Unmanned
Blacklists, corruption and frontline needs: Ukraine tackles an arms-export puzzle
After years of struggling to arm its one million active-duty soldiers, Kyiv has been wary of allowing its domestic producers to sell their weapons abroad.
By Katie Livingstone
Marines mandate servicewide AI training by year’s end
The Marine Corps will require all Marines to complete a basic artificial intelligence course by the end of the year.
By Daniel Terrill
Ukrainian drone strike on empty Baltic fuel depot prompts top-level resignation – in Latvia
A Ukrainian official said Russia is spoofing Ukraine's drones, diverting them to strike nearby Baltic nations instead of targets in Russia.
By Linus Höller
NATO nations size up an interceptor-drone bazaar where low price is everything
A price point advantage is no longer measured in millions of dollars below the competition, but in mere thousands.
By Katie Livingstone
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Autonomous Data Fusion on the Modern Battlefield
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This whitepaper explores how the DoD can close the cyber workforce skills gap, how ‘upskilling’ protects national security in the digital age, and more.
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Learn how a Modular Open Systems Approach avoids proprietary lock-in, how ease of sourcing replacement parts helps ensure readiness, and more.
Space
Starlink outage hit drone tests, exposing Pentagon’s growing reliance on SpaceX
Last August, a global outage across Elon Musk’s satellite network left U.S. Navy unmanned surface vessels bobbing off California, halting operations.
Artificial Intelligence
AI tool has ‘saved a lot of aircraft’ in Epic Fury, AFSOC chief says
Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said “necessity had been the mother of invention” in spurring the service to apply available machine learning tools in combat.
Unmanned
No sound of silence: US soldiers train eyes — and ears — for drone swarms
The U.S. Army is moving beyond battling individual drone threats as it experiments with tactics to combat throngs of unmanned aircraft in saturated skies.
Near Russian border, NATO grapples with ground robots in combat
“We are a little bit behind because we’ve been using only the air drones,” a Latvian commander said.
Blacklists, corruption and frontline needs: Ukraine tackles an arms-export puzzle
After years of struggling to arm its one million active-duty soldiers, Kyiv has been wary of allowing its domestic producers to sell their weapons abroad.
Unmanned
Ukrainian drone strike on empty Baltic fuel depot prompts top-level resignation – in Latvia
A Ukrainian official said Russia is spoofing Ukraine's drones, diverting them to strike nearby Baltic nations instead of targets in Russia.
NATO nations size up an interceptor-drone bazaar where low price is everything
A price point advantage is no longer measured in millions of dollars below the competition, but in mere thousands.
Ukraine could lift arms-exports ban this year as would-be buyers line up
Gulf countries threatened by Iran could be some of the first nations to buy Ukrainian air-defense technology at scale.
Cyber
The US Marine Corps is looking for a few good robots to build airfields
For Marines who have toiled over assembling airfields in austere environments, relief may be on the way.
Electronic Warfare
Pentagon’s realistic electronic warfare system to move to Navy lab
DARPA says it has built the world’s largest, most realistic electronic warfare test capability.
VIDEOS
‘Deal Team Six’ enters the chat | Defense Dollars
The Pentagon looks to shake up the contracts and acquisition process and a rocket company soars on this week’s edition of Defense Dollars.
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Ukraine could lift arms-exports ban this year as would-be buyers line up
Gulf countries threatened by Iran could be some of the first nations to buy Ukrainian air-defense technology at scale.
Dutch startup Intelic sets up drone marketplace for European militaries
BASE will allow defense ministries to explore systems that are ready to be used in a coalition framework, with interoperability guaranteed, says the firm.
Drone diplomacy wins Ukraine valuable allies, but now it must deliver
The Iran war has confirmed how central drones are to modern warfare and handed Zelenskiy a diplomatic trump card, analysts say.
By Daniel Flynn, Reuters
The US military wants a fleet of missile-killing laser drones
The U.S. military is once again pursuing flying directed energy weapons to counter threats to American airspace.
By Jared Keller
Australia awards contracts for counter-drone tech based on lasers, interceptors
Both products will eventually integrate into a command-and-control system developed under the Army’s umbrella Land 156 counter-unmanned aerial system push.
Opinion
Inside China, artificial intelligence is a snake eating its own tail
AI researchers refer to this as “model collapse,” a phenomenon in which models trained on their own synthetic outputs degrade over successive generations.
By Joe Buccino
US Navy successfully tests new long-range, winged JDAM out to 200 miles
An April 1 test saw the munition deployed from an F/A-18 Super Hornet, fly approximately 200 miles in 34 minutes and strike within meters of its target.
By Brooke Griswold
After watchdog slams understaffing, AI to vet Pentagon-backed professors’ China ties
AI’s confusion over the nature of DOD research partnerships may mask real espionage if humans are not the final judge of foreign influence, experts warn.
Air Force unit executes test of Anduril’s semiautonomous combat drone
Airmen operated Auduril's YFQ-44A jet-powered combat drone, which could someday fly alongside piloted fighters.
Dutch broadcaster tracks carrier-group frigate with Bluetooth gadget
The MoD has made adjustments in response to the reported incident, including no longer allowing greeting cards with batteries to be sent.
Starlink outage hit drone tests, exposing Pentagon’s growing reliance on SpaceX
Last August, a global outage across Elon Musk’s satellite network left U.S. Navy unmanned surface vessels bobbing off California, halting operations.
By David Jeans, Reuters
EU pumps over $1 billion into defense R&D, centered around Ukraine war lessons
The choice of funded projects marks a shift to 21st-century warfare, with loitering munitions and affordable mass drone production high on the agenda.
By Linus Höller
France readies AI-powered combat data-management similar to US ‘Maven’
The system could be available within a few months, and available for exercises in September 2027, a top general said, declining to provide specifics.
US Air Force debuts operational AI wargame system
WarMatrix is an AI-powered system meant to keep human judgement central to wargaming and was marked operational during an event in late March.
Estonia raids combat-vehicle funds to buy more drones, air defenses
The defense minister said the decision was based on lessons learned from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
US military eyes high-energy ‘laser dome’ for domestic air defense
The U.S. military's pursuit of high-energy laser weapons for American air defense comes amid the expanding threat of low-cost weaponized drones.
By Jared Keller