therefore avoid treating one fashionable operating concept as the inevitable end state.