Browsing: All news

Whitney, M+A Electronics
By processing sensor streams directly on the platform, defense systems can fuse, analyze, and act on data in near real time, even in contested environments

Avaition Week
The U.S.

Michael Peck, Uncommon Def.

Ryan Finnerty, Flight Global

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.