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The French Air Force is currently undertaking a restructuring to place a much greater emphasis on drone strike capabilities, including pairing its ageing Rafale fighter aircraft with ‘loyal wingman’ drones, some of which have advanced stealth capabilities. This fits into larger efforts to prevent high value platforms like the manned fighters and attack helicopters from becoming strategically brittle in a battlespace increasingly saturated by low cost drones, loitering munitions, and layered air defences, which will require the development lower-cost sovereign theatre drones.

A few hours before Anthropic announced the launch of its newest model, Claude Mythos Preview, on April 7, I had just completed a six-month analysis of AI-enabled cyberattacks. My research traced Chinese state-sponsored cyber campaigns against U.S. critical infrastructure and found that the barrier between nation-state-level hacking and everyone else was eroding far too fast.By the time I closed my laptop that afternoon, Mythos had shattered that barrier.

The Russian Armed Forces on April 15-16 launched at least 24 missiles from Iskander systems at targets across Ukraine, as part of a larger barrage that also included missiles from other systems, as well as multiple types of attack drones. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched two waves of combined aerial attacks, marking the third consecutive day of major bombardment, as Ukraine’s air defences have been increasingly severely depleted.

After failing to reach an agreement in the first round of talks in Islamabad, the United States and Iran are set to resume talks in the coming days. Via Pakistani mediation, U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reportedly made progress toward a framework agreement, though significant gaps remain and a deal is far from guaranteed. In the meantime, President Donald Trump has imposed a blockade on Iranian ports, while Israel is pressing ahead with its assault on the Lebanese border town of Bint Jbeil, even as it engages in direct talks with Lebanon in Washington.

Commercial technologies are enabling the U.S. military and militaries around the world to operate with greater efficiency, speed, precision, and lethality. The benefits of commercial capabilities can be particularly impactful given the defense industrial base’s struggles to produce at the speed and scale needed to outmatch China, Russia, and other aligned adversaries. It is largely for these reasons that President Donald Trump mandated the Department of Defense to preference commercial solutions.

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has exposed a reality many policymakers long preferred to avoid: The deterrence model that governed the Gulf for decades is no longer working as intended.For years, the region operated in the gray zone — covert strikes, proxy warfare, and carefully managed escalation. Iran built a strategy around missiles, regional partners, and nuclear latency.The United States underwrote Gulf security without direct war. Saudi Arabia and its neighbors relied on that umbrella while hedging against its limits, investing in missile defense and selective partnerships.

Editor’s note: This article is the sixth in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. This special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.The next major war the United States fights could be decided by supply chains long before the first shot is fired.

French Air Force Rafale fighters forward deployed in Lithuania have engaged Russian Su-30SM fighters, which are thought to be operated by the Russian Navy from facilities in the Kaliningrad region. Rafale pilots reportedly used the Thales TALIOS targeting and laser designation pod during the intercept, which provides a high-resolution long-range visual identification capability This allows personnel to confirm aircraft type and visible weapon loads from a safer distance.

The Russian S-400 long range air defence system is currently relied on to form the backbone of the country’s air defence network, with more than twice the quantities of funds having been spent on procuring the systems over the last two decades than on all types of fighter aircraft combined. While the system has been widely praised by analysts and operators for its very high mobility, its extreme engagement range, and its ability to shoot down very fast targets using missiles with speeds of over Mach 14, its high situational awareness has also gained considerable attention.

The U.S. Air Force’s B-21 Raider stealth bomber has successfully tested its aerial refuelling capability with a KC-135 Stratotanker. as part of ongoing flight testing efforts. The testing of the B-21’s aerial refuelling capabilities marks a major landmark in preparing for a future win which the two types of aircraft operate closely together to provide a global capacity for sustained penetration strikes.