How Seagliders will strengthen lifesaving operations in the Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific theater poses some of the most formidable military logistics and mission execution challenges in the world.Specifically, providing rapid medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) and casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) operations across this vast area presents incredible challenges to mission planners. Geography, force structure, and adversary capabilities converge to create a uniquely complex environment where the timely movement of wounded personnel is anything but assured.

At the heart of the challenge is the tyranny of distance. The Pacific is vast—thousands of miles of ocean separate islands, bases, and forward operating areas. Even the nearest advanced medical facilities may be hours, or even days, away from where casualties occur. Unlike the European and the Middle East Combatant Commands, where dense infrastructure and relatively short distances facilitate rapid evacuation, the Indo-Pacific is defined by isolated atolls, sparse logistics nodes, and contested sea and air lines of communication. This means that every MEDEVAC sortie requires careful planning and the exacting coordination of scarce aviation and maritime assets.

Helicopters, the traditional backbone of battlefield MEDEVAC and CASEVAC operations, face acute vulnerabilities in thePacific maritime environment. Rotary-wing aircraft are indispensable for point-of-injury pickup and transport to higher levels of care, but their need to hover exposes them to enemy detection and potential attack. In a high-end conflict against a peer adversary such as China, where advanced air defense systems, long-range precision fires, and ubiquitous drones can quickly target slow or hovering aircraft which produce significant acoustic and infrared signals, the risk to MEDEVAC helicopters operating over a casualty hoist zone will be extraordinary. Even with escort and suppression of enemy air defenses, which compound the complexity of mission planning and execution, the act of hovering to hoist casualties one at a time may make these aircraft high-value, high-risk targets that further endangers the aircrews.

Compounding these risks is the limited number of platforms available. U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific cannot rely on the dense network of rotary-wing squadrons and ground medical units that supported operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. Forward-deployed forces are often dispersed across small units on islands or aboard ships, where medical evacuation may depend on the availability of a handful of helicopters or tiltrotor aircraft as well as the current position of surface assets with deployed aviation assets.While fixed-wing transports and aerial refueling assets extend reach, they require prepared runways or permissive conditions—both of which may be scarce in a contested archipelago. Equally critical is the vulnerability of that infrastructure in the event of a conflict, where fixed infrastructure such as airfields will be primary targets.

This problem is not new. During World War II, U.S.forces faced similar dilemmas in evacuating downed pilots and wounded personnel across the Pacific. At that time, submarines were sometimes diverted from offensive patrols to ascend to the surface and rescue downed aviators in the water. One such rescue involved the USS Finback, a Gato class submarine, which was dispatched and successfully rescued then Lieutenant Junior Grade George H.W. Bush hours before the Japanese would have captured him. These daring “lifeguard”missions saved hundreds of lives but required significant operational risk and the diversion of scarce submarines from other mission tasking. In the modern context, such submarine rescues are no longer feasible. The strategic value of the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet in deterrence, intelligence, and sea denial missions is far too great to expose them to detection and potential attack during personnel recovery.

Looking ahead, solutions will need to combine new technologies and concepts of operation. While unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and unmanned surface vessels (USVs) may help reduce risk to human crews by conducting contested extractions, the need for CASEVAC and MEDEVAC capability in the Pacific will not be eliminated. Seagliders provide significant operational advantage given their high-speed, long-range, and low-signal operational profile – combined with their ability to land on the water to conduct rapid personnel extraction. These assets, with nearly four times the range of an SH-60 Seahawk, would greatly expand the operational capability of the maritime defense fleet. With a maximum speed of 160 knots, Seagliders can arrive on-scene, conduct MEDEVAC and CASEVAC operations, and rapidly deliver survivors to higher-level care – all while reducing risk to the rescue crews.

Ultimately, the challenges of the Indo-Pacific demand a rethinking of MEDEVAC and CASEVAC doctrine. The tyranny of distance, the vulnerability of current air, surface, and subsurface assets, and the scarcity and vulnerability of fixed infrastructure mean that assumptions from past conflicts cannot simply be transposed to the Pacific fight. To save lives in this theater, the U.S. and its partners must innovate, invest, and adapt to ensure that medical evacuation remains feasible under fire, leveraging assets that mitigate threats and reduce operational risk. It is through this innovation and technology adoption that we continue to provide an asymmetric deterrent.