By Chris Gibson, Eric Wirstrom, VideoRay, an AV company

The Strait of Hormuz has a way of clarifying priorities.

When maritime traffic slows, reroutes, or halts altogether, the global economy feels it almost immediately. Beneath the headlines about tankers and geopolitics is a quieter, more consequential reality: securing contested waters quickly and at range is becoming increasingly difficult.

The problem with mine countermeasures (MCM) today is not that they don't work.

It's that they take too long and requires operators to be too close to mines and adversaries.

In a permissive environment, that tradeoff has been acceptable. In a contested maritime battlespace like the Strait of Hormuz, it is not.

Some 20 percent of the world's oil transits the Strait, and even small disruptions to the chokepoint ripple globally. America needs the tools to clear that chokepoint in the face of adversary opposition. The operational requirement is plain: before ships can move safely, someone has to clear the water.

And today, that process is measured in time, risk, and proximity.

Mine countermeasures have historically followed a sequential model.

1. Search wide areas.
2. Identify potential threats.
3. Return to reacquire them.
4. Determine whether they are dangerous.
5. Neutralize them.

It is a disciplined, proven approach, but inherently slow. Each step depends on the last. Each step introduces delay.

In contested waters, time and proximity are risks.

But there's more to consider, like reach.

Traditional MCM operations require ships, divers, and crews to operate in or near the threat area. Proximity to the threat limits how far operations can extend without escalating risk.

Our predecessors thought to solve the MCM problem by increasing the speed of clearance, reducing time in threat envelope. We propose an alternative: doing it without having to be there at all.

That is the shift now underway, and it's how our team at VideoRay is approaching the future of undersea autonomy. And it's why we built our most advanced unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), like Mission Specialist Wraith.

The future of mine countermeasures is moving toward a fundamentally different model: single-sortie detect to engage, or SSDTE. But this time we want to execute SSDTE over the horizon.

Instead of breaking the mission into separate phases across multiple platforms, the objective is to complete the entire sequence, detection, identification, and neutralization, in one continuous operation using a system of systems. No return to base. No handoff between teams. No delay between finding a threat and acting on it.

These are the keys to compressing time on station.

Current autonomous capabilities push mine hunting beyond the 300 feet a human diver can operate to ROV-enabled missions at 300 meters, which improves identification and neutralization confidence and increases clearance rates while reducing risk to both mission and force.

This is a key to extending operational reach.

Together, these two shifts, compressing time and extending operational reach, change the equation entirely. What once required multiple missions and close human involvement can now be executed remotely, continuously, and at scale.

But enabling this model requires solving a problem that has historically been taken for granted: communications.

Traditional subsea operations rely on high-bandwidth, low-latency links. In contested environments, those links are often degraded, intermittent, or unavailable altogether. The legacy approach-an operator controlling a vehicle in real time-does not translate over the horizon.

The solution is not simply better connectivity.

It is greater autonomy - enabling a shift from Human in the Loop, where operators directly control semi-autonomous systems, to Human on the Loop, where fully autonomous systems execute the mission under supervisory oversight.

Modern systems are being designed to operate with a level of independence that allows them to execute critical tasks without continuous human control. A vehicle can be deployed into an area, navigate to a target, and conduct inspection autonomously. It can then report back, allowing an operator to make a determination and authorize the next step, whether that is further investigation or neutralization.

The human remains in control of the decision.

The system takes on the burden of execution.

This shift from manual control to supervisory control is what makes over-the-horizon operations viable. It allows missions to continue despite degraded communications while preserving the judgment and accountability that human operators provide.

The result is a new operational model defined not just by speed, but by compressed time in the detect-to-engage sequence, delivering greater operational reach, reduced risk to mission and force, and higher confidence in clearance outcomes. This is not just an improvement in capability; it is a redefinition of presence.

The operator no longer has to be co-located with the problem. The mission can be executed forward, while decision-making remains removed from risk.

And critically, this model is not tied to a single platform or system. It is built as a system of systems-modular, interoperable, and platform-agnostic. The mission dictates the configuration, allowing different technologies to integrate and operate as a unified whole.

That flexibility is essential in a domain where conditions change rapidly, and no single solution fits every scenario.

While these advancements are being driven by defense requirements, their implications extend well beyond military operations. Offshore energy companies and subsea infrastructure providers face many of the same challenges: limited access, high operational costs, and risk to personnel. The ability to deploy smaller, autonomous systems from unmanned platforms offers a path to greater efficiency and expanded capability without the overhead of traditional approaches.

In both cases, the trajectory is clear.

Greater emphasis on outcomes over process.

The Strait of Hormuz is not an isolated incident. It is a preview of a maritime environment where access is contested, time is compressed, and distance matters.

In that environment, the advantage will not go to the side with the most manned assets in the water.

It will go to the side that can act fastest, and from farthest away.

Because beneath the surface, the problem is no longer just clearing threats.

It is doing so without delay, and without being there at all.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Chris Gibson is Chief Executive Officer of VideoRay, a subsidiary of AV and a global leader in underwater robotic systems. A more than 20-year veteran of the company, he has helped drive innovation in modular, mission-ready ROV technology supporting defense, offshore energy, and critical infrastructure operations worldwide.

Eric Wirstrom is Vice President of Sales & Business Development at VideoRay and a former U.S. Navy leader in autonomous and remotely operated systems for diving, salvage, and explosive ordnance disposal, with deep experience shaping operational concepts, requirements, and resourcing for maritime robotics and subsea mission execution.

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