Invisible Waves: How Ancient Wisdom and Modern Tech Are Redefining Naval Power

On a crisp morning in the Barents Sea, a cluster of small autonomous drones zipped past a Russian destroyer, slipping through its defenses and gathering intelligence without firing a single shot. For centuries, invisible waves, naval power was measured by the weight of a gun or the size of a fleet. Now, invisible technologies—drones, AI-guided submersibles, and swarming autonomous vessels—are testing whether those old equations still hold true.

The United States Navy once ruled the waves unquestioned. But the seas today are changing faster than even the most powerful fleets can adapt. Hypersonic missiles streak across oceans at blistering speeds, AI-assisted reconnaissance makes battlefields transparent, and drone swarms blur the line between offense and defense. Size alone no longer guarantees dominance. The question facing Washington is as stark as it is unsettling: in an era of invisible weapons, can sheer firepower still deter an adversary?

History offers some surprising perspective. In the fifteenth century, India’s Malabar Coast was one of the busiest maritime crossroads in the world. Traders from Arabia, Persia, China, and Europe flocked to its ports. What kept that bustling network running smoothly was not the biggest fleets, but an intricate web of rules, norms, and shared understandings.

The Zamorin of Calicut, for example, issued customs codes that regulated docking rights, tariffs, and dispute resolution, ensuring predictable conditions for merchants arriving from every corner of the globe (Dalrymple, 2024). At the same time, Islamic jurists codified salvage rights and standardized freight contracts in works like Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul al-Bahr wa’l-Qawa’id, allowing Arab and Persian merchants to operate seamlessly across vast distances. Farther east, Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms such as Srivijaya and Majapahit issued port edicts and charters that governed tariffs and provided arbitration. And beyond kings and courts, South Indian merchant guilds like the Ayyavole 500 developed their own codes, creating a kind of decentralized, polycentric governance where cooperation mattered more than domination.

The result was remarkable: one of the busiest seas in history was kept both profitable and stable without a single empire monopolizing power. The lesson is strikingly relevant today. Just as those guilds and rulers used coordination and shared norms to tame a chaotic maritime world, modern alliances such as the QUAD or NATO may find that interoperability, data-sharing, and rules-based engagement outweigh raw firepower in deterring emerging threats.

Small, coordinated fleets have always found ways to punch above their weight. Indian Ocean merchants used knowledge of monsoon winds and maritime charts to outmanoeuvre rivals. Their edge was never just ships—it was foresight, adaptability, and coordination. Today, unmanned systems and AI-guided swarms carry that same principle into the twenty-first century. A handful of drones can surveil—or even disrupt—entire sea corridors, challenging the dominance of massive carrier groups.

The implications are profound. Underwater drones can lurk unseen beneath waves, autonomous vessels can patrol contested zones, and predictive algorithms can turn oceans into transparent battlefields. Logistical hubs, once secure rear bases, are now vulnerable to rapid, automated strikes. In this world, deterrence is no longer about simply having the largest fleet, but about anticipating threats and moving faster than adversaries can adapt.

What makes this moment even more interesting is how closely it echoes older maritime realities. Ancient merchants sailing from Calicut or Srivijaya learned to harness the winds, anticipate storms, and navigate hidden reefs. Their survival depended on turning uncertainty into advantage. Today, AI-powered predictive analytics plays a similar role, helping navies forecast threats, optimize deployment, and exploit an adversary’s blind spots. Hidden hazards then are mirrored by invisible drones now; both alter the balance of power in ways that brute force alone cannot overcome.

Seen through this historical lens, the seas become less about domination and more about coordination. A merchant fleet sailing in convoy with armed escorts to deter pirates is not so different from a drone swarm overwhelming defenses by sheer coordination. Both transform small units into asymmetric power. The parallels remind us of that innovation and collaboration, not hardware alone, often determine who thrives in uncertain waters.

Which brings us back to the United States. Ancient maritime wisdom teaches that seas favor the adaptable, the coordinated, and the prepared. Naval power today is not about the biggest guns but about the ability to outthink and outmanoeuvre an adversary in an invisible, fast-moving battlespace. The real challenge is cultural as much as technological: alliances must build habits of trust, interoperability, and shared decision-making if they are to turn advanced systems into credible deterrence. Otherwise, swarms and AI will simply expose the vulnerabilities of even the most powerful ships.

The deeper lesson, one often overlooked, is that the oceans reward those who blend power with imagination. Indian Ocean guilds thrived not just by sailing together, but by continuously innovating, sharing intelligence, and exploiting knowledge of winds and tides. For the modern U.S. Navy, this implies that deterrence cannot rest on hardware alone. It demands anticipatory AI, cross-domain collaboration, and alliances that evolve as rapidly as the threats they face. The invisible battlefield of tomorrow will not be won by the strongest, but by the smartest—the fleets that, like those ancient merchants, know how to turn coordination, knowledge, and creativity into decisive advantage.

Prakriti N. is a strategist and digital transformation leader with two decades of global IT experience. At the SIGA Centre Melbourne, Australia, she bridges ancient Indian knowledge with modern security and governance challenges.