If the first part of the problem is acknowledging that our security architecture at private naval shipyards is outdated, the second part is far harder: deciding what to do about it. The 2025 National Security Strategy leaves no doubt that the United States is entering an era where the cost of inaction will exceed the cost of reform. For Congress, DoD, NAVSEA, and DHS, the question is no longer whether to modernize shipyard security, it’s how quickly they can do it.
For years, the country has been lulled into believing that domestic industrial infrastructure is insulated from the levels of risk seen abroad. That illusion was shattered by a combination of adversary capability, global conflict, and the undeniable truth that the homeland is no longer the sanctuary it once was. The NSS implicitly acknowledges this: the maritime industrial base is a strategic bottleneck, and anything that slows it, accident, sabotage, cyber disruption, or physical attack, directly affects force generation, deterrence, and global posture.
To understand the stakes, it’s worth remembering what vulnerability looks like in real terms. The USS Cole was not struck in open war. It was struck while pierside, during a period of routine operations, by a weapon that cost almost nothing compared to the value of the ship it damaged. The takeaway shouldn’t be a history lesson, it should be an instructional one. Today’s adversaries do not need billion-dollar capabilities to achieve strategic effect. They need access, timing, and the ability to exploit gaps we have allowed to persist.
The reform effort must begin with an uncomfortable truth: NAVSEA 009-72 and MTSA provide a necessary compliance foundation, but they were never intended to serve as a threat-adaptive architecture for unmanned, autonomous, and AI-enabled systems operating at modern pace. It is impossible to protect a 2025 vulnerability set with a 2005 rulebook.
Congress and DoD now face a moment that will define the next decade of maritime security. They can treat private shipyard security as a compliance project or they can treat it as the national security priority it has become.
1. Establish a National Standard for Shipyard Maritime Security
The current fractured approach, where every prime contractor interprets NAVSEA standards and requirements differently creates inconsistency, inefficiency, and avoidable risk. Without a unified standard, security performance depends not on threat conditions, but on contract language and local custom
A modernized standard should include:
- Threat models that incorporate USVs, drones, cyber-enabled surveillance, and hybrid actors
- Required waterborne security postures for any naval vessel undergoing maintenance
- Clear minimum training and qualification expectations for maritime guard forces
- Procedures for counter-reconnaissance, sensor integration, and nighttime/small-craft interdiction
This is not criticism of any individual yard or provider. It is recognition that the threat environment evolved faster than the policy environment.
2. Formalize the Integration of Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Systems
The NSS repeatedly emphasizes accelerating the adoption of unmanned systems and leveraging new technologies to close operational gaps. The shipyard environment is one of the places where these technologies offer the most immediate value.
Congress and DoD should formalize programs that:
- Pair manned and unmanned patrol assets in the shipyard security environment
- Expand testing pathways for USV-based surveillance and perimeter enforcement
- Encourage the use of AI-assisted anomaly detection and sensor fusion
- Evaluate commercial off-the-shelf underwater and surface detection systems for shipyard integration
This helps overcome the primary issue that Six Maritime has observed in USV development over the last several years: offensive USV progress has outpaced defensive adoption. The next step is creating a defensive architecture that embraces autonomy where it makes sense, as a force multiplier, not a replacement.
3. Strengthen Oversight, Auditing, and Accountability Across Naval Repair Facilities
Another challenge the NSS implicitly references is the lack of consistent, transparent oversight across the shipyards responsible for maintaining the fleet. Public Navy yards have formalized structures; private yards operate in a hybrid environment where responsibility is distributed across agencies and contracting layers.
To close these gaps, Congress and DoD should pursue:
- Standardized annual security audits for all private naval shipyards
- A unified reporting framework that captures vulnerabilities, corrective actions, and repeat deficiencies
- A central authority for reviewing waterborne and landside protective measures
- Mechanisms for sharing best practices across regions and shipbuilders
Today, too many vulnerabilities persist simply because they exist in the seams between stakeholders. The NSS makes clear that national strategy can no longer tolerate those seams.
4. Encourage Public–Private Operational Integration
Shipyards sit at the intersection of federal, local, private, and contractor responsibilities. That complexity creates friction,but it also creates opportunity. The NSS calls for deeper coordination across sectors, and shipyard security is one of the domains where integration can yield immediate gains.
This includes:
- Joint exercises between shipyard security forces, USCG, and Navy ATFP personnel
- Shared threat intelligence channels
- Coordinated response protocols that integrate waterborne, landside, and technological layers
- Establishing shipyards as testbeds for emerging maritime security technologies
Six Maritime’s growing partnerships with USV/AI developers, its presence across multiple shipyards, and its alignment with innovation hubs like TMA Bluetech position it naturally within this integration model. As seen in our internal BD discussions, maintaining these partnerships and fostering new ones is not just business development, it is part of shaping the future architecture of maritime defense.
5. Modernize Training Pipelines to Reflect Modern Threats
A 2025 threat environment cannot be countered by 2010 training standards. Maritime guard forces are often the first, and sometimes only, line of defense against threats that leverage speed, autonomy, and ambiguity.
Training modernization should include:
- Curriculum for counter-USV and counter-drone detection
- Night operations with thermal, radar, and EO/IR systems
- Swimmer and small-craft interdiction updated for modern pacing threats
- Integration scenarios combining human operators with autonomous patrol assets
- Practical training that reflects the unique vulnerabilities of ships undergoing maintenance
This is one of the areas where Six Maritime is already moving, as reflected in the POAM discussions between you and Joe: the future of maritime security is human + autonomous pairing. Training is where that pairing must begin.
6. Embrace Innovation Before Crisis Forces It
The final reform case is cultural, not procedural. The maritime security ecosystem, shipyards, regulators, contract managers, primes, and even security providers, has operated for years within a static model: predictable threats, legacy procedures, and long-standing assumptions.
The NSS is telling us those assumptions no longer hold.
Threat velocity has changed. Technology cycles have shortened. Adversaries adapt faster than policy. If the U.S. waits for a crisis to modernize shipyard security, the reform will come too late and at far higher cost.
Modernization is not optional. It is the frontline of reindustrialization and the foundation of naval readiness.