Shaping a Porcupine Defense Strategy for the Philippines: The Role of Maritime Autonomous Systems

This report analyzes the Philippines’ “porcupine defense strategy,” emphasizing its reliance on maritime autonomous systems (MAS) and distributed lethality to deter aggression in the South China Sea.

It highlights the Taiwan-Philippines-Japan strategic triangle and the critical importance of the First Island Chain and Luzon Strait for regional security and global trade.

The report details how U.S.-Philippines military cooperation, including fast boat bases and the deployment of unmanned surface vessels (USVs), is transforming naval operations through a “kill web” paradigm and mesh fleet concept.

Ultimately, the strategy aims to make the Philippines a formidable barrier by distributing defensive assets and leveraging technology, offering a blueprint for smaller nations facing similar geopolitical challenges.

Maritime autonomous systems (MAS) play a pivotal role in transforming naval warfare and enhancing deterrence by shifting away from traditional, capital ship-centric operations towards distributed, networked approaches. This fundamental reimagining of naval strategy allows for greater resilience, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness in contested environments.

Here’s how MAS contribute to this transformation:

Shifting Paradigms in Naval Operations

• From Linear Kill Chains to Maritime Kill Webs: Traditional naval operations relied on a linear “kill chain” (find, fix, target, engage, assess), which is vulnerable to sophisticated anti-access/area-denial capabilities. The “kill web” paradigm, enabled by MAS, shifts to distributed, networked warfare, where sensing, decision-making, and strike capabilities are spread across multiple platforms operating as an integrated network. The loss of a single element in a kill web does not compromise the entire operation.
• Mesh Fleets for Distributed Awareness: The “mesh fleet” concept involves scalable networks of autonomous surface vessels (USVs) that operate both independently and collaboratively. Companies like MARTAC have pioneered this with systems like the MANTAS T-12 and Devil Ray platforms. This approach shifts from “large blue water boats providing concentrated awareness to distributed awareness” through swarms of unmanned vessels.
• Distributed Maritime Effects (DME): The transformation involves moving away from concentrating power in capital ships to distributing capabilities across a network of assets. DME are the effects created by this distributed force, often supplementing or operating independently of traditional capital ship operations. MAS, coupled with manned air assets, can generate “combat clusters” to deliver DME.
• Re-thinking Maritime Strategy: The sources argue for a rethinking of maritime strategy that embraces autonomous technologies, distributed forces, and innovative acquisition models.

Enhancing Deterrence through “Porcupine Defense”

“Small, Cheap, and Independent” Capabilities: The Philippines has adopted a “porcupine defense strategy,” which fundamentally disrupts traditional attack calculations through innovative use of MAS. This strategy focuses on acquiring “small, cheap, and independent” means to execute enhanced defense.

• Multiple Axis Points for Disruption: The Philippines is deploying networks of USVs, UAVs, and land-based missile systems to create a new defense geometry with multiple axis points from which to launch disruptive capabilities. This approach makes it increasingly difficult for an adversary to execute a well-planned, timely defeat strategy.
• Altering Cost-Benefit Calculations: The porcupine defense alters the cost-benefit calculation for aggressors. Each autonomous platform is relatively inexpensive but can pose significant threats to much more valuable manned vessels. As Secretary Wynne noted, aggressors would need to “buy more quills” than they can quickly grow for the defending porcupine.
• Asymmetric Advantages: MAS offer an asymmetric advantage, as they can operate in contested environments where human-crewed vessels would face unacceptable risks. They can maintain persistent presence, operate in swarms, and are more rapidly replaced if destroyed than legacy capital ships. This allows smaller nations to create credible deterrence without bankrupting their defense budgets.
• Complicating Attack Plans: The porcupine defense is designed to complicate and disrupt potential Chinese maritime attack plans by creating multi-axial complexity and enabling rapid response deterrence and unpredictable counter-attacks from distributed, missile-equipped fast boats and drone swarms.

Key Operational and Technological Contributions of MAS

• Enhanced Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA): Uncrewed vessels (USVs) significantly expand ISR coverage in archipelagic territories. The Philippine Navy’s USV Unit, for instance, focuses on improving ISR capabilities and MDA. The distributed network of sensor-equipped platforms creates comprehensive surveillance, making it difficult for hostile forces to mask movements or conduct covert operations.
• Rapid Deployment and Shortened Acquisition Cycles: MAS offer much shorter routes for credible defense by combining land-based missiles with maritime ISR and counter-ISR from USVs, UAVs, and future UUVs. The acquisition of MAS represents a “credible 3–5-year program of rapidly enhancing Filipino defense,” in stark contrast to decades-long traditional defense procurement cycles.
• Payload Agnosticism and Scalable Deployment: Mesh fleet platforms are flexible carriers for diverse payloads, including sensors, communications equipment, and weapons, allowing for rapid reconfiguration. Larger vessels can deploy smaller ones (e.g., Devil Ray T-38 carrying MANTAS T12s), extending operational reach without additional infrastructure.
• Distributed Launch Points: Unlike traditional naval operations dependent on major ports, mesh fleet vessels can launch from virtually anywhere, eliminating concentrated vulnerabilities.
• Crisis Management and Escalation Control: MAS enhance the kill web’s role in crisis management by enabling graduated responses, from passive ISR to active weapons carriers. This provides military commanders with precise, scalable options tailored to specific threat levels, crucial for “controlled war”.
• Affordability and Attritable Platforms: MAS offer an affordable, capable, and persistent addition to naval forces. The introduction of “attritable” platforms, like MARTAC’s M18 “MUSKIE,” which are designed for one-way missions and can overwhelm enemy defenses through sheer numbers, showcases a move toward “$50,000 weapons, not just million-dollar weapons”.

U.S.-Philippines Cooperation as a Blueprint:

The U.S. is investing in new infrastructure (like fast boat bases) and providing cutting-edge unmanned systems and training to the Philippines. This “Maritime Security Consortium” provides significant annual funding for unmanned systems, demonstrating a new model for rapidly deploying advanced military technology to allies.

This cooperation supports the Philippine “porcupine defense” and could serve as a blueprint for similar partnerships across the Indo-Pacific, emphasizing capability delivery over traditional arms sales.

In essence, MAS are driving a “mind blowing” shift in maritime power dynamics by democratizing advanced naval capabilities, making it possible for nations to create formidable defensive networks that are resilient, cost-effective, and capable of holding much larger adversaries’ assets at risk, fundamentally reshaping deterrence and the future of naval warfare.