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How the Army is preparing to bring its first tiltrotor aircraft online

Meghann Myers — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 16:00:38 -0400

The Army—the last of the U.S. services to introduce a tiltrotor aircraft—is gathering lessons and working through challenges as it prepares to send the first Bell MV-75s to units for testing and feedback later this year.

It’s a different kind of effort than bringing a new helicopter or tank online, because the Army is making the move 30 years after the Marine Corps began testing the V-22 Osprey, 20 years after Air Force special operations started training on its version, and 10 years after the Navy selected it to take over the carrier on-board delivery mission.

Part of that delay has been the Army’s insistence on developing its own platform, an ongoing effort since Bell-Textron unveiled its V-280 offering for the Army’s Future Vertical Lift Program at the AUSA annual meeting in 2013. In January, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George announced that the aircraft, now called MV-75, would head to units this year for evaluation.

With the MV-75, the Army is hoping to take the best of the Osprey—a much faster aircraft than the UH-60 Black Hawk, with a longer range and the ability to carry a lot more soldiers—and leave behind the Osprey’s safety concerns. A total of 65 military personnel and civilians have died in V-22s since 1991, when the fourth prototype crashed. Twenty of the deaths occurred in four crashes in 2022 and 2023.

“I can't comment on the readiness or reliability of the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force’s programs, and I won't,” Mike Obadal, the Army undersecretary, told reporters March 24 at the AUSA Global Force Symposium.

Still, Obadal added, the Osprey’s reputation may be overwrought, even if it has made so many headlines over the course of its operation.

“I do know they've flown about 900,000 hours, and in the Marine Corps, I think their accident rate is probably less than their large helicopters,” he said.

And it is: less than half of the CH-53 King Stallion’s rate of class-A mishaps—incidents that cause a death or total loss of the aircraft—as of 2024. Whether that’s good news for the Osprey or just extremely bad news for the CH-53 is a matter of perspective.

“So I think we have to be very careful about making sweeping statements about tiltrotor technology—and especially when you look at what Bell-Textron and the Army are doing, because it is the most advanced manufacturing and digital backbone that exists,” Obadal said.

For its part, the Army is hoping to eliminate one recurring problem—engine fires—by building its airframe with fixed engines, rather than ones that tilt with the rotors like the Osprey.

“Now that may seem like a minor difference, but when it comes to maintenance, reliability, cost, impact from vibration or utilization, we found that fixed engine is likely to result in less maintenance requirements, less complexity,” Col. Tyler Partridge, who commands the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade at Fort Campbelly, Ky., told Defense One.

Patridge’s brigade is leading the Army’s tiltrotor integration as a Transformation-in-Contact unit. His soldiers got to see what an air assault from a tiltrotor looks like earlier this year during their annual Operation Lethal Eagle exercise.

A career CH-47 Chinook pilot, with experience in both conventional units and special operations, Partridge said his first impression is that the tiltrotor’s speed is impressive, but that comes with its own considerations.

“I think that's probably the biggest sales pitch—the Army has been looking at this, how do we go farther faster? Really, that's the challenge, or the question of the day that we've been trying to solve,” he said. “So from my perspective, looking at the tiltrotor platforms, integrating them into the plan, it's always been the challenge.”

‘A smoother process’

The MV-75 outperforms a UH-60 in several ways: it flies about twice as fast, reaching 300 mph; its thousand-mile range is longer than the Black Hawk’s 600; and it can carry about 24 kitted-out troops, twice as many as the helicopter.

But an air assault mission isn’t just moving troops, so integrating a tiltrotor involves some timing issues. The CH-47 Chinooks carrying heavy equipment and the AH-64 Apache providing security are not as fast as a tiltrotor, so they have to take off on a different schedule than they would traditionally.

“How do we integrate them and utilize them across all the warfighting functions smoothly is probably the biggest challenge. And the speed is a challenge there, specifically sequence and timing,” Partridge said. “What time do they take off? They may take off after helicopters that are landing after they are, in the air-assault plan.”

Last year, 101st CAB used tabletop exercises to model how they would integrate a tiltrotor into an operation.

“To kind of compare icons moving over a map at different speeds, and kind of thinking through how that changes the speed of decision-making, or perhaps the complexity of planning or logistical resupply,” Partridge said.

During Lethal Eagle, they got to test those AI models in the real world, including the ways their equipment and battle rhythm will need to change.

“A forward area refueling point seems simple enough, but when it comes to ensuring we have the right nozzles, the right fuel pressures, the flow rate—all those things matter when it comes to synchronizing and integrating an air assault mission with as many platforms as we normally have, especially at the scale and speed that this division wants to operate at,” Partridge said.

The soldiers also have to get used to the sound and the intensity of the rotor, which is much different than a helicopter.

“I would say, as you compare a tiltrotor versus a fixed rotor on a Black Hawk, it's smaller. And so definitely sounds different and it’s a little more intense if you're directly underneath the tiltrotor portion,” Partridge said.

Just learning where to stand and what sounds normal when working with a tiltrotor is part of the familiarization process, he said.

As a TiC unit, the 10st Airborne’s feedback will go into initial design of the MV-75, and that relationship will continue as the first prototypes are fielded and then updated.

“And I think that the seeking experience from the fixed-wing and the rotary-wing side of the house is probably the exactly the right thing to do here, particularly with the platform that is so dynamic,” Partridge said. “I think there's the focus on more maneuverability in the helicopter mode that the Army has specified for the MV-75. I do believe that those requirements will be met by industry partners.”

Army leaders have also been convening with Marine Corps counterparts to get their lessons learned and best practices, he said.

“I know that we've got some of our maintainers integrated with the Marine Corps on the academic side of the house, with regards to their maintenance programs, so that we can learn the differences between tiltrotor maintenance and rotary-wing maintenance,” he said.

At the same time, the aviation Captain’s Career Course has added MV-75 instruction, Gen. David Hodne, then the head of Transformation and Training Command, told reporters in March. There’s also a training simulator at Fort Rucker, Ala., where the Army aviation schools are housed, to give prospective MV-75 pilots an idea of what it’s like.

Said Partridge, “And so I do anticipate that these efforts will ensure that it's a smoother process, you know, than perhaps other platforms have experienced in the past.”

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HASC chair: Trillion-dollar defense budgets are the ‘new normal.’ Reconciliation is less certain.

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:20:05 -0400

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A $1 trillion baseline defense budget is the standard for future funding, but additional multi-billion spending measures to cushion 2027’s request are less certain, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee chairman said Sunday.

The $1.5 trillion defense budget request unveiled this month would mark the highest level of military funding in a single year since World War II, if passed. That figure includes $350 billion in reconciliation funding and $1.15 trillion from the annual discretionary defense bill. And the trillion-dollar baseline figure is here to stay, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said Sunday evening during a roundtable at the Space Symposium Conference here.

“We don’t cut the baseline budget in defense,” Rogers said, briefly noting a few past exceptions. “This is going to be the new normal.”

Last year’s defense budget relied heavily on reconciliation, a budgetary process in which a simple majority can quickly pass mandatory spending legislation. The proposed 2027 budget’s reconciliation funding would include some of the administration’s top space-related priorities, including an additional $17 billion for the Golden Dome missile defense project and $12 billion for the Space Force which, if passed, would bring the service’s budget to $71 billion, the largest boost in its history.

The administration is also reportedly seeking anywhere from $98 billion to more than $200 billion in supplemental funding for the ongoing war in Iran. Rogers sounded less certain about whether those measures would be included in the 2027 budget.

“We're going to try to do a reconciliation bill, there might be a supplemental, which would get us to the $1.5 [trillion] the president talked about,” he said. “But, even if you don't do those, that $1.15 trillion would be the new baseline.”

The White House has estimated that baseline defense spending will increase from $1.15 trillion to $1.36 trillion through 2036, with no projected reconciliation funding past fiscal year 2027, according to budget documents released earlier this month.

The Trump administration has argued defense-related reconciliation measures are necessary for “decoupling funding for Republican priorities from Democrat waste,” a White House budget fact sheet said.

Seamus Daniels, a Center for Strategic and International Studies fellow, wrote in an analysis on Friday that last year’s reconciliation led to Republican infighting and disagreements before it was passed. Reconciliation would most likely face similar arguments, he added.

“Such a partisan political approach to pursuing budgetary priorities presents significant challenges to actually securing the requested $1.5 trillion in resources for defense from Congress,” Daniels wrote. “Republicans would likely face similar dynamics and obstacles this year with only a slim majority in the House of Representatives.”

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., told Defense One on the sidelines of Space Symposium that no reconciliation bill exists yet. As the chairman of the Senate Appropriation's Commerce, Justice, and Science subcommittee, Moran said he prefers to see crucial spending, including reconciliation, to go through a standard appropriations process to get top priorities funded.

“That debate has not occurred. I mean, we don't have a reconciliation bill that is close to being put together,” Moran said. “I think it's better to bring us together and get this accomplished in a normal process. and bring the entire Congress into the process. I think it's better to bring us together and get this accomplished in a normal process and bring the entire Congress into the process.”

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4 ways the war in Iran has weakened the US in the great power game

Jeffrey Taliaferro, The Conversation — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0400

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”—Napoleon Bonaparte’s maxim—may well have been in the minds of policymakers in Moscow and Beijing these past weeks, as the U.S. war in Iran dragged on. And now that a 14-day ceasefire between Tehran and Washington is in effect, with both sides claiming “victory,” Russian and Chinese leaders still have an opportunity to profit from what many see as America’s latest folly in the Middle East.

Throughout the weeks-long conflict, China and Russia struck a delicate balance. Both declined to give Iran – seen to a varying degree as an ally of both nations – their full-throated support or sink any real costs into the conflict.

Instead, they opted for limited assistance in the form of small-scale intelligenceand diplomatic support.

As a scholar of international security and great power politics, I believe that is for good reason. Beijing and Moscow were fully aware that Iran could not “win” against the combined military might of the United States and Israel. Rather, Iran just needed to survive to serve the interests of Washington’s main geopolitical rivals.

Below are four ways in which the U.S. war in Iran has damaged Washington’s position in the great power rivalries of the 21st century.

1. Losing the influence war in the Middle East

As I explore in my book “Defending Frenemies,” the U.S. has long struggled to balance competing objectives in the Middle East. During the Cold War, this meant limiting the Soviet Union’s influence in the region, while contending with the development of nuclear weapons by two troublesome allies, Israel and Pakistan.

By the 2020s, the priorities in Washington were aimed at restricting the influence of the U.S.’s great power rivals– China and to a lesser degree Russia – in the Middle East.

Yet under Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, China and Russia have sought to increase their footprint in the region through a variety of formal alliances and informal measures.

For Russia, this took the form of aligning with Iran, while also partnering with Tehran to prop up the now-ousted regime of President Bashar Assad during the Syrian civil war. Meanwhile, China increased its diplomatic profile in the Middle East, notably by acting as a mediator as Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic ties in 2023.

The irony of the latest Iran war is that it follows a period in which circumstances were unfavorable to Russian and Chinese aims of increasing their influence in the Middle East.

The fall of Assad in December 2024 deprived Russia of its one reliable ally in the region. And Trump’s May 2025 tour of the Gulf states, in which he secured major technology and economic deals with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain, was aimed at countering China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence in those countries.

With Washington perceived as an increasingly unreliable protector, the Gulf states may seek greater security and economic cooperation elsewhere.

2. Taking US eyes off other strategic goals

In expanding military, diplomatic and economic ties in the Middle East, Russia and China over the past two decades were exploiting a desire by Washington to move its assets and attention away from the region following two costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Trump’s decision to wage war against Iran directly contradicts the national security strategy his administration released in November 2025. According to the strategy, the administration would prioritize the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific, while the Middle East’s importance “will recede.”

In co-launching a war in Tehran with Israel, without any prior consultation with Washington’s other allies, Trump has shown a complete disregard for their strategic and economic concerns. NATO, already riven by Trump’s repeated threats to the alliance and designs on Greenland, has now shown further signs of internal divisions.

That offers benefits for China and Russia, which have long sought to capitalize on cracks between America and its allies.

The irony, again, is that the war in Iran came as Trump’s vision of the U.S. as the hegemonic power in the Western Hemisphere was making advances. International law and legitimacy concerns aside, Washington had ousted a thorn in its side with Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and replaced him with a more compliant leader.

3. Disproportionate economic fallout

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where some 20% of the world’s oil passes, was as predictable as it was destructive for U.S. interests.

But for Russia, this meant higher oil prices that boosted its war economy. It also led to the temporary but ongoing easing of U.S. sanctions, which has provided Moscow an indispensable lifeline after years of economic pressure over the war in Ukraine.

While a prolonged closure and extensive damage to oil and natural gas infrastructure in Iran and the Gulf states no doubt hurts China’s energy security and economy, these were risks Xi appears willing to accept, at least for a time.

And by building up a domestic oil reserve and diversifying energy sources to include solar, electric batteries and coal, China is far better positioned to weather a prolonged global energy crisis than the U.S. Indeed, Beijing has made strides in recent year to encourage domestic consumption as a source of economic growth, rather than be so reliant on global trade. That may have given China some protection during the global economic shock caused by the Iran war, as well as push the economy further down its own track.

The more the U.S. loses control over events in the strait, the more it loses influence in the region – especially as Iran appears to be placing restrictions on ships from unfriendly nations.

4. Loss of global leadership

Trump’s willingness, to abandon talks to go to war, and the contradictory rhetoric he has employed throughout the Iran conflict, has weakened the perception of the U.S. as an honest broker.

That provides a massive soft-power boost for Beijing. It was China that pressed Iran to accept the 14-day ceasefire proposal brokered by Pakistan. Indeed, China has slowly chipped away at America’s longtime status as global mediator of first resort.

Beijing has successfully mediated in the past between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and it attempted to do the same with Russia and Ukraine and Israel and the Palestinians.

In general, the Iran war adds weight to Beijing’s worldview that the U.S.-led liberal international order is over. Even if China benefited at some level from the war continuing, its decision to help broker the ceasefire shows that China is increasingly taking on the mantle of global leadership that the U.S. used to own.

And for Russia, the Iran war and the rupture between Trump and America’s NATO allies over their lack of support for it, shift world attention and U.S. involvement from the war in Ukraine.

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DHS intelligence revamp would keep it answerable to nation's top spy

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0400

A White House plan to fold the Department of Homeland Security’s primary intelligence unit into DHS headquarters for the coming fiscal year would not affect its oversight by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an administration official told Nextgov/FCW.

The new reporting structure, unveiled last week in the president’s FY27 budget request, would combine the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the department’s Office of the Secretary and Executive Management, Management Directorate and Office of Situational Awareness into a single unit reporting to the DHS secretary.

But I&A would still be considered a member of the intelligence community, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the changes.

“The planned, internal DHS structural changes noted in the president’s budget submission will not impact I&A’s membership in the [intelligence community] and will not impact ODNI’s oversight over I&A as a member of the IC,” the administration official said.

I&A’s status as an official U.S. intelligence component under the budget proposal has not been previously reported. ODNI, led by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, manages the nation’s 18 spy agencies.

The intent to keep I&A under ODNI management could be a reprieve for lawmakers and stakeholders concerned about future oversight of the office. The reorganization of the intelligence shop, which would require congressional approval in upcoming appropriations talks, would mark the most significant change to the office to date, following efforts made last year to sharply scale it back.

I&A was slated for major workforce reductions in President Donald Trump’s second term, as Nextgov/FCW first reported last July. Those plans, which would have only kept some 275 people working at the office, drew major pushback from law enforcement organizations and Jewish groups that long relied on the agency to disseminate timely intelligence about threats that concern state, local, tribal and territorial communities. One international organization privately warned Congress that the proposed cuts would create “dangerous intelligence gaps.”

The downsizing was put on hold just days later, but I&A reignited efforts soon after to more gradually shed its workforce. As of late last year, the office had around 500 full-time employees, a figure that preserved more staff than the initial plans to cap the workforce at 275, though that still halved the 1,000-person operation in place earlier last year. It’s possible that more people have since departed.

The office falls within the purview of the Senate and House Intelligence committees, but its status as a DHS component also subjects it to oversight from the Homeland Security panels in both chambers.

In November, Nextgov/FCW reported that the House Intelligence Committee privately weighed a measure in the annual intelligence community authorization bill to significantly curtail the size and scope of I&A. The provision would have barred the office from gathering and analyzing intelligence, effectively turning I&A into a clearinghouse for intelligence findings produced elsewhere and stripping it of standard spy agency collection authorities.

As part of its mission, I&A helps manage a series of fusion centers around the country that facilitate intelligence sharing between federal agencies and state and local law enforcement, raising questions about stakeholder engagement under the proposed restructuring.

I&A was born as part of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to coordinate intelligence on homeland threats and expand information sharing with state and local authorities. For years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have sought to reform the unit amid concerns about domestic overreach and partisanship.

Its placement in DHS has put it at the center of recurring jurisdictional tensions with the FBI, which drives much of the nation’s domestic intelligence, counterterrorism and counterintelligence work under the Justice Department.

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US push to counter hackers draws industry deeper into offensive cyber debate

David DiMolfetta — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 12:22:00 -0400

The U.S. government has an offensive cyber wish list, and the private sector is already bidding. Many federal contractors back the effort, though they still have deeper questions about semantics and where offense ends and defense begins.

Terms like “disruption,” “cyber effects” and “defensive operations” were flung around in discussions at the RSAC Conference in San Francisco last month, one of the largest cybersecurity gatherings in the world. In discussions during and after the conference, Nextgov/FCW sought to learn how industry players perceive the vision under President Donald Trump to punch back harder against cyber adversaries, and how those industry leaders might contribute to the cause.

For the past year, industry executives and U.S. officials in closed-door meetings have weighed the concept of enlisting private sector cyber titans to hack for the government, inspired by the centuries-old practice of letters of marque and reprisal that made waves in the old days of naval warfare. But last month, National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross appeared to pour cold water on the concept.

He told audience members at an event that there’s “an enormous amount of capability on the private sector side,” but that he’s “not talking about private sector, industry or companies engaged in a cyber offensive campaign.”

Cairncross said he wants to use the “ability of our private sector … to inform and share information so that the [U.S. government] can respond” either defensively or in a more agile way to enemy hackers. His remarks came after the release of Trump’s national cyber strategy, whose first pillar focuses on ways to create obstacles for foreign state cyber operatives and criminal hackers.

But nearly a dozen interviews with industry stakeholders and former officials indicate that it remains an open question where companies draw the line on cyber offense and where the government does. The boundaries around offensive cyber are often blurred, and the private sector is still trying to learn its place. That uncertainty leaves more questions than answers about how offensive cyber operations should be structured, regulated and integrated into a broader U.S. national security strategy.

New market force

There’s consensus among security leaders that the private sector doesn’t want to be deployed for offensive hacking, said Adam Marrè, chief information security officer at Arctic Wolf. The talk of “hacking back” comes up every five to ten years, he said, but those talks break down every time for a number of reasons, mainly because of legal and ethical concerns.

Still, there’s no indication that the global cybersecurity environment is calming. Foreign adversaries would “absolutely” want access to powerful exploits that can steal information or wreak havoc on systems, Marrè said.

“[Adversaries] are mainly worried about what’s effective. So if it works, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said. “But if I can find a more exotic exploit that is going to allow me to have more access or access without being detected, or be able to get to somewhere I haven’t been able to get before, 100% they’re going to be looking for that."

Governments across the world are hankering for the latest and greatest hacking tools, said Elad Schulman, CEO of Lasso Security.

“If we are not developing capabilities, our enemies are developing those capabilities,” he said. “That is why we need to assume that, at any point in time, someone will find and use exploits against us.”

For years, companies have helped develop special technologies for the U.S. government’s secret cyber missions. But the new White House cyber strategy’s offensive focus sets a tone for companies and their investors, said Rob Joyce, the NSA’s former cybersecurity director.

“There’s been companies that are defense industrial base firms that know how to sell to the government, and there’s been some very boutique cyber companies that sell into the military cyber and intel community,” he said. “But this has the whole community and people out here in Silicon Valley who are not government-adjacent talking about ideas that they can help with in offensive cyber. I think it changes that ecosystem a little bit.”

Joyce is now a venture partner at DataTribe, which invests in early-stage cybersecurity companies often led by people who worked in the intelligence community. He said the government is in the market for an array of cyber capabilities, including vulnerability scanning, exploit development, tooling to analyze cyber threat data and digital infrastructure to obscure the origin of covert cyber operations.

Last week, the cybersecurity world was sent into shock when Anthropic revealed it was holding back a powerful frontier AI model that could find previously undiscovered vulnerabilities at mass scale. The intelligence community is already eyeing its capabilities, Nextgov/FCW reported.

Still operating defensively

Many practitioners are advising the cyber ecosystem to invest in defensive measures, regardless of the White House’s more offensive posture.

“Being a defender, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Ryan Anschutz, the incident response lead at IBM’s X-Force threat intelligence arm and a former FBI official. “A defensive prevention perspective, I think, would have more of an impact … than offensive capabilities, which, quite frankly, some arms of the federal government—their offensive capabilities far surpass the private sector.”

Even among companies that simulate adversary cyberattacks to improve network defenses, known formally as red-teaming, the definition of “offensive hacking” can get fuzzy.

“Would you classify offensive hacking as going out and fingerprinting the threat that was attacking you to gain the threat intelligence?” Anschutz said. “Is that offensive? Where does that change? Where’s the line drawn between what is offensive and what’s not offensive?”

The answer depends on who you ask.

Hacking back, in the sense of breaking into adversaries’ computer systems for data and geopolitical intelligence, takes a level of access that only belongs in the government space, said another industry executive that works closely with the intelligence community on cyber matters.

Google’s threat intelligence arm recently came out swinging with discussions of its new disruption unit, though executives soon quashed the notion that the unit is “offensive” in any way, arguing that removing infrastructure that hackers sit on is a defensive move that impedes their forward operations onto U.S. and allied systems.

Some companies are building out advanced defensive cyber solutions at as rapid a pace as the offensive market, a sign that a more capable offense is driving equally urgent demand for stronger digital shielding.

“We had just seen too many examples over and over again of how burned out these poor kids in these security operations centers are, how just overwhelmed at the enormity of all the alerts, all the boxes always flashing red,” said Bill MacMillan, a former CIA official and now the chief product officer at security operations center solutions provider Andesite.

“We have to transform. We have to adopt this technology because this is the threat environment and the resource environment that we’re operating in,” he said.

Considering new frameworks

The offensive philosophy in Washington, D.C., has made some cyber experts weigh the pros and cons of the current legal environment that facilitates hacking activities.

The NSA, Cyber Command and others are permitted to take more aggressive cyber actions to stop foreign adversaries and criminal hacker gangs. This week, the FBI said it covertly sent shutdown commands to kick Russian state-backed hackers out of thousands of routers housed in organizations around the world.

The move, like many FBI takedowns of digital infrastructure, required court authorization. More broadly, some of the most sensitive intelligence operations do not rely on a standard U.S. court warrant at all.

Even so, private companies lack those authorities. They may build the capabilities used in cyber operations, but—like a defense contractor manufacturing a missile—the decision to deploy them and the consequences that follow rest with the government, not the company.

But what happens if a firm is hacked and wants to take action? There’s room to discuss “stand-your-ground” laws that could permit companies to respond to intrusions, at least to a certain degree, said Philip George, executive technical strategist at Merlin Cyber.

“Obviously, there are some authority issues and some rules of engagement concerns, and we don’t necessarily want everyone returning fire or preemptively thwarting an attack,” he said. But if attacked in cyberspace, “what’s the extent that I can return fire, to at least take down infrastructure that may be targeting me?”

Asked if such a legal authority constitutes a counter-attack, he clarified it as a “counter-action” or “counter-response” because the former term carries “a lot of weight.”

Some serious conversations will need to be had about the future of legal measures under this offensive posture, said John Fokker, head of threat intelligence at Trellix and a former official in the Dutch National Police’s High-Tech Crime Unit.

“If authorities are operating in the grey area with certain private sector entities, I’d much rather define and start talking about that grey area,” he said.

Information-sharing between the public and private sectors—a cornerstone of modern efforts to stop cyberattacks—should also continue, he said, though he argued the process should be streamlined given the number of existing groups.

But one executive said they expect the U.S. government will ultimately find ways to involve private contractors in offensive cyber operations, even as the administration publicly draws limits.

“I believe that the government will contract for cyber operations under carefully crafted contracts,” said Kevin Spease, president at ISSE Services. “It simply depends on how you define it.”

He pointed to past U.S. conflicts where private firms supported offensive missions, arguing cyber operations could follow a similar path.

The rationale, Spease added, comes down to capability. The government, in both civilian and defense agencies, already predominantly relies on technology made by the private sector for day-to-day operations.

“The private companies have far better expertise,” he said. “Sometimes it’s easier to have a contractor do it.”

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Trump's Iran threats renew debate over war crimes, illegal orders

Jennifer Shutt, Stateline — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0400

President Donald Trump’s threats to destroy power plants and bridges in Iran before saying he was prepared for a “whole civilization” to die have renewed questions about what constitutes an illegal order and what, if any, repercussions officials could face for committing war crimes.

The issue originally surged to the forefront last year when the Trump administration repeatedly struck boats in the Caribbean officials alleged were carrying illegal drugs. Democratic lawmakers with backgrounds in the military and intelligence community then published a video reminding troops they “can” and “must refuse illegal orders.”

“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution. We know this is hard and that it’s a difficult time to be a public servant,” they said. “But whether you’re serving in the CIA, in the Army, or Navy, or the Air Force, your vigilance is critical.”

The issue of legal versus illegal military orders surfaced again this week when Trump escalated his threats against Iran, leading to bipartisan condemnation from members of Congress before he gave that country’s leaders two more weeks to negotiate.

But what exactly violates international law or rises to the level of a war crime is often murky, as is who would be willing to prosecute U.S. troops, according to experts interviewed by States Newsroom.

Rachel E. VanLandingham, professor of law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a former judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force, said that “at the end of the day, the law of war does allow for a great deal of violence and a great deal of civilian suffering.”

But several of the threats Trump has made, including to destroy power plants and bridges in Iran, would likely violate the law if the military were to carry them out, she said.

“Under no stretch of interpretation would that be lawful, right? Because that just fails to distinguish whatsoever the civilian objects versus lawful military objectives, even if we stretch the definition of what's a lawful military objective,” VanLandingham said.

The boat strikes in the Caribbean, including the decision to order a second strike on two survivors, could also have been illegal, she said.

VanLandingham doesn’t expect the Trump administration will hold anyone accountable for actions the military has already taken or may take. But she noted there is no statute of limitations on the charges that would likely apply under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for military members or the War Crimes Act for anyone not subject to the military justice system.

“The next administration could come in and investigate our service members for alleged war crimes. And they should, to demonstrate renewed fidelity to U.S. law, to the law of war,” she said.

Congress doesn’t have the authority to prosecute anyone for violating the law, but could hold oversight hearings with Defense Department officials, a scenario that would become more likely if one or both chambers return to Democratic control following the November midterm elections.

“They can have public, open hearings and drag in every single military member that was involved in the chain of command of orders for striking Iran, if they wanted to,” VanLandingham. “That's not a criminal prosecution, but it's transparency.”

Lawmakers could also provide more funding and require the Pentagon to reinstitute the Civilian Harm Mitigation Program, which she said “the Trump administration has gutted.”

Geneva Conventions

Leila Sadat, the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at WashU Law School in St. Louis, Missouri, said that in a situation where the president directs the military to violate the laws of war, it’s highly unlikely military commanders or the Department of Justice would then turn around and prosecute those actions.

Even if a prosecutor were to try, Trump would likely be insulated from any domestic prosecution for “official acts.” And as president he could issue preemptive pardons for any military members he believes could face future prosecution, either in the military or civilian justice system.

Trump has a history of absolving military members accused of violating military law, including in 2019, when he pardoned two officers in the Army for actions in Afghanistan and restored the rank of a Navy Seal who had been demoted for his conduct in Iraq. Trump later pardoned four contractors for killing more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in 2007.

But those protections only apply within the United States.

The Geneva Conventions’ provision on universal jurisdiction would apply internationally and any country could choose to prosecute.

“Now you still have to catch them, you have to get the evidence, but every state in the world is a party to the Geneva Conventions,” Sadat said. “So committing violations of the Geneva Conventions by attacking civilian objects, by attacking marketplaces, or hospitals, or schools, or electrical infrastructure, those kind of crimes can be prosecuted by every country in the world. So people should think about it before they do it.”

France, Germany, and Sweden have all used the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute Syrians for crimes they committed during the war in their home country, she said.

“The one debate is, do you have to have the person on your territory before you can go forward? Or can you do an investigation even if the person is not on your territory?” Sadat said. “And many have argued that you can do the investigation even if the individual is not on your territory. Different countries have different rules on whether they accept trials in absentia.”

Sadat said that gets a bit more complicated when the Status of Forces Agreements that give the U.S. jurisdiction over alleged wrongdoing by U.S. troops in dozens of countries come into play.

Sadat, who was a special adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor from 2012 through 2021, said if the U.S. military were to carry out some or all of the threats Trump posted to social media, that could have led countries to reconsider those agreements.

"It could create a huge security problem for the United States eventually. And that's why I hope calmer heads are prevailing. Saying, 'You know, there's an entire complex web of treaties and agreements,'" she said.

Trump would also likely pressure countries not to try U.S. military members for violating international law, but he may not always be successful, she said.

"Eventually there's going to be a country in which that's not going to work,” Sadat said. “And so that's why you really do have to think of this a little bit differently, because there are external forces and external actors that could decide we're going to enforce the law, even if the United States is not going to enforce the law.”

Investigating US forces

Susana Sacouto, director of the War Crimes Research Office at American University’s Washington College of Law, said the Geneva Conventions require the U.S. to “investigate and … deal with alleged violations of the law of war by its own forces.”

How well that works in practice has “varied over time,” she said.

"The problem is, we have an architecture, but those cases, particularly the criminal cases, are really exceptional, and they're really exceptional, especially regarding senior officials," Sacouto said. "So there's been a lot of criticism about whether that architecture that exists is actually functioning to routinely investigate our own military actions for potential war crimes or (international humanitarian law) violations."

There is the possibility a future presidential administration may have defense officials or the Department of Justice look into allegations that emerge during the Trump administration. But Sacouto said, “past history with respect to accountability for U.S. officials, especially senior officials, is not very encouraging.”

Congressional investigations into the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of torture in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is one example Sacouto pointed to of a long-term investigation that did not lead to any high-level prosecutions.

“Even then, no senior officials were really ultimately held accountable for their role in that program,” she said. “There were lower-level Abu Ghraib prosecutions, but no senior-level folks were found accountable.”

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Homeland Security intel office restructuring would keep oversight under ODNI

David DiMolfetta — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:34:00 -0400

A White House plan to fold the Department of Homeland Security’s primary intelligence unit into DHS headquarters for the coming fiscal year would not affect its oversight under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an administration official told Nextgov/FCW.

The new reporting structure, unveiled in the president’s FY27 budget request, would combine the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the department’s Office of the Secretary and Executive Management, Management Directorate and Office of Situational Awareness into a single unit reporting to the DHS secretary.

But the intelligence and analysis office would still be considered a member of the intelligence community, said the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the changes.

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‘Everyone wants a spaceplane’: More countries eye on-orbit protection for satellites

Thomas Novelly — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:01:28 -0400

More countries want to develop military spaceplanes and “bodyguard satellites," like those of the United States and China, to protect orbital assets against growing threats, according to a new report.

Last year alone, France’s direction générale de l'armement, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence, Japan’s Ministry of Defense, and the Indian Space Research Organisation have all either tested components, defined strategy, or made sales pitches for space vehicles, according to “Global Counterspace Capabilities,” released this week by the Secure World Foundation.

“We’re seeing everyone wants a spaceplane,” said Victoria Samson, the organization’s chief director of space security and stability. “India is continuing to work on it; French government officials have spoken quite glowingly about this; the Germans are extremely enthusiastic.”

Yet it’s not clear what the secretive vehicles are meant to do. The U.S. X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle has flown eight highly classified missions since 2010, and Russia and China have speculated that it is “some sort of orbital bomber or secret weapons testing platform,” the report said. Even less is known about the Chinese Reusable Experimental Spacecraft, which made the first of its four known flights in 2020.

Other nations are publicly pitching planned spaceplanes of their own.

French Gen. Philippe Koffi, the DGA’s strategic lead for air, land and naval combat, said in September that a spaceplane could “recover critical assets, conduct reconnaissance, and intervene against threats in orbit.” That was three months after Paris-based Dassault Aviation announced an agreement with DGA to develop a demonstrator spacecraft called VORTEX with plans for a first flight in 2028.

France is also planning to demonstrate its own patrol-guard satellites through several concepts, including one known as YODA.

“The YODA program is also framed as an early technology demonstrator program of later and bigger versions of inspector satellites that would be able to protect French military satellites by 2030,” the Secure World Foundation’s report states.

In November, Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence released its own Space Safety and Security Strategy, which called for building “highly agile low-signal surveillance and bodyguard satellites and reusable spaceplanes.” Earlier in the year, Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, the head of German Space Command, laid out a need for satellites that could protect or even inspect other assets.

“What if we could launch or have some nice little satellites up there, which are agile and go after some satellites which we feel need to be inspected–some sort of space police?” he told Aviation Week.

India has been working for at least three years on a design for its own spaceplane, which “looks very similar to the US’ X-37B and China’s Reusable Experimental Spacecraft,” the Secure World Foundation’s report said. In 2024, India was testing Pushpak, a 21-foot-long prototype, for autonomous landings. Last April, India opened a facility to test Pushpak landing gear.

“While the program has been described as developing technologies for a reusable launch vehicle and not as a counterspace capability, the possibility has been raised that the spaceplane could spend up to a month in space, conducting experiments and releasing payloads; if it does eventually develop that capability, then it may have a latent counterspace capacity,” the report said.

In September, the Indian government said it wanted to develop its own “bodyguard” satellites after a close call with a neighboring countries orbital assets in 2024.

Similarly, this past year, Japan’s Ministry of Defense debuted a program to develop “bodyguard satellites” to protect its space assets with plans to build and test a capability by 2029.

In recent years, China has launched satellites equipped with robotic arms and other means to monitor or interfere with orbital assets, the report said.

The U.S. military has not said whether it has bodyguard satellites of its own.

Last year, the Space Force’s X-37B launched for its eighth mission to test quantum sensors and laser-based communications with commercial satellites. Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, the head of Space Force Combat Command, told reporters at the Air and Space Force Association's conference in Colorado earlier this year that China is trying to keep up the pace with its own reusable spacecraft.

“That's the most advanced spaceplane in the world,” Gagnon said. “It's not the only spaceplane in the world. The Chinese are on sortie four for their spaceplane. We're on sortie eight. So, what I try to remind everyone is, even though we're running fast, there's someone else on the track running just as fast.”

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CIA employees will get AI 'coworkers'—and eventually run teams of AI agents, deputy says

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:45:00 -0400

The Central Intelligence Agency aims to integrate artificial intelligence-powered “coworkers” into analysts’ workflows in coming years, a top official said Thursday.

CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis said these AI coworkers would be housed in agency analytics platforms to help humans with basic tasks.

“It won’t do the thinking for our analysts, but it will help draft key judgments, edit for clarity and compare drafts against tradecraft standards,” Ellis said in a speech at a Special Competitive Studies Project event on AI and the intelligence community. The AI tools would help triage and flag trends for human analysts to review.

And within a decade, Ellis said, the CIA will treat AI tools as an “autonomous mission partner” and officers will manage teams of AI agents in a hybrid model to increase the speed and scale of intelligence work.

Last year, the agency had more than 300 AI projects, and, for the first time in its history, used AI used to generate an intelligence report, he said.

Ellis' remarks provide a rare public glimpse into how the spy agency is integrating frontier AI systems into its day-to-day operations, and the expectation that they will soon become part of officers’ workflows.

The CIA primarily executes and coordinates human intelligence-gathering overseas, often undercover. Officers recruit and manage foreign assets to clandestinely gather intelligence in areas such as economics, terrorism, and cyber threats.

Much of that work involves the use of technology, though some argue that advanced AI tools may reinvigorate old-school tradecraft techniques.

But there have been benefits to technological investments. The agency recently elevated its Center for Cyber Intelligence into an entire mission center, a move that’s “paying dividends already by allowing us to deploy new tools to the field and gain more access to priority targets,” Ellis said.

“The battle of cybersecurity will be a battle of artificial intelligence,” and whoever best harnesses AI models will wield “enormous power,” he said. “Having a new mission center centered around cyber intelligence will put us on the path to secure the upper hand.”

The agency also recently announced a new acquisition framework to better integrate technology.

Ellis said the CIA doubled its technology-related foreign intelligence reporting, to track how foreign adversaries like China are using advanced AI and other technologies. Those intelligence products focus on technology use abroad and can include findings on areas like semiconductors, cloud computing, infrastructure, cybersecurity or R&D.

Ellis did not mention Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, a consortium announced earlier this week meant to help secure critical software against AI-driven attacks. The project was fueled by a powerful, non-public Anthropic frontier model the company says has already uncovered thousands of vulnerabilities but could be weaponized in the wrong hands.

The intelligence community and its industry suppliers are already examining and discussing how such a model may impact the future of cyber missions, Nextgov/FCW reported Wednesday.

Earlier this year, Anthropic declined to ease restrictions that kept its tools from being used for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. That led the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to designate the company's products as a “supply chain risk” designation and President Trump to order that all federal agencies phase out their uses of Anthropic tools. The company has legally challenged the move.

Ellis did not single out Anthropic, but he cautioned that the CIA “cannot allow the whims of a single company” to constrain its use of AI and said the agency is looking to diversify across multiple vendors to preserve operational freedom.

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The Pentagon claims ‘we control the sky’ over Iran. Experts say the air war isn’t that simple.

Thomas Novelly — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 13:46:00 -0400

Updated: 4:41 p.m. ET.

To President Trump and his defense secretary, the herculean rescue of two downed airmen in hostile territory was further proof that the U.S. military has full control of the skies over Iran.

But the actual situation remains complicated and dangerous, according to former military officials and defense experts who said painting a simple picture overlooks the weapons that downed the F-15E—and that still hold vast swaths of airspace at risk.

On Easter Sunday, Trump said in a social media post that the daring recovery underscored that U.S. forces had “achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies.” The next day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said much the same.

“We control the skies. You see we flew for seven hours in daylight over Iran to get the first pilot, and we flew seven hours in the middle of the night to get the second and Iran did nothing about it,” Hegseth said Monday at a White House press conference.

But airpower experts, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, have been more measured. At press conferences, the former F-16 pilot has declared that air superiority exists over only certain areas of Iran; on Wednesday, he acknowledged the ongoing dangers that aviators face.

"I've laid out the statistics, but it does not truly capture the nature of combat. This is gritty and unforgiving business," Caine said. "It's chaotic, it's hot, it's dark, it's unpredictable and there's always unknowns."

Air superiority is defined in Air Force doctrine as “the control of the air by one force that permits the conduct of its operations at a given time and place” without severe enemy action that would result in mission failure. A higher level of control, air supremacy, is established when the “opposing force is incapable of effective interference,” but this “may be difficult to achieve in a peer or near-peer conflict.” A state of air superiority or supremacy may be limited to a certain time, location, or altitude.

“Control of the skies” and “air dominance,” on the other hand, have no formal meaning.

“I understand why people use it, but, from a doctrinal perspective, to say you ‘control the sky’ doesn't really say anything, because control of the air is a spectrum,” said Kelly Greico, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center. “When President Trump and Secretary Hegseth are using these terms, they're not necessarily using them the doctrinal way, the way that you see Gen. Caine using them.”

Trump’s use of “air dominance” really “doesn't mean anything,” Greico said, and added it’s not a term used in the Air Force’s doctrine.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson wrote, "The United States does control the skies over Iran and maintains clear air superiority. Secretary Hegseth, Chairman Caine, and CENTCOM Admiral Cooper have all stated unequivocally that we control the skies, and the operational record proves it. We have conducted more than 13,000 combat flights and two successful rescue missions with zero effective challenge to our air dominance. That’s not rhetoric. That’s results. The Pentagon’s assessment is grounded in real-world performance, not theoretical analysis from the sidelines."

A joint force mission

Air Force doctrine holds that gaining the ability to operate in hostile airspace is not just the service’s responsibility, but “one of the first priorities of the joint force.” While heavy bombers have flown missions over parts of Iran and rescue helicopters can buzz in low and slow to the ground, other areas such as the Strait of Hormuz remain closed to ships due to air threats.

“I think that it's worth emphasizing that Air Force doctrine is clear: that air superiority is for the joint force,” Grieco said. “So, by that definition, we do not have air superiority near the Strait of Hormuz, because it's predominantly drones and missiles that are keeping the strait closed, and they’re keeping it closed to naval escort vessels.”

After the F-15E was shot down, an A-10 Thunderbolt II and multiple rescue helicopters and cargo planes were lost in the recovery mission, Caine said during the White House presser. Since the start of Operation Epic Fury in late February, Iran has destroyed or damaged multiple U.S. aircraft such as an F-35 which was forced to make an emergency landing after being hit during a combat mission.

Those mounting losses stand in contrast to the administration’s claims of total control of the Iranian skies, some former military officials say.

“I am somewhat surprised by the continued losses we were taking this deep into the conflict,” said Jack Shanahan, a retired Air Force three-star general, who thought the U.S. should have “more air supremacy” by this point.

But others said a state of air superiority or supremacy can exist even with heavy aircraft losses.

“Air supremacy doesn't mean that you're completely without risk,” a former military official said. “There are plenty of examples of how even with air supremacy and air superiority, you can still be challenged. I don't think you ever get to an environment where you're not completely without risk.”

This is particularly true at lower altitudes.

“When you're down below 5,000 feet, air supremacy and superiority feels a lot different than when you're up at 25,000 and 30,000 feet,” they said.

On Wednesday, Caine told reporters that 80 percent of Iran’s air defenses had been destroyed, but that anti-aircraft threats still persisted at lower altitudes. Trump had claimed days earlier that Iranian anti-aircraft and radar had been destroyed; that the F-15E was shot down by a shoulder-mounted, heat-seeking missile; and that other aircraft took small-arms fire.

Shanahan said the administration’s sweeping claims about air control have a parallel in its occasional reports about the number of targets struck in Iran. (More than 13,000, Caine said on Wednesday.) Neither is a direct measure of success, and may even be a distraction.

“We get caught up in the number of targets struck,” Shanahan said. “It’s back to almost Vietnam-era days when we started looking at body counts, number of tonnage of bombs dropped, but not understanding, maybe, the adversary has a different theory of victory in mind than you do. And if the regime survives, that may be their number-one criterion for success, whereas ours has seemed to be a little bit all over the map over the past 30 days.”

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‘Hybrid constellations’ are making it hard for militaries to hide

Patrick Tucker — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 06:00:00 -0400

A planned satellite constellation will be able to image any location on Earth every 15 minutes and take more detailed images, a novel capability that could reveal even the nimblest and stealthiest military maneuvers, its developer says.

On Thursday, Vantor announced plans to enlarge its current fleet of 10 satellites “five-fold” with spacecraft that will produce images with 20cm resolution—better than its current 30- and 40cm imagery. The company also plans to add two dozen high-revisit/lower-res satellites. When the constellation is complete some time after 2029, Vantor officials said it will vault the company to the forefront of the space-imagery industry.

“The geo accuracy of our exquisite data combined with the revisit data—we can actually fuse that data and have highly accurate imagery that nobody else can do,” Vantor CEO Dan Smoot said in an interview.

The space-imaging race

The planned constellation is part of the increasing competition between space-imaging giants.

Maxar, which renamed itself Vantor in 2025, was created by the merger of Maxar Intelligence, with its two synthetic aperture radar satellites, and DigitalGlobe, whose Quickbird had a high-for-its-day resolution of 2.4 meters. The new company focused on satellites of higher and higher resolution.

Its services were generally complementary to those of Planet, whose cheaper, smaller, lower-orbit satellites collected lower-resolution imagery more often and over a much larger portion of the Earth. But in 2023, Planet became the first company to offer high-resolution imagery and persistent coverage when it launched the first of its six 30cm Pelican satellites.

Today, Vantor’s Smoot says the U.S. government and other customers are increasingly seeking imagery for damage assessment.

“We've seen a lot in Ukraine, of course, and we're starting to see that utilization in the current conflict” in the Middle East, he said.

Vantor’s planned Pulse constellation will enable it to take twice as many photos of a given area than its competitors, while its Vantage satellites will take pictures with 10cm finer resolution than Planet’s Pelican can produce. That sort of capability can reveal operations that are extremely difficult to spot, such as a submarine surfacing, as Vantor demonstrated in a picture it provided to Defense One.

But advantages in resolution and revisit are fleeting. Planet has its own plans to add higher- and lower-resolution satellites, the company said this week. And other competitors are emerging such as Austin-based SkyFi, which NATO selected for an accelerator program in December. More importantly, satellite images, once an exclusive capability of the U.S. military, are empowering adversaries. Russia is reportedly providing Iran with satellite imagery to help target U.S. forces. Other militaries want imagery to help guide strikes in GPS-denied areas or by artillery and rockets that lack internal guidance systems.

“As you can imagine, you need to be accurate within a couple meters,” said Smoot. NATO allies and other countries are “starting to really learn the value of that as they start to rearm, and they also start to realize that they don't have those inherent capabilities built into their national defense systems.”

But the rise of AI may be the biggest reason that Vantor and others are building hybrid constellations of high- and low-resolution satellites. A single system for high-res and low-res imagery and AI analysis allows customers to better manage the security of their data. The company’s Tensorglobe platform enables customers to obtain data without switching providers.

All of that is enabling a new era of satellite imaging that would give smaller countries the ability to target missiles as effectively as larger ones.

“That is actually one of the most unique propositions about us doing this hybrid constellation,” Smoot said. “The way we're doing it, it actually will bring that what we call targeting-grade categorization to sovereign nations.”

In other words, as the competition intensifies, hiding from the sky will become more difficult for everyone.

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Spy agencies eye new Anthropic AI model that spots cyber flaws

Patrick Tucker, Alexandra Kelley, and David DiMolfetta — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:00:00 -0400

Anthropic’s decision to keep close hold on a powerful frontier AI model, paired with a new initiative to study its effects on global networks, is prompting intelligence-community discussions about the ways such tools might help friendly and adversary forces alike.

On Tuesday, Anthropic unveiled Project Glasswing, a bid to raise AI-powered defenses before AI-enabled attackers can overwhelm critical software.

“The fallout — for economies, public safety, and national security — could be severe. Project Glasswing is an urgent attempt to put these capabilities to work for defensive purposes,” the AI company said in a blog post.

Program partners—among them, Amazon Web Services, Apple, Cisco, Google, Microsoft—get access to Claude Mythos Preview, an unreleased model that, officials wrote, “has already found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser.”

The intelligence community is reacting to the news, according to a person familiar with the thinking of multiple IC agencies.

“They want secure code and to use AI to find network vulnerabilities as well,” said the person, who, like some others in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal deliberations.

Anthropic has briefed senior officials across the U.S. government, including at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and NIST’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation, on Mythos Preview’s offensive and defensive cyber applications, a company official said.

“Bringing government into the loop early — on what the model can do, where the risks are, and how we’re managing them — was a priority from the start,” the company official said.

Analysts at the National Security Agency have also been casually chatting about the release of the Mythos model, another person familiar with the matter told Nextgov/FCW.

Multiple intelligence agencies and Defense Department components play roles in offensive cyber operations and defending U.S. networks. Because offensive missions often depend on understanding a target’s defenses, tools like the Mythos model in the wrong hands could help adversaries identify and exploit weaknesses in critical systems. Agencies are already known to stockpile hacking exploits for future use.

The development is also drawing major attention and concern, in some cases, from cyber-focused firms that engage with the intelligence community.

“How is anyone supposed to defend against all of this at once?” said one executive at a cyber investment firm, alarmed by the scale at which the Anthropic model was able to identify vulnerabilities.

The Glasswing news is “scary and ominous” because it isn’t clear how Mythos Preview could be used offensively, especially if it falls into the hands of a foreign adversary, said Hayden Smith, a co-founder at Hunted Labs, a company focused on software supply chain risks.

It’s very possible the model could land in the possession of governments considered hostile to the U.S., he said, explaining that “even with deep vetting, the odds of Mythos flowing into the wrong hands is barely a hypothetical given the landscape of current attacks on the open source ecosystem and software supply chain.”

Because much of the internet runs on widely used open-source software maintained by developers around the world, tools like Mythos could uncover weaknesses in code that underpin large parts of the digital ecosystem.

That dynamic has come into sharper focus following recent software supply chain incidents that had widespread repercussions — including a compromise of the Axios JavaScript library disclosed last week — and amid concerns that some developers behind critical open-source projects are affiliated with companies the U.S. government considers tied to foreign adversaries.

Capitol Hill is also paying attention to the Anthropic development.

“We are already seeing cyber threat actors using AI tools to improve their capabilities, putting government, businesses and consumers’ security and personal information at risk,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “As AI dramatically accelerates the discovery of new vulnerabilities, I hope industry will correspondingly accelerate and reprioritize patching.”

Observers have been awaiting the release of a model like Mythos Preview that could identify and exploit cyber vulnerabilities at scale for some time, said Morgan Adamski, the former executive director at U.S. Cyber Command and lead for PwC’s Cyber, Data & Technology Risk services.

“For those in the offensive cyber community, for the U.S. government, there’s obviously a huge potential there from an adversarial perspective,” she said in an interview.

But offense and defense are, in many ways, one and the same. If cyberintelligence analysts find a novel vulnerability in an enemy computer network, it’s possible a U.S. system might have the same vulnerability, too.

“There’s going to be a real equity conversation that occurs,” Adamski said. “If we exploit something in an adversarial network, we’re going to have to be able to defend against it in our own critical infrastructure.”

She also said to expect more of these innovations in the AI space, as “typically, when these types of models come out, other models aren’t far behind.”

In an interview, Gary DePreta, the senior vice president of Cisco’s U.S. Public Sector Organization, told Nextgov/FCW that the company’s participation in Project Glasswing is part of its larger aim to address cybersecurity threats while bringing the benefits of AI to its customer base.

“We’re going from an age of detect-and-respond — and as we automate with AI — to predict-and-prevent threats,” DePreta said on Wednesday. “We keep saying this phrase at Cisco: ‘there is a paradox of progress as it relates to AI and the enterprise.’ And what it simply means is the capabilities of AI are far exceeding the enterprise’s ability to implement it in a safe and secure way.”

Anthropic has become a major voice in the line AI companies are willing to draw in ethical uses of their technology, though that stance has drawn friction with the U.S. military. Earlier this year, the company declined to ease restrictions against its tools being used for domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons for Pentagon use, triggering a “supply chain risk” designation from the Defense Department and a White House order that all federal agencies phase out their uses of Anthropic tools. The company has legally challenged the move.

It’s possible that the Mythos announcement may reshape how the Defense Department interacts with the company.

The government “needs to make amends with Anthropic and help them and Glasswing members maintain the American lead on AI by preventing Chinese model theft,” said Leah Siskind, an AI research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

“Anthropic is making the responsible call — but adversaries won’t,” she said. “China is already exploiting U.S. AI models to accelerate its own capabilities, and when they reach Mythos-level performance, they will weaponize it.”

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Defense Business Brief: Doubling down on C-UAS; Hypersonic flight; Could AI help the Navy build hulls faster?

Lauren C. Williams — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:00:00 -0400

The Pentagon wants to buy almost $1 billion—$994.1 million to be precise—worth of counterdrone tech in 2027, according to budget documents.

The request, under other Army procurement for counter-small unmanned aerial systems, is close to double the $596 million enacted for 2026, which includes atypical funding from budget reconciliation.

That funding spike extends to research and development too. The Army is asking for $26.5 million for counter-small unmanned aerial systems in applied research, which is more than double what is set aside for 2026. Plus, funding for c-UAS development could jump from $140 million in 2026 to $359.2 million proposed in 2027 if finalized by Congress, the documents show.

While some of the increases may reflect budget line consolidation, the proposal comes as U.S. military counterdrone tech spending is expected to grow. That could mean more contracts domestically and abroad as drone threats proliferate and militaries continue to look to the Russia-Ukraine war for best practices and tech.

The Pentagon’s counterdrone task force says it wants to buy $600 million in c-UAS tech to support the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, FIFA World Cup protection, and to protect critical infrastructure.

Drone threats and systems used to defeat them could be at an “inflection point,” Brett Velicovich, who co-founded the startup, Powerus, which helps deliver Ukrainian drone tech to the U.S. military, told Defense One. “The question is no longer detection, but kinetic, interception solutions at scale” and the proposed budget could be “a chance to prioritize affordable, deployable interceptor solutions…that can actually stop threats in real time.”

It’s a numbers game.

“The Ukrainians, as an order of magnitude, consider that they need to lose four drones for every one that they take down,” said Doug Abdiel, a Marine Corps reservist and global vice president at Advanced Navigation, which focuses on GPS alternatives and autonomous systems.

But being able to buy drones in large quantities is only part of the challenge.

“It's also a mindset shift around agility, and…how you use these assets,” he told Defense One, including “the notion that you would buy a drone to then do a kinetic kill on another drone. Or that you are going to have so much in your radar pattern that you're going to be unable to process all that information.”

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You’ve reached the Defense Business Brief, where we focus on what the Pentagon buys, who they’re buying from, and why. Send along your tips, feedback, and streaming recommendations to lwilliams@defenseone.com. Check out the Defense Business Brief archive here, and tell your friends to subscribe!

A new defense tech unicorn is born. Hypersonic aircraft maker Hermeus hit $1 billion valuation after a $350 million Series C funding round—and it plans to use that money to speed up production and make more prototypes.

The In-Q-Tel backed firm is also moving its headquarters from Atlanta to El Segundo, Calif., where it plans to expand prototyping and research and development efforts. While some employees are already in the new space, full relocation is expected in early 2027.
In the coming months, Hermeus’ Atlanta site will pivot to become the company’s manufacturing epicenter, producing its Quarterhorse aircraft.
“The team is now scaling to a fleet of three F-16 scale aircraft, accelerating our path to Mach 3 and starting customer payload integration,” a company spokesperson told Defense One.

HII dives into physical AI through a new agreement with Gray Matter Robotics to explore how it can be integrated into shipbuilding for manned and unmanned vessels.

The move is part of a larger strategy to increase productivity in shipbuilding, which involves complex, precise, and yet variable tasks like “grinding, blasting and finishing of metal structure,” Eric Chewning, HII’s head of strategy and maritime systems, told reporters. “There is a broader set of industrial use cases where we need a single robot to do 100,000 tasks just once. And that’s where physical AI is a game changer.”
Background: Navy Secretary John Phelan has pushed for more use of AI, automation, and robotics in shipbuilding—from back-office work to manufacturing and maintenance—to speed up deliveries and close workforce gaps.
But while robots aren’t necessarily new to shipyards, it may take a while before the HII-Gray Matter Robotics partnership has hard data on how much the technology can improve throughput.
“We've got to get the technology certified before we can put them in a production environment,” Chewning said, noting the paperwork process to get Gray Matter’s technology certified with the Navy is underway.
The emphasis now is on demonstrating how well the tech works.
“Once we can begin to demonstrate these technologies are qualified, and that our hypothesis around their integration [and] the value stream works, then we can begin to get them deployed into the shipyard,” Chewning said, adding that HII plans to install a Gray Matter Robotics cell at Ingalls. “So as quickly as we're able to, we're going to get these things instituted to help drive throughput.”

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Hegseth declares ‘decisive military victory’ in Iran, says U.S. is ‘hanging around’ to enforce ceasefire

Meghann Myers — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:55:07 -0400

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the U.S.’s war against Iran a “decisive military victory” during a press briefing on Wednesday—day one of a two-week ceasefire that could lead to more strikes if the U.S. and Iran can’t reach a long-term deal.

Hegseth said that “Iran begged for this ceasefire” and that “they’ve had enough,” though the 10-point plan Iran has proposed to end the war includes some propositions that have been non-starters for the U.S. in the past, including withdrawing U.S. troops from the Middle East and lifting all sanctions on Iran.

“Yeah, we'll be hanging around. We're not going anywhere. We're going to make sure Iran complies with this ceasefire and then ultimately comes to the table and makes a deal,” Hegseth said. “Our troops are prepared to defend, prepared to go on offense, prepared to restart at a moment's notice with whatever target package would be needed in order to ensure that Iran complies.”

The secretary boasted of 800 targets struck Tuesday night before the ceasefire began, “completely destroying” their defense industrial base. That followed his March 13 declaration that it had been “functionally defeated.”

“What little they have left buried in bunkers is all they will have,” Hegseth said Wednesday. “They can still shoot. We know that their command and control is so decimated they can't really talk and coordinate.”

Hegseth added that “Iran no longer has any sort of comprehensive air defense” capability.

Still, Iran retains the ability to fire on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which suggests that the country still has enough military power to be a threat beyond its borders. Eliminating Iran’s ability to do so is among the key military objectives repeatedly touted by the administration since strikes began in late February.

Hegseth’s claims about the operation’s success may be overwrought, officials and analysts told the Washington Post, in light of the downing of an F-15 fighter jet on Friday and the subsequent downing of an A-10 aiding in the rescue of the fighter’s aircrew.

At the briefing, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, estimated that the U.S. had taken out 80 percent of Iran’s air defense systems and sunk more than 90 percent of its navy over the course of striking more than 13,000 targets.

“Over the course of 38 days of major combat operation, the Joint Force achieved the military objectives as defined by the president,” Caine said in prepared remarks. “We welcome the ongoing cease fire, and as the Secretary said, we hope that Iran chooses a lasting peace.”

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Army operations center is trying to solve battlefield data problems in real time

Meghann Myers — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:54:18 -0400

As the Army works to gather and organize data to support battlefield decisions, it has created a task force to help with small, short-term problems—and in the longer term, to shape the service’s overall approach to data management.

The Army Data Operations Center went live on April 3, service officials told reporters on Tuesday, and so far its small team of civilian and soldier data and software engineers have received seven requests from different organizations to help deconflict.

“It used to be about firepower, but it isn't really about that anymore,” said Lt. Gen. Jeth Rey, the Army’s chief of staff for command, control, communications, cyber operations, and network architecture. “It's really about who can get the data to make decisions faster, to dominate.”

The task force might help, say, to get a partner force’s data flowing into the Army’s next-generation command-and-control platform so that a U.S. commander can compare what the two militaries are seeing on one screen.

The ADOC is organized into a “warfighter engagement cell” that that triages requests, then feeds them to data engineers at the “finish cell” to come up with a solution, who then runs that by the “data management cell” to figure out what kinds of policies need to be created or modified to fix the issue in the long-term.

“Those things are actually a lot more difficult than what you think, to be able to do—because it might be different cloud environments, it might be different [areas of operations], data owners— and you need to go through all the access requests,” said Brig. Gen. Michael kaloostian, who heads the Command and Control Future Capability Directorate at Army Transformation

and Training Command.

ADOC has so far been fielding requests from units in training environments, he said, but it’s technically open to responding to troops in combat, and will prioritize those tickets.

“We haven't received anything yet to support those operations, but if there were to be a request, we would surge on that and prioritize that appropriately,” he said.

For the first 180 days, ADOC will respond to requests and track trends to give the Army feedback on which fixes can be incorporated into training or standard operation and whether the help-desk model is necessarily in the longer term.

“The Army will make informed decisions about what the structure should be and whether a centralized capability in the future is even needed, right?” Kaloostian said. “We just aren't mature enough as an Army right now to really, truly become data-centric. We need something that can aid the continuous transition and transformation of the Army to a data-centric force.”

It’s possible that the future looks like a centralized operations center that deals with the “higher-level heavy lifting” of organizing different data formats from their respective systems, so that soldiers on the ground aren’t having to sort through it themselves, said Lt. Gen. Chris Eubank, who heads U.S. Army Cyber Command.

“So I think the cyberspace domain is evolving at such a rapid pace that the organizations involved in that domain must evolve as well, but I think it's a necessary thing right now,” he added. “And the hope is we're creating soldiers that are data-smart more and more, and the heavier lifting is done inside of a central organization, if need be.”

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Two firms picked as finalists for contract to outsource Army pilot training

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:20:23 -0400

The Army has picked at least two finalists to take over the service’s entry-level helicopter training program, despite Congressional pushback on the plan last year. Service officials have said they plan to choose a winner by September.

Bell and M1 Support Services both confirmed in press releases this week that they were selected to move to the fourth and final stage of the competition.

Another competitor, Lockheed Martin, was not chosen to move on, a company spokesperson confirmed to Defense One.The Army did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking whether any other companies were selected.

Last month, it was reported that AAR Corp was also in the running for the competition. The Illinois-based company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Finalists will be asked to demonstrate how they could execute the service’s Initial Entry Rotary Wing training program more affordably and efficiently.

Funding for the effort to shift the in-house school to a contractor-owned and -operated model, dubbed Flight School Next, was paused by lawmakers in the most recent National Defense Authorization Act. The provision asked for a detailed report on the one-year pilot program and for Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to brief Congress on the cost-effectiveness and rationale before Congress would release funds for the contract.

An Army spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday asking whether the service provided Congress with the results and briefing.

Despite the pushback and funding uncertainty, the competition is still marching on.

Bell is working with DigiFlight, Delaware Resource Group (DRG), V2X, Alpha 1 Aerospace, Semper Fly and TRU Simulation, the company said in a news release. The team’s bid is centered around Bell’s 505 helicopter as the trainer.

“Bell is proud to be selected for the fourth phase of the Flight School Next competition alongside our teammates,” John Novalis II, the company’s Flight School Next strategic director said in a press release. “Making it to this stage proves that Bell’s solution is strong and we look forward to demonstrating our ability to execute.”

M1’s team consists of General Dynamics Information Technology, Robinson Helicopter Company, Quantum Helicopters, and the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation. Its offering includes Robinson Helicopters’ R66 trainer.

A Robinson spokesperson confirmed to Defense One the company is working with multiple prime contractors for a Flight School Next offering.

“We are honored to advance to Phase IV,” George Krivo, M1’s CEO and chairman, said in a news release. “In this next phase, Team M1 will demonstrate our comprehensive, innovation-rich solution to produce more proficient Army Aviators on time and on budget.”

The Bell 505 and R66, both single-engine aircraft, are both departures from the Army’s current training helicopter, Airbus’ twin-engine UH-72 Lakota, which has been criticized by service leaders as being too expensive and restrictive for teaching aviation basics. An Airbus spokesperson referred questions to the Army when asked if the company was moving ahead in the competition.

A call-for-solutions document issued late last year says that the winner of the Flight School Next contract would produce 800 to 1,500 Army aviators annually for 26 years, with an award expected by September.

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Pro-Iran hackers have disrupted some industrial-control systems, US says

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:00:00 -0400

Iran-aligned hackers have exploited and disrupted operational technology control systems embedded in U.S. critical infrastructure, according to a federal advisory issued Tuesday.

“The authoring agencies assess a group of Iranian-affiliated advanced persistent threat (APT) actors is conducting this activity to cause disruptive effects within the United States.” the advisory reads. “The group has targeted devices spanning multiple U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, including Government Services and Facilities (to include local municipalities), Water and Wastewater Systems (WWS), and Energy Sectors.”

The assessment was signed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI, NSA, EPA, the Department of Energy, and U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force.

It says hackers are especially targeting Rockwell Automation's Allen-Bradley line of programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, which monitor and automate the equipment used in industrial processes such as water treatment, power generation, and manufacturing.

It says that the hackers have manipulated data on human-machine interfaces and on supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, displays, and had harmful interactions with project files.

The advisory is the latest signal that Iran-aligned hacker groups have impeded U.S. systems since the United States and Israel went to war against Iran on Feb. 28.

It comes after an apparent Tehran-backed hacker group carried out a cyberattack against medical technology giant Stryker last month, which wiped employees’ phones and prevented workers from accessing their computers.

A request for comment sent to Rockwell Automation’s media relations email bounced back.

Pro-Iran hackers have made a habit of targeting any computer systems tied to nations deemed foreign adversaries by Tehran, especially the U.S. and Israel. In late 2023, amid the Israel-Hamas war, one hacker group defaced the interfaces of water treatment systems in Pennsylvania, which had Israel-made Unitronics equipment built inside.

In 2020, Rockwell Automation acquired Israel-based Avnet Data Security, aiming to bolster the cyber posture of its industrial control systems and operational technology.

The assessment urged organizations to keep PLCs off the open internet, review logs for suspicious activity and lock down affected Rockwell devices to prevent unauthorized access. Unsecured internet-connected operational technology can expose industrial systems to remote access, giving attackers a pathway to disrupt or manipulate functions.

The Iran war has been widely expected to test the strength of U.S. cyberdefenses, and experts have warned that exposed devices would be a potential target for pro-Iran hackers.

President Donald Trump escalated his threats against Tehran on Tuesday, saying a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by an 8 p.m. ET deadline.

Trump has promised to attack “every bridge” and power station in the country if a deal isn’t reached. Iran has promised a “devastating” response if such an attack occurs. Any sharp escalation could heighten the risk of retaliatory cyberattacks.

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Pentagon investigators blocked from using 'War Department' in official documents

Meghann Myers — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 14:58:10 -0400

Ever since President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September authorizing the Defense Department to go by the “secondary title” of War Department, the Pentagon has been working to change its signage, signature blocks, and as many instances of "Defense" as possible. But that stops with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and its official filings, because “War Department” still isn’t a legal name.

Though DoD personnel and defense contractors have been compelled to use “War Department,” only Congress has the authority to officially change the department’s name. Lawmakers have made no moves to do so; most recently, they passed up the opportunity in the latest defense authorization bill. So where legal proceedings are concerned, DoD remains DoD, according to a memo for the department’s inspector general office signed April 1 by the assistant inspector general for legislative and communications.

The IG’s main concern appears to be that using the unofficial name in legal documents could undermine a criminal case.

“While the ‘Department of War’ label may serve a rhetorical or symbolic purpose, its introduction into official contexts has generated internal confusion and compelled legal safeguards,” a DoD contractor, who asked not to be identified to prevent retaliation from his employer, told Defense One.

While the memo clears the IG to rebrand itself as the "Department of War Office of the Inspector General," the use of that nickname will be limited.

“For DCIS in particular, the stakes are high: even minor deviations from statutory identity in criminal proceedings could undermine the integrity of cases aimed at holding individuals accountable for fraud, waste, and abuse within the government,” the contractor said.

The memo also states that the DoD Hotline, the anonymous tip line for fraud, waste and abuse allegations, will keep its name. Nor will DoW be used in any memoranda of understanding or agreement with outside organizations, to prevent misunderstandings.

“The rebranding effort introduces unnecessary friction into interagency coordination, congressional oversight, and international engagements, all of which rely on the legally established identity of the Department of Defense,” the contractor said. “The internal guidance’s repeated emphasis on disclaimers, footnotes, and restricted usage underscores the extent to which legal and policy officials are attempting to contain that risk.”

And though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth personally replaced the bronze Department of Defense sign at the Pentagon’s river entrance in November, the memo explicitly says that no existing OIG office signage should be removed and budgeted funds can’t be used to buy DoW signs.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment about legally safeguarding investigations, or whether there is a push to convince lawmakers to make the War Department legal.

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As aircraft losses mount, Pentagon wants a software fix to see through the fog of war

Patrick Tucker — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 04:40:29 -0400

The U.S. planes that have gone down in the Middle East since the launch of Operation Epic Fury all lacked the same thing: a common operating picture that includes relevant intelligence and data. The Defense Innovation Unit announced Monday it’s looking for a fix.

The request: an open-architecture software suite to fuse real-time data into a credible picture of moving objects, threats, and conditions. The idea is to give pilots a broader understanding of reality in a way that is unremarkable to American motorists with easy access to data about ever-changing conditions but aspirational for air crews flying planes outfitted with antique computer hardware.

U.S. Air Force officials have warned of a lack of a common operating picture among airframes, particularly transport planes like C-130s, for years. But the loss of seven aircraft in just over a month, due mostly to communication errors and friendly fire, has exposed a big gap in how U.S. planes communicate with one another and with ground forces.

At the outset of the war on Iran, the U.S. lost three F-15E Strike Eagles due to Kuwaiti friendly fire. In March, they lost a KC-130 refueling tanker when it was involved in a mid-air mishap with a second tanker, due in part to a transponder failure but, again, pointing to a gap in the planes’ ability to fuse data to identify one another.

During the rescue effort that followed an Iranian shootdown of an F-15E Strike Eagle and an A-10 Thunderbolt on April 3, the U.S. destroyed two MC-130J transport planes when the planes were unable to take off from their makeshift runway, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a press conference on Monday.

“It was sandy, wet sand, so we thought there may a problem taking off because of the weight of the plane… And then we also had all the men jumping back onto the planes, and they got pretty well bogged down.”

It’s the sort of problem that access to real-time data on terrain, weather, and other factors could have solved. But most older transport planes lack up-to-date maps or terrain data, forcing crews to “rely heavily on pre-mission planning products, voice updates, and aging platform-specific displays,” according to DIU’s ask.

Because computer hardware varies widely throughout the U.S. aircraft fleet, the Air Force and aircrews frequently use workarounds such as software-defined radios or off-the-shelf communications equipment to get the data they need. But there is no common standard, which makes it difficult for aircrews to know what data they need.

“This problem is especially relevant for large, high-value airlift and tanker aircraft that utilize avionics and mission systems that are optimized for more permissive operations,” according to the announcement for DIU’s “Open Mission Engine” program. The new effort seeks software that can combine all the relevant friend, foe, intelligence, and logistics data into one place in real time, not afterward.

While the solicitation doesn’t mention Operation Epic Fury by name, the rising number of U.S. military aircraft mishaps shows how urgently the U.S. military needs a way to better let planes communicate with each other.

Among the features that DIU wants the new software “engine” to have is a “moving map” application that “uses relevant operational data into a single aircrew display, including blue-force awareness, threat and airspace overlays, mission updates, and route decision support.”

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General Atomics pauses drone wingman flight tests after crash

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:58:08 -0400

General Atomics’ has paused all flight tests and opened an investigation after one of its drone wingmen crashed Monday after takeoff, the company said in a news release.

One of General Atomics’ YFQ-42A “Dark Merlin” Collaborative Combat Aircraft “experienced a mishap” at its company-owned airport in California around 1 p.m. local time, the news release said. No one was injured in the incident. Flight testing will resume when it is “deemed appropriate,” the company added, providing no timeline.

“Flight test operations have been paused temporarily in an abundance of caution,” the news release said. “As with any program, we follow a disciplined investigation process to understand exactly what occurred, and our focus right now is on gathering data and ensuring we learn from this event.”

General Atomics is competing against Anduril and Northrop Grumman in the Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft competition. The incident with the drone wingman comes as the service prepares to award an Increment 1 production decision in the next six months. The Defense Department is seeking nearly $1 billion to buy the Air Force’s first CCAs, the 2027 budget documents released on Friday show.

The YFQ-42A involved in the crash was one of several production-representative CCAs being made for the Air Force, the company said.

“Safety is our top priority, for our people and the public. In this case, established procedures and safeguards worked as intended, and there were no injuries,” said C. Mark Brinkley, a company spokesman. “We’re going to take a close look at what happened, gather all the data, and allow the investigation to guide us moving forward.”

The Air Force is “aware of the incident and will follow all standard aircraft mishap protocols,” a service spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

An Anduril spokesperson said “all of our airplanes are fine.” A Northrop Grumman spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Anduril, General Atomics, and Northrop have all rapidly been developing their own CCA offerings in hopes of winning the Air Force’s contract.

Last month, Northrop Grumman announced it successfully tested Shield AI’s Hivemind software on its YFQ-48A Talon Blue CCA.

In February, Anduril started armed flight testing with its CCA. That same month, the Air Force validated its government-owned Autonomy Government Reference Architecture to use RTX Collins software aboard General Atomics’ YFQ-42 CCA aircraft and Shield AI’s Hivemind onboard Anduril's YFQ-44 CCA. Anduril also completed its first semi-autonomous flight and was able to switch between Shield AI and its own mission autonomy software suites mid-air.

Rebecca Wasser, the defense lead at Bloomberg Economics, said it was “commendable” of General Atomics to stop flight tests for security and safety reasons. She added that the incident is unlikely to have a major effect on the competition, especially given Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reforms to the military’s testing and evaluation ecosystem.

“I don't think it changes the nature of the competition and gives an edge to any of the potential CCAs moving forward, Wasser said. “I think the fact that the Department of Defense has relaxed some of its operational testing and evaluation standards at the direction of the secretary, speaks to the fact that I don't think that there's going to be any blowback from the Pentagon about this.”

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How would the US Navy counter Iran's mines?

David Hutchins, Forecast International — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:59:28 -0400

It's not clear whether Iran has put naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, but its longstanding ability to do so is part of the reason ships have all but stopped moving through the critical global chokepoint. The time may come for the U.S. Navy's littoral combat ships to demonstrate their long-touted ability to hunt mines.

According to a March 2026 congressional report, Iran is believed to possess roughly 6,000 naval mines. Although CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper has said that Iran’s conventional navy has been rendered combat-ineffective, some reports indicate that Iran has deployed mines in the strait. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy has hundreds of speedboats with which to rapidly deploy mines across the narrow waterway.

Last fall, the Navy decommissioned the backbone of its minehunting capabilities: the four Avenger-class minesweepers stationed in Bahrain; four more remain elsewhere in the fleet. Purpose-built for mine warfare, the Avengers have wooden hulls wrapped in fiberglass to reduce magnetic signatures that trigger mines. But the Avengers are slow, outdated, lack any meaningful self-defense systems, and can’t launch helicopters or unmanned systems.

The Avengers were replaced in the Persian Gulf by the long-controversial littoral combat ships: high-speed, agile surface combatants designed for near-shore surface warfare, anti-submarine operations, and mine countermeasures. The Gulf LCSs—all Independence-class vessels—are equipped with minesweeping and mine-hunting capabilities: the LCS Mine Countermeasures Mission Package. The MCM MP supports mine warfare operations using aviation assets and unmanned systems equipped with an array of sensors to detect, localize, and neutralize surface, near-surface, moored, and bottom mines in the littorals. To date, the USS Canberra (LCS 30), USS Santa Barbara (LCS 32), and USS Tulsa (LCS 16) are known to have received the MCM MP. A fourth LCS, the USS Kansas City (LCS 22), is equipped with MCM MP for crew training and relief support.

With aluminum hulls, Independence-class LCSs must stay outside minefields, sending in MH-60S Seahawks, unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to hunt the underwater weapons.

USVs can tow the AN/AQS-20 mine-hunting sonar system, which uses sensors to find bottom and moored mines. The USVs can also deploy the unmanned influence sweep system (UISS), which mimics the magnetic and acoustic signature of a ship to detonate mines safely. LCSs can also deploy the Knifefish UUV, which can find buried and proud mines using low-frequency broadband sonar.

Crewed MH-60S Seahawks can be equipped with the AN/AES-1 Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS), which detects floating and near-surface moored mines, as well as the AN/ASQ-235 Airborne Mine-Neutralization System (AMNS), whose expendable Archerfish UUV can destroy mines.

How might the U.S. Navy conduct counter-mine operations in the Persian Gulf? As of March, the four remaining Avengers were in Japan. The USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara were spotted at port in Malaysia on March 15, reportedly conducting brief logistical stops. The USS Canberra was reportedly in the Indian Ocean around the same time. The absence of these vessels in the Persian Gulf is surely no accident. Moving U.S. warships, particularly the three LCSs, out of port in Bahrain ahead of the conflict was likely a calculated decision to keep these vessels well out of the range of Iranian drones and missiles. Moreover, the U.S. military’s strikes on Iranian vessels in port have demonstrated the vulnerability of ships docked in the Gulf.

Yet, even if the LCSs are sent to the Persian Gulf, there are concerns around the capability of the LCS MCM MP. The unmanned assets require hours of pre-mission calibration. They cannot operate beyond line of sight ot the LCS. The AN/AQS-20 has struggled to identify g mines, even when tested in the relatively benign waters of Southern California. Perhaps most concerning, the Pentagon’s testing office said in March 2026 that it could not determine the operational effectiveness of the LCS equipped with the MCM MP.

Finally, mine-clearing is a slow, deliberate process made even more arduous when occurring in an environment contested by Iranian missiles and drones. Neither the purpose-built Avenger-class nor the LCS equipped with a relatively unproven MCM mission package would likely prove effective without a robust military escort.

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CIA deception campaign helped rescue downed airman in Iran, director says

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:00:00 -0400

A deception campaign launched by the CIA bought time for U.S. forces to rescue an airman who went down in Iran on Friday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a White House news conference on Monday.

The CIA deployed human assets and “exquisite technologies” to contribute to the rescue of the weapons systems officer of an F-15E Strike Eagle, Ratcliffe said. The aircraft’s pilot was rescued earlier upon the crash, but Iran was “desperately hunting” for the backseater who ejected further from his wingman and had moved away from the crash site.

The injured officer was found by the CIA in a mountain crevice but was still invisible to Iranian forces.

“Following the successful exfiltration on Saturday night, our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue,” Ratcliffe said.

At the press conference, President Donald Trump said it was the CIA’s “genius” that contributed to the rescue and that the spy agency had spotted “something moving up the mountain.”

“This is at night. And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes,” Trump said, suggesting the CIA had a covert surveillance capability — potentially a drone or satellite — available to track the airman’s movements.

The public remarks about the mission show how the Trump administration has made it a point to highlight contributions that CIA operatives have made toward its national security efforts.

Those include operations that targeted the government of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The agency has also taken a more public-facing posture, releasing recruitment videos aimed at sourcing in China. And in the months leading up to the Iran war, agency spies had been reportedly tracking the movements of now deceased Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

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Trump vows to find ‘leaker’ who publicized search for second downed airman in Iran

Meghann Myers — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:59:30 -0400

President Donald Trump said his administration is going after the news outlet that first reported a second Air Force officer was missing after an F-15E Strike Eagle went down over Iran, he said during a press conference Monday. The officer was rescued Saturday.

Trump said Iran wasn’t aware until the news report that the fighter jet’s weapons systems officer was still in hiding after U.S. special operations forces quickly recovered the pilot following a crash on Friday. He did not specify which outlet he was speaking of, though both Channel 12 news in Israel and The Associated Press reported Friday that one crew member had been recovered and another was missing.

“We think we'll be able to find it out, because we're going to go to the media company that released it, and we're going to say ‘national security, give it up or go to jail,’” Trump said, suggesting the Justice Department will subpoena for the identity of a reporter’s source. “Because when they did that, all of a sudden, the entire country of Iran knew that there was a pilot that was somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life, and it also made it much more difficult for the pilots and for the people going in to search for him.”

The downed airman spent more than a day “scaling rugged ridges while hunted by the enemy,” before he was able to activate his emergency transponder to let his chain of command know he was still alive, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the briefing.

A team flew seven hours into Iranian air space to rescue the weapons system officer, Hegseth said, one day after an earlier mission rescued the pilot.

“We control the sky,” the secretary said. “Iran did nothing about it.”

But during the pilot's rescue, Iran shot down one of the A-10 Warthogs that was supporting the mission, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the briefing. The A-10 pilot ejected over Kuwait, Caine said.

“This pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable,” Caine said.

Hegseth said the U.S. on Monday launched the largest volume of strikes since day one of the war, back on Feb. 28.

“Tomorrow, even more than today,” he said. “And then Iran has a choice.”

The briefing took place one day after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure in Iran, via Truth Social post on Sunday, if the country doesn’t agree by Tuesday to stop firing on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Asked during the press conference whether he stands behind his recent statements that the war is winding down, or equally recent statements that he intends to escalate it, Trump left things up in the air.

“I can’t tell you. I don’t know,” he said. “Depends what they do.”

Trump then asserted that the Iranian people would be fine with the U.S. striking their bridges and power plants, even saying that he’s gotten “numerous intercepts” from Iranians begging the U.S. to continue bombing them.

“They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he said. He did not offer details of how the war would secure freedom for Iranians.

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Going hunting

Peter W. Singer and August Cole — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Even the simplest naval mines can strike fear into mariners or throttle traffic through a choke point, for no weapon has sunk more warships in the past 75 years. Yet the mines of the future will be far more capable and dangerous.

The integration of AI and robotic technologies will produce hybrid UUV-mines: versatile, intelligent,able to adapt to and overcome countermeasures. They will strike from the depths at targets on land, sea, and in the air.

To counter them, militaries will need an equally new set of tactics and technologies: autonomous platforms, heterogeneous swarms, advanced sensor arrays, and modular architectures.

The following is a “useful fiction” written in support of the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation. The story blends non-fiction research on current and future trends and technologies with a fictionalized narrative scenario designed to promote reflection about the future of mine and countermine operations and autonomy in a maritime environment.

NATO Suspects Russians in Sinking of 4th Black Sea Grain Ship

BRUSSELS—The Turkish-flagged cargo ship MV Golden Horizon ran aground in Romanian waters on Thursday, less than two hours after the 110-meter vessel was damaged by an underwater explosion. It was the latest of four vessels, all carrying Ukrainian agricultural products, to suffer similar damage in the Black Sea.

NATO officials here say the pattern of attacks indicate a suspected Russian operation intended to set back a Ukraine still recovering from years of war. They could not, however, specify what sort of weapon might have caused the explosions. MV Golden Horizon, which had been bound for an undisclosed West African nation, ran aground in shallow coastal waters in full view of the Romanian Black Sea resort town of Mamaia.

“Moscow wants to cut us off at the knees just as we are getting back on our feet,” said a Ukrainian military spokesman in Kyiv. “The Black Sea is a lifeline not just for our nation, but the world. Our agriculture exports feed people of all faiths and colors, and now we are all under attack again.”

A Russian spokesman denied that the Kremlin or its affiliated forces had any role in the incident. The spokesman said it was “a false-flag attack designed to besmirch Russia’s good name.”

Endangering this route poses profound challenges for Ukraine, which exports foodstuffs worth roughly $30 billion a year. Growing uncertainty around this supply line has also begun to reverberate across the global economy. Ukraine remains the world's seventh-largest exporter of wheat, fourth-largest exporter of barley, and the biggest exporter of sunflower seeds, which are used for sunflower oil and animal feed. Its products are shipped to more than 40 countries where food prices have surged.

After Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, foreign-flagged cargo ships carrying Ukraine’s grain harvest began to use the protected corridor that hugs the western coastline of the Black Sea. The route, too shallow for submarines, passes through the territorial waters of Romania and Bulgaria, both of which are NATO countries. That this vital export lifeline is now a zone of renewed conflict raises immense questions for the NATO alliance and Ukraine, which have led alliance leaders to agree to deploy a Maritime Task Force to protect the shipping and NATO-member territorial waters.

“Commander, do not tell me this is the first time you’ve been to a spa?” Spanish Navy Capitán de Corbeta Carlos Echeverría spread his arms with a host’s sweeping welcome.

“My husband and I did an anniversary trip to one of Swansea’s finest last year. It was nice, but for some reason that one didn’t have the added option of a visit to a tactical operations center,” replied Cmdr. Heidi Bonner of the British Royal Navy.

Befitting a four-star resort, the Hotel Aqua’s two-story spa building was finished in mahogany and polished brass and overlooked the waters of the Black Sea. The luxurious setting was disturbed now by fiber cables, thick as an arm, snaking across the gravel paths. These cables linked to an Offset Antenna Farm hidden in the resort’s parking garage, providing connectivity back to Brussels, the capitals of the participant nations, and every ship and aerial asset deployed in nearby waters as part of the newly arrived NATO Maritime Task Force.

Bonner nodded complimentarily at her deputy, who stepped aside for her to enter first. “Very well done in getting this set up so quickly,” knowing how much work had gone into turning the off-season resort’s spa into a command center for their operation.

The hotel sat just outside Mamaia, a resort community on the Romanian seashore. It was a strange juxtaposition for the two officers, who were used to operating from crowded warships or cubicles at NATO’s Allied Maritime Command in Northwood, UK.

“To be honest, I would not have minded if they had assigned us to the casino,” Echeverría said.

“Our Task Force intel cell is already set up there on the top floor,” Bonner replied. “It fits. They all watch far too much James Bond.”

The two officers had an easy repartee, but both felt the tension of their mission. The NATO task force was charged with securing the nearby sea lanes, which meant identifying and neutralizing the undersea threat that had all but closed off Black Sea shipping. The operations also carried the risk that whatever Russia was doing could cross into an Article 5 violation if any of the member-states’ ships were disabled or sunk. On top of that, there was the risk of an accident or skirmish with the growing number of Russian aerial drones and fighters that pestered the NATO forces.

“Where did they put the crew from the MV Golden Horizon?” Echeverría asked.

“Also in the hotel wing linked to the casino,” Bonner said. “Wanted them near the intel folks.”

“Smart,” said Echeverría, tapping his temple. “We’re about to get the UUV live feed up from the Golden Horizon.”

“Let’s go,” she said, leaving him in her wake as they headed towards the spa’s dining area.

Floor-to-ceiling windows were covered with light-blocking ballistic blankets against the threat of drones. Echeverría motioned for a sailor to bring up footage of the MV Golden Horizon’s latest UUV-conducted hull inspection.

“Tell me what we know, Petty Officer Shanks,” Bonner said, arms crossed as she leaned forward to study the video.

“Commander, the blast pattern on the hull indicates an external explosion,” replied the sailor, a young Canadian Navy petty officer 2nd class wearing wire-frame glasses. “We’re still modeling the size or yield of the explosive involved and will have that in less than 30 minutes. In terms of the source or cause, it is still a mystery to us. The waters in the area are too shallow for a submarine. No minefields are in the area; we’ve reconfirmed that with space assets.”

“Could it be a limpet mine emplaced in port by a Russian diver or drone?” asked Bonner.

“Highly unlikely based on the hull damage,” Echeverría said. “Bring up the close-up.”

Shanks froze the feed and swiped back to earlier imagery. “The latest generation Russian limpet mines use a shaped charge and would punch a clean hole through the hull, targeting the fuel stores or something else that would set off secondary explosions. This rather large, jagged metal near the bow indicates something else. Notice also the size. It is much bigger than what a diver or small UUV could emplace.”

“Thank you to you both,” Bonner said.

She closed her eyes and nodded, as if conversing with herself. Shanks looked confused, while Echeverría raised his eyebrows in anticipation, knowing a decision was about to come. The two NATO officers had deployed together twice in the past five years, once as part of a three-month Baltic mission focused on undersea cable surveillance and defenses and before that in the Persian Gulf supporting a U.S. task force that monitored illicit shipments to Iran.

“Let’s not get overly focused on the Golden Horizon,” she said, gesturing through the blackout curtains at the unseen hulking ship looming off the coast. “I want to know everything about the waters she was in, instead. By that, I mean we want to pull in as much data as we can, from every sensor we can access. All-domain NATO assets. OSINT. Buy what you need. And please don’t forget that our Ukrainian friends have quite a bit they can offer. If you’re having any problems with access, come see me, and we’ll break down that wall. Let’s get to it. There have been four attacks so far. If we could bet at the casino on it, a fifth would get at least even odds.”*

“Es un misterio,” said Echeverría.

In the next few hours, the task force assembled as powerful a collection of data as Bonner had ever seen. In this AI-powered era of sensor fusion, she could bring together an array of NATO military surveillance sources –– from hyperspectral satellite sensors to surface and undersea sonar — and civilian sources like oceanographic data from environmental buoys, or the acoustic data picked up by fishing vessels hunting for their catch.

Yet Bonner and Echeverría frowned as they conferred in front of an oversized monitor that displayed a live tactical map of the Black Sea, with icons to mark current shipping and the four attack sites.

“There is no discernible pattern, " she said. "At all. No minefields that we detected. Moreover, the second and third explosions happened in specific lanes that had already been cleared or transited by multiple other ships.”

“And it cannot be a submarine, as there is no vessel that can deploy in such shallow waters, nor one that could be in so many places at once,” Echeverría replied, gesturing in frustration at the screen as if shaming it into revealing a conclusion the task force’s AI mission analysis systems had been holding back.

“It’s impressive work. Now, I need to get another look at the problem,” said Bonner, already on her way out of the operations center.

• • •

On her first deployment, aboard on HMS Somerset far too many years ago, Bonner had found that going on deck always helped clear her head. Breathing fresh sea air and feeling the wind on her face was the best tonic for a mind and body numbed by hours inside an ops center.

The resort was a far better setting to recharge than the heaving deck of a frigate, where a spray of icy North Sea water doused your face every few moments. Bonner walked along well-tended gravel pathways, taking in the view that had been the scene of many engagement proposals. The serenity of the mostly empty tourist beach and lapping waves, though, was broken by the sight of the disabled Ukrainian freighter ship only 200 meters away, its bow low in the water and the ship listing to port. She eyed the wrecked ship, wishing it would reveal the secret of what had struck it.

A hundred meters further, a small fishing boat puttered past. Even from afar, she could tell the two men on board were related by the way they moved so fluidly together. The fishermen ignored the Romanian Navy RHIB standing guard at the wreck. They cared little for the freighter or what had happened to it, only that it was in the way of their catch.

Life goes on, Bonner thought, even with war on their doorstep. This region’s history of conflict was something she had been thinking about a lot recently, and yet it was easy to lose sight of the simple fact that families like this had no choice but to live out their lives in the middle of that history. Sometimes, it was easier. Other times, it was more complicated. But time and life moved on as it did for everyone.

Horse mackerel, she thought. Common enough fish here and likely what they were going out for. She might eat some at a local cafe if they ever cracked whatever was going on in the waters. In the hands of an able chef, it could make half-decent sushi.

She found a recently painted bench and sat down. The fatigue of the rushed deployment and nonstop tempo nearly took her breath away. You had to face the fatigue head-on, acknowledge it, and know when it might be holding you back.

The small fishing boat set an anchor just beyond the RHIB, and the father and son unlimbered heavy-duty rods. They cast their jigs in increasingly wider arcs beyond their boat and out toward the Golden Horizon. By the way the light flashed off the silvery lures, Bonner suspected they were using feather rigs. The predatory mackerel devoured small fish and, in this wintery time of year, could be found closer to the coast hunting near the bottom.

As her mind drifted, almost relaxing for a moment as she watched the long casts, an idea burst out of the moment of calm.

Bait.

Bonner leapt up and ran across the cross-cut manicured lawn back to her operations center.

• • •

Less than 24 hours later, Bonner and Echeverría flew low above the now lake-flat Black Sea aboard a Romanian IAR 330 Puma Naval Helicopter. Out the port side, she could see the Romanian Type 22 frigate Regele Ferdinand and a pair of RHIBs setting out from its stern at high speed toward the horizon. She knew the vessel: it was the former Royal Navy HMS Coventry. Since becoming the Romanian flagship in 2004—a few years before she graduated from the Royal Naval Academy—it had regularly supported allied operations in the Mediterranean.

Bonner hunched over the ruggedized tablet in her lap, signaling to the crew chief that they were nearing the drop point for the pair of drones secured with stout tie-down straps.

The air suddenly shook around them and the Romanian helicopter banked left and down toward the ocean surface. Spray from the helicopter’s downdraft flew in every direction and created conditions that took Bonner back to a white-out she once experienced in the Barents Sea.

Amid the steep, lurching turn she dropped her tablet, and it went skittering across the floor of the helicopter before the crew chief stepped on it with his boot. The air around her vibrated and roared. It took a second to realize that the helicopter wasn’t disintegrating but rather being buffeted by the slipstream from a fighter jet’s high-speed pass.

“Russians,” one of the Romanian pilots called out over the radio, a declaration followed by what were a string of epithets recognizable even in a foreign language.

Bonner tightened her harness and cleared her throat. “Very well. Continue mission,” she said, extending a steady hand for her tablet.

A few minutes later, the crew chief nodded at Bonner, before opening the starboard door. Then he stepped back to make way for a pair of British sailors, who gingerly carried a 2-meter UUV towards the open door. Secured by safety lines, the sailors fought to stay on their feet as the helicopter slowed to hover a few meters above the sea's surface. The dart-like autonomous craft weighed not much more than a sonobuoy.

This was the second one they had deployed from the helicopter, but just one of dozens launched into the glassy waters from RHIBs, patrol vessels, and other aircraft.

“Delta Two is wet!” one of the sailors called over the helicopter’s internal communications net.

Bonner looked down as the drone slipped beneath the surface.

“Confirmed Delta Two underway,” said the other sailor.

“Well done. Now let’s let these robots dangle their lures.” Given the stakes of hundreds of sailors whose lives were on the line, it may have sounded like a flippant comment. Yet it was the most unambiguous expression of the tactics she wanted the wider NATO force to employ.

The crew chief moved to secure the helicopter’s door, but Bonner waved him off. She preferred to have a direct view of the hunt going on below.

The warships, RHIBs, autonomous aerial drones, space-based surveillance, and UUVs formed a web, controlled by a fusion of occasional human but mostly onboard AI guidance. In the helicopter, Bonner was in the center of their digital threads, nudging and tugging occasionally to orient them or assigning her team to reconcile technical setbacks, of which there were always a few. But far less with each deployment of the drones, she noted, because the mission-management software learned, as she did.

The composition of the UUV fleet beneath this 300-square-kilometer stretch of the Black Sea reflected the hard-won lessons of operations in the region during Russia’s war upon Ukraine and the hot peace that followed. It wasn’t just about numbers but the type. No one design could succeed at everything, and engineering was a discipline built around managing tradeoffs. One of the American 17-meter long-endurance surveillance drones carrying its own mini-UUVs looked everything like a miniature submarine ought to and outranged every other of its robotic peers. The lightweight British dart-shaped drones dropped from her helicopter were at the other end of the swarm, sprinting and drifting up and down thermoclines where they passively surveilled the area with acoustic sensors. By deploying undersea drones of different ranges, sonar and infrared sensor packages, and underlying operating systems –– as befitted the numerous platforms NATO member nations brought to the mission –– this heterogeneity became the swarm’s strength.

In the role of undersea hunters, this collection of UUVs could orient and pursue a larger goal as a pod or pack, coordinated semi-autonomously by Bonner and the onboard edge-AI mission computers that could receive limited guidance and reason the next steps they should take. Bonner thought of it like the way her own body and brain integrated her five senses – and the sixth of instinct or gut feeling that had proved her invaluable. This happened automatically, without focused thought in a manner that she had come to see as similar to how she conducted her missions today than when she first joined the Royal Navy. The basic laws of physics endured underwater: communications would remain a challenge until a quantum breakthrough arrived. Yet the creative application of AI and autonomy allowed undersea operations to work around it.

In this case, the swarm of UUVs were not just hunting, but acting as bait. They were alternatively blasting out the acoustic signature of the Golden Horizon—harvested from the data records of the ships it had passed during its many transits of the region—and listening for a response.

Unlike the normal experience of fishing, the hunt was short. A multicolor image arrived on Bonner’s tablet screen—shared with her at the same time the meshed network of NATO UUVs shared it among themselves, overcoming the difficulty of undersea data transmission by playing a machine-speed version of the classic game of telephone. That same image was also being shared across the entire NATO task force’s battle network.

The data attached to the image indicated that it was one of many being shared at low bandwidth among the underwater UUVs and the surface vessels. It was a mosaic tile that, when combined with thousands of other past and present data sets, began to reveal a striking picture of what had been threatening the Black Sea shipping.

The first sequence of data showed movement that had begun almost immediately after the sonic deception was initiated. Delta Three, a counterpart of the UUV deployed from their helicopter, was already closing in on the contact. It soon beamed back imagery of a cloudy swirl of dirt kicked up by something lifting from the seabed floor. A synthetic picture of the target began to fill in automatically by the visual models used by the battle management system to integrate all the other data being gathered by the UUV swarm’s varied sensors. It was like watching a digital sketch artist at work.

The display soon revealed a barrel-like shaped UUV, with a pair of ducted-propellor drive units on either side of its fuselage and a kind of tread on the bottom of its hull that apparently allowed it to creep along the seabed, much like those used by undersea pipeline inspection companies. A needle-like projection from its nose was clearly visible, and Bonner did not need the AI to tell her it was a contact-detonation device.

She opened a direct channel to Echeverría, who hunched over his tablet. “It’s a hybrid mine of sorts. Do you concur?”

“Yes. It seems that the Russians stole an idea from the Ukrainian maritime drone program and further blurred the lines between commercial gear, mines, and UUVs.”

Echeverría used his tablet pen to circle a part of the image and zoom in.

“Look at the growth on the drone’s fuselage; it has clearly been sitting on the seabed for some time.”

“Just waiting to deploy when the right freighter comes along,” Bonner said. “Or, at least, what sounds like a freighter.”

She closed her eyes and sought peace amid the helicopter's noise. She considered how this new form of robotic attack represented just the latest twist in the tit-for-tat contest between undersea attackers and defenders that had gone on for more than a century.

After less than a second, her eyes opened up with a decision.

“It is a good bet this isn’t the only one. Pass the initial profile of this weapons system around the task force. Between knowing what we are hunting for and the bait that will draw its ilk out, we should be able to find any of its friends. I’ll propose up the chain of command that once we locate the rest, we employ a coordinated layered depth charge attack at each location.”

“It looks like a full sweep may take up to eight hours, but I think we can mine the existing data from initial scans and halve that time by backcasting the target profile on that data,” said Echeverría, whose color had returned with the excitement of the hunt. “And using depth charges will generate a lot of noise.”

“It should, but I don’t think the Russians will complain. After all, that would be revealing they were the ones behind the attacks, wouldn’t it?” Bonner said as she tapped out updates to her real-time situation report.

She then let herself smile. NATO would soon bag a catch that would leave even those two fishermen jealous.

P.W. Singer is Strategist at New America and the author of multiple books on technology and security. August Cole is associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. They are co-founders of Useful Fiction.

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Budget would cut Pentagon research by one-third. Can industry compensate?

Patrick Tucker — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:54:13 -0400

Pentagon R&D spending would drop by about one-third under the White House’s 2027 defense-spending proposal—but the impact of that $4.5 billion reduction might be cushioned by the tech industry’s willingness to fund its own research.

The proposed drop, which echoes a similar cut in the first Trump administration’s 2020 proposal, was outlined in Friday’s record-breaking $1.5 trillion defense-spending request.

Basic research spending would fall $3.7 billion from this year’s appropriated amount. Most of that—$2.6 billion—would be borne by the Space Force, but reductions would also hit the Army ($173 million), Navy ($529 million), Air Force ($150 million), and the Defense Department-wide account ($202 million).

Applied research funding would drop by about $1.3 billion. The Army’s pool would drop by $1.312 billion while the Navy and Air Force would each lose $150 million. But the DOD-wide account would gain nearly $600 million and Space Force would edge up $56 million, both buoyed by Golden Dome missile-defense work.

The documents released on Friday don’t provide any real explanation for decreasing research spending, although one alludes cryptically to “unnecessary spending and excessive bureaucracy” and “woke frivolities.”The new proposal comes as the White House has already worked to reduce non-defense spending on science and technology research —for example, by 22 percent in the fiscal year 2026 budget.

“While the United States is dismantling the very foundations that have sustained our STEM and innovation leadership for generations, Beijing has announced its plans to continue accelerating its investments in science, technology, and innovation,” says a Nov. 5 letter from Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., ranking member of the House Select Committee on the CCP.

China is increasing its spending on basic and applied research in a wide number of areas in what could be called dual-use technology. Its government says it allocated $569 billion for research and engineering last year. The number is in line with a broader trend of year-over-year increases that have boosted government-funded science spending to 23 times its 2000 level.

Decreases in U.S. government funding for military research and development don’t necessarily mean less basic and applied research funding overall—not when you factor in private-sector spending. Venture capital funding for new defense startups–which largely goes to R&D–is steadily rising.

New and established technology companies that specialize in dual-use products spend more of their own money on R&D than do traditional defense contractors, KPMG reported in January.

Ukraine provides an excellent example of what a newly re-wired industrial base can look like. By some estimates, the country boasts more than a thousand defense startups that are finding customers across continents—and all with very limited government help. The Ukrainian government has allocated about $20 billion for military R&D this year. Ukrainian companies have leaned into information technology, rapid innovation, and continuous experimentation to produce new weapons on short timelines.

Kurt Freshley, a former Marine who leads growth for technology company Valinor, says his company is “encouraged by signals that the Department wants to open the industrial base to new entrants.”

But Freshley said a larger topline for DOD doesn’t necessarily mean more money for new competitors.

“The rewiring question will be answered not by the overall number, but by whether new entrants can compete and deliver,” he said. “If the procurement architecture actually creates room for new companies to compete, if this budget delivers on that, it's genuinely significant.”

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