Nikola Tesla’s 1898 Prediction of Warship Doom Is Becoming Reality

Nikola Tesla foresaw remote-controlled naval warfare in 1898, and Ukraine’s Katran torpedo drone is turning warships into relics of the past.

A render of the Ukrainian Katran VENOM unmanned surface vessel. Courtesy of Ukrainian Ministry of Defense

Commentary

More than a century ago, Nikola Tesla proposed an invention that he said could “abolish war” as we know it, the New York Herald headlined in a Nov. 8, 1898, article. The newspaper reported that Tesla was a “great magician of science” who claimed that remote-controlled weaponry could neutralize even the mightiest naval forces.