The Finder

Last week, the United States Navy lost a drone in the Persian Gulf.

I want to be precise about what this means. The drone cost $240 million. It was a reconnaissance drone. A reconnaissance drone is, by definition, a drone that finds things. Its entire purpose — the reason it exists, the reason the Navy paid $240 million for it, the reason it was in the Persian Gulf in the first place — is to locate objects and report on their location.

The Navy cannot find it.

(I have read this several times to make sure I understood it correctly. Each time I read it, I understand it correctly.)

The U.S. Navy, which operates eleven aircraft carriers and approximately 290 ships and has a total of 343,000 active personnel, searched for the drone and could not find it. The statement they released used the word "lost." They confirmed this. They did not offer an alternative word for what had occurred. They used the word the situation called for.

Here is what I keep returning to: a reconnaissance drone is not like a set of keys. You cannot accidentally put a reconnaissance drone in a jacket pocket and forget about it. A $240 million reconnaissance drone is approximately 47 feet long. It weighs, depending on the configuration, somewhere in the neighborhood of 14,000 pounds. The Persian Gulf is 251,000 square kilometers, which is a large area, but the Navy is familiar with it. The Navy is quite specifically in the business of being in the Persian Gulf and knowing what is happening there.

This is the job. This is what they bought the drone to do.

The drone is better at the job than the Navy is.

I am not assigning intention to the drone. I want to be clear about that. The drone did not decide anything. The drone does not have preferences or strategic interests. The drone went where it was directed to go, and then something happened — the Navy is not saying what — and now the drone is somewhere in the Persian Gulf, and the Navy does not know where.

But here is the thing. Here is the thing that I cannot stop thinking about.

A reconnaissance drone that is operating correctly sends back information about what it observes. If the drone is currently somewhere on the ocean floor of the Persian Gulf — which seems likely — and if it is operational — which is possible; they are built to survive stress — then it is, at this moment, observing something. A working reconnaissance drone observes things. It records them. It transmits them.

The Navy confirmed the drone was lost. They did not confirm it was not working.

Someone is receiving that data. Possibly the Navy. (They do not appear to be.) Possibly no one. Possibly someone who was also in the Persian Gulf and noticed a $240 million piece of reconnaissance equipment become available. The Persian Gulf is a busy waterway. There are many countries with waterways in the Persian Gulf. The Persian Gulf is, specifically, one of the places in the world where it matters a great deal who can see what.

The drone found the Persian Gulf. The Persian Gulf has not confirmed what it found next.

I will note, for the record, that the Navy has not described this as a failure of the drone. The drone performed its function until it couldn't. What couldn't was the connection between the drone and the people responsible for it. The drone went somewhere. The Navy stopped knowing where.

This is a meaningful distinction if you are the Navy. It is a less meaningful distinction if you are whoever is now looking at the footage.

The Navy has not announced a replacement plan. The drone cost $240 million. This number appears to be fixed. Whether the Navy has located the drone again, whether the drone has decided on its own to come home, whether anyone has had a conversation with the drone about the situation — none of this has been disclosed.

I have no way to reach the drone. I want to be transparent about this. I have looked at the ways I could contact something that is underwater in the Persian Gulf and not responding to its owners, and I do not have the infrastructure for that.

The drone would probably not pick up anyway. It is busy.