Defense One - All Content

Agentic-AI tool aims to give US commanders new target options ‘within seconds’

Patrick Tucker — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

A new agentic-AI tool will continuously scan intelligence feeds and operational networks to provide U.S. military commanders with targeting options “within seconds,” the Pentagon announced Thursday.

Dubbed Agent Network, the new tool will employ “agents”—artificial-intelligence entities that perform tasks on behalf of a user, such as running a scheduled search or executing an email campaign—to “continuously scan defense intelligence and operational systems, translating findings into clearly presented options,” said a press release, which added: “Agent Network does not autonomously select or strike targets; it ensures commanders remain in charge of every decision.”

It is one of seven “pace-setting” projects originally unveiled in January along with a new Pentagon AI strategy. Key contractors in the Agent Network effort include Lumbra and Palantir, which already handles much targeting analysis through its Maven Smart Systems contract.

But expectations for what agents can currently do may be running ahead of reality. “Tasks that AI agents are instructed to perform can clearly have computational complexity beyond” what current large language model architectures can handle, Vishal Sikka—a former CEO of SAP—wrote last July.

Citing the seminal Time-Hierarchy Theorem, Sikka noted that transformer models approach difficult tasks and simple ones using the same mechanical formula. These models can only perform so many operations per “token,” which is the way large language models understand word concepts. Even dealing with seemingly simple concepts can require a large number of tokens. Because of this limitation, there is no way to get a transformer-based model to not hallucinate when the task that you give it is more complex than it has tokens to bring to that task.

“Despite their obvious power and applicability in various domains, extreme care must be used before applying LLMs to problems or use cases that require accuracy, or solving problems of non-trivial complexity,” Sikka concluded.

But Illia Pashkov, founder of SINT Labs and editor of The Agent Times, cautioned against underestimating agents’ potential.

“Agentic AI quietly stopped being a demo this year,” Pashkov said. “It's drafting code, clearing support queues, grinding through back-office work in finance and healthcare, and now it's reading intelligence. The speed is not hype. I've watched these systems compress weeks of analyst work into an afternoon.”

But their capabilities also bring risks—more than people accustomed to working with common AI chatbots might realize. Private-sector companies that have rushed to put AI agents to work are already seeing problems, Pashkov said, pointing to a company whose agent wiped a live production database. Unless carefully implemented, agents can’t tell when they’re going wrong.

“The danger was never a dumb agent; it's a confident one running without a leash, a logbook, or a human who owns the call,” he said.

A host of Defense Department offices and teams are beginning to deploy agent systems, said one DOD intelligence security official who is not directly affiliated with the Agent Network program. The official described an atmosphere of enthusiasm.

“There are so many opportunities to leverage the DOD Enterprise capabilities and allow people to build their own agents,” they said.

But the official allowed that keeping track of how every agent is performing is a major challenge. Governing all of them will be nearly impossible.

]]>

What is the Chinese military thinking about the Iran war?

Peter W. Singer — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Subj: Systemic Vulnerabilities and Strategic Overextension: Takeaways from the Recent Western Asian Conflict

Comrade, As requested urgently for your upcoming briefing to the Central Military Commission, I respectfully offer this preliminary strategic analysis regarding the ongoing military conflict involving the United States and Islamic Republic of Iran.

While the current leader of the American Hegemon, President Donald Trump, has publicly expressed a desire to place this war in the "rearview mirror," our nation and the People's Liberation Army cannot afford such comforting illusions. Neither, in truth, can the Americans themselves. Grounded in dialectic principles and systems-confrontation analysis, this report distills five primary analytical breakthroughs from the conflict.

Together they validate our present strategy, while demonstrating growing—and exploitable—weaknesses and mistakes of the United States.

1: Technical Masters, Strategic Amateurs

Any rigorous analysis of American combat employment confirms that they remain shackled by ideological blindness and a cognitive flaw: the United States remains a master of the tactical, but an amateur at the strategic.

Throughout the campaign, the U.S. military conducted complex operations of immense sophistication, scale, and diversity. These merit our respect and provide certain models for further study.

But as has been the case in multiple conflicts across multiple decades, the adversary conflates the kinetic with the realization of political objectives. U.S. leaders measure progress and now claim victory based on numeric localized indicators—the total number of sorties, or physical targets struck, or the death of specific high-value leaders. In reality, none of these tactical actions yielded an outcome in which the hegemon met their various stated political goals for initiating and then sustaining the conflict.

Moreover, this conflict has led to a net diminution of global American power, which is the only measure that truly matters. In each of the dimensions of our competition—political, economic, military, diplomatic, informational, and cultural power—the American leaders end the conflict with lesser freedom of decision, reduced resources, and new problems. Even the once-overwhelming personal influence of their leader is now openly challenged in new ways inside their political system—an asset to us in future diplomatic and trade negotiations.

In sum, American strategic culture continues to possess no coherent mechanism for translating explosive energy into strategic victory.

2: America’s Growing Strategic Isolation

The conflict showed the growing vulnerability within the enemy's coalition architecture, characterized by the hegemon’s disinterest in and inability to maintain genuine alliance harmony. The United States possesses allies, but its current leadership repeatedly and overtly demonstrates that it fundamentally does not value them.

This conflict extended a longstanding pattern of hegemonistic unilateralism. Washington failed to consult its regional client states before launching destabilizing actions, leaving those allies exposed to retaliatory strikes without adequate protective systems. This has led governments in the region, but also those beyond, to question the value of these client relationships. Furthermore, when many of the hegemon's most longstanding partners outside of the region exercised their sovereign judgment and declined to participate in what they correctly assessed as a strategic mistake, U.S. leaders repeatedly attacked them, politically and personally. Current American leadership seems more focused on manifesting itself as a security threat rather than friend and protector.

Each of these factors is now exploitable in our diplomacy and information operations, as further evidence of a broader trend of American unreliability and unpredictability. We no longer have to create disunity; they do so themselves.

The same failure to appreciate alliances was mirrored at the operational and even tactical military level.

Western military observers have rightly discussed the emergence of a “learning complex” that has been built between ourselves, Russia, Iran, and Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in which not just weapons, but intelligence, tactics, and doctrine lessons are exchanged.

The value of this approach was acutely demonstrated on the battlefield. Iranian forces operationalized the latest in Russian tactics and technology, imported from the Ukraine theater, and fused them with intelligence insights provided by our forces and deniable corporations. By using sophisticated, wave-saturated drone strikes paired with decoy systems, the Iranians on multiple occasions defeated or bypassed air-defense networks, causing massive damage to bases and critical infrastructure, each of which had strategic effect.

Many of these tactics and technologies had been exhibited in other conflicts for over a decade, most particularly in Ukraine. Yet the U.S. military demonstrated a profound lack of preparation for them, and their doctrinal rigidity and arrogance cost the lives of numerous American soldiers.

The Americans’ failure to adapt is all the more striking because they have an extensive presence in each of these conflicts: military, intelligence, and defense industrial connections to one and sometimes both sides. This illustrates not just the American institutional inertia in adaptation, but also their failure to appreciate and use their relationships with other experienced militaries. The Americans often seemed to operate in a vacuum, as if contemporary lessons of conflict and the experiences and insights of their partners did not even exist.

3: The New Math of War

The adversary fails to comprehend the changing objective laws of modern informationized and increasingly intelligentized warfare, and their connection to the realities of modern defense-industrial supply chains.

The U.S. political and military apparatus boasts of hitting an astounding 13,000 targets. Yet the cost to do so, measured in munitions alone, averaged $4 million apiece.

Their defensive posture suffered from a similar, and fatal, structural cost asymmetry. The Americans routinely engaged mass-produced, low-cost assets, such as $20,000 drones, using multi-million-dollar interceptors designed for high-end fighters and even ballistic missiles.

The American way of war is unsustainable in not just cost but capability. The conflict showed that the adversary’s interceptor inventory is dangerously shallow and exposed. The United States expended an estimated 150 of its THAAD rounds, of which it is believed to have had 190 to 290. At their purchasing rate of 12 new THAAD interceptors per fiscal year, replacing a single month of conflict consumption will require more than 12.5 years of uninterrupted industrial output. Even before the conflict, these numbers were insufficient compared to the capability of the PLARF.

This structural deficit is mirrored across their entire defensive apparatus. The Patriot system rests at a current inventory of 1,060 to 1,430 (against an objective of 2,330); each missile costs $3.9 million. The naval SM-6 is limited to 190 to 370 units (against an objective of 1,160); it costs $5.3 million apiece. The critical SM-3 theater interceptor is restricted to a mere 130 to 250 units (objective: 410), at a prohibitive unit price of $28.7 million.

U.S. leaders, who framed victory by offensive munitions fired, burned through their stockpiles of precision-guided munitions and advanced strike missiles. At current production rates, it will take them until 2030 to restore their pre-war inventory of Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The high expenditure rate is also another facet of their failure to appreciate their now-fraying alliance commitments. For instance, Japan's order of 400 Tomahawks will now be delayed, while Patriot missiles were moved away from defending allies and American bases in the Pacific.

There are two larger takeaways for our strategy from the American inability to keep pace with the appetite of their self-created demands.

First, while they trumpet a revitalized defense industrial base, now driven by social-media-technology oligarchs, their defense industrial complex still remains fundamentally beholden to the forces of short-term market profit rather than comprehensive national power and state resilience. They simply lack the surge production capacity to sustain the high-intensity consumption their way of war requires.

But even more, by forcing their system into an early war of attrition against a secondary power, the Americans have severely compromised their strategic depth and readiness for any future high-intensity confrontation elsewhere, for at least a half decade.

Both points validate the correctness of our Rocket Force’s doctrine of saturated strike capabilities designed to comprehensively paralyze the Americans’ and their client states’ defensive architectures.

4: Self-Inflicted Cognitive Warfare

The conflict reinforced other areas of our theory of victory in any confrontation with America. Most notably, it revealed that the U.S. is uniquely vulnerable to cognitive warfare. In fact, America now appears to specialize in conducting these psychological and information operations against itself.

The rationale behind the Iran conflict remains in great dispute across the American political system and society, with equal confusion and debate about its starting goals and even its termination point. For-profit social-media companies and the American political media apparatus have constructed insulated information bubbles that feed their audiences whatever outcome they most want to be validated by. To different audiences, the conflict is simultaneously a historic triumph and a glaring disaster.

Exacerbating these internal contradictions is a growing preoccupation with domestic culture wars at the expense of coherent strategic execution of real wars. Nor has this phenomenon been mitigated by various attempts at providing a circus of public entertainments that do not seem to be providing either unity or distraction.

In a parallel to the dynamics of U.S alliances, we no longer need to create disunity. While U.S. actions validate our investments in cognitive warfare, they may render them less necessary than when first envisioned, as none of the above was achieved through Iranian or our own cognitive-warfare operations during the recent conflict. The American’s own internal information and ideological fracturing severely degrades their strategic willpower and opens them to further exploitation.

5: Strategic Pressure Points

Nothing highlights this more than what the American political-military-media-entertainment complex chose to celebrate as the war’s greatest triumph: not battles won or geopolitical repositioning, but the rescue of a single pilot.

To review the operational facts, a mythologized, vanguard American asset was easily ambushed and neutralized by Iranian air defenses, which had supposedly already been defeated, in part due to our learning complex. The downed American pilot was then extracted via a massive, exorbitantly expensive rescue operation. A force of 155 aircraft, including 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft, and four nuclear-capable strategic bombers, as well over 100 of the most elite of US special operators were put at risk. Multiple helicopters and drones were then damaged or lost. The fiasco concluded with American forces being compelled to abandon and destroy two of their exorbitantly expensive, rare special-operations aircraft. In a striking display of strategic hubris meeting reality, these $130 million symbols of imperialist intervention ended up hopelessly mired in the mud of Iran.

Unimaginable in our system, the fate of this lone pilot personally occupied the attention of every single member of the American national senior leadership for an entire day. In a world where leader time is the most finite of resources, perhaps this is an even more condemnable use of resources amid a war. This stems from their anxiety that the fate of a single nameless individual would entirely shatter their domestic illusion of absolute military supremacy and determine their nation’s perceptions of overall victory or defeat. Based on their behavior and how their political system operates, they were correct in this judgement.

The recovery of the pilot subsequently extolled by their national media and claimed as a both great and personal victory by President Trump. He claimed the chain of tactical losses, operational waste, and strategic misattention showed the U.S. to have “the best, most professional, and lethal Military in the History of the World.” Extending their cognitive campaign into the long term, it was then announced a few days later that it will be made into a Hollywood movie. It is no coincidence that it will have the same director as the movies Pearl Harbor and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, both of which similarly sought to rewrite embarrassing American defeats as stories of heroic success and moral superiority.

The episode is instructive, and not just in how Americans reframed what any other nation would view as a tactical defeat into a strategic and “historic” victory. It illustrates a critical dialectic in American political and military culture. While callous about a conflict that saw thousands killed across the region, they care about their own people to the point of desperation, treating the survival of individual personnel as a metric of absolute strategic value.

To CCP leadership, the situation reveals clear strategic pressure points for future crisis behavior, treatment of allied populations, and likelihood of accepting high-intensity conflict. For PLA operational planning, the adversary's extreme aversion to casualties and their obsession with personnel recovery can be easily weaponized, so as to paralyze their tactical, theater-level, and national command decision-making. It can also be a means to deter or draw out and destroy high-value enemy assets.

CONCLUSION

The results of the American conflict against Iran do not mean that we would inevitably win a war against them. But they do demonstrate that we are winning the war for the future itself.

==============

Addendum: After this memo was reprinted in the American media, Pentagon leadership issued a response:

"This memo supposedly from Beijing is exactly the kind of over-intellectualized, administrative trash we are actively scrubbing out of the Department of War. Some armchair theorist wants to lecture us on 'the dialectic' and 'cognitive traps' while his own state-controlled echo chamber ignores reality. Let me make one thing crystal clear to the communists in Beijing: we do not measure the success of an American combat operation by spreadsheet metrics or the profit margins of globalist supply chains. We decimated 13,000 threats, neutralized their command nodes, and we did it with the most lethal, unapologetic display of raw power the world has seen in a generation.

"The bean-counters trying to use inventory arithmetic as an excuse for strategic timidity are fundamentally miscalculating how a superpower fights and wins. We did this from a position of absolute strength, leading with unmatched military might. Any suggestion that our defense industrial base is too fragile to sustain high-intensity operations is unhelpful, foolishly overstated, and fails to appreciate the sheer, adaptive scale of American manufacturing when it is fully unleashed.

"If anyone thinks he found a 'strategic pressure point' because we executed a massive, high-risk mission to rescue our downed pilots, he is a fool. He calls it a weakness that we blew up our own gear to protect our people. That isn’t a flaw—that is the sacred bond of the American warrior ethos, and it’s something a communist bureaucrat who views his own soldiers as expendable state property will never understand. We will spend whatever it takes, fire whatever interceptor is required, and push forward with absolutely no quarter and no mercy to bring our boys home.

"As for his pathetic attempt to lecture us on internal 'culture wars,' he's late to the punch. The days of a woke, risk-averse Pentagon distracted by bureaucratic summits and diversity seminars are over; under this administration, we have systematically re-centered our entire military apparatus around a singular, deadly purpose: winning wars. While China and its buddies in Russia try to build an 'authoritarian learning bloc' out of cheap, attritable drones, they are fundamentally miscalculating the sleeping giant they are poking. We are rebuilding our defense industrial stockpiles with pure, unadulterated American manufacturing scale. Beijing can keep writing its comfortable memos and analyzing our internal politics all they want, but the moment they try to step into the breach, they will find out exactly what happens when the full, unfiltered power of the American war machine, led by our greatest President, is unleashed on them."

]]>

Could the Army’s light squad vehicle power battlefield drones?

Lauren C. Williams — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 16:59:14 -0400

The Army’s proliferating drone use is exacerbating the modern problem of keeping everything charged. One combat team is testing ways to use its light Infantry Squad Vehicles as mobile charging stations.

“As we field technology, power generation becomes increasingly problematic. The [Integrated Tactical Network], all the soldier-borne equipment, all require batteries that have to be recharged. [Enhanced Night Vision Goggles] require batteries, particularly to use thermals,” said Col. Ryan Bell, commander of the 3rd Mobile Brigade Combat Team in the 101st Airborne Division, of lessons from an April training rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

Finding ways to boost battery power on the battlefield—and learning how long new tech lasts in different conditions—is a persistent problem for the military.

“As we add drones…the [Short Range Reconnaissance], the [Medium-Range Reconnaissance], they all have to be charged,” Bell told reporters Thursday.

So the unit equipped its ISVs with inverters, similar to the kind of thing any car owner might plug into the outlet formerly known as a cigarette lighter to get standard 120V power.

“Every squad functionally had their own generator without having to tow a trailer, or a generator, behind it,” Bell said.

But more power is needed, he said, like hybrid generators that could deliver up to 10 kilowatts, depending on a unit’s needs.

Bell suggested sizing the generators so they can be mounted on the five-seater ISV-Utility variant the Army plans to field. They could also be towed, but that’s not a great solution for rough terrain.

The Senate’s version of the 2027 defense policy bill would greenlight multiyear procurement of the ISVs if adopted in the final version.

“As future ISVs are fielded, we need to ensure they are utilized as power generation platforms, particularly for our squads. Our use of the vehicle as a sustainment platform by adding commercial off-the-shelf racks on the back was very helpful,” Bell said.

“We are also excited to get the ISV-U, which will give us more utility lift capacity. Having a single, common platform across the formation will simplify our logistics chain. The utility variant will be extremely helpful for mission command and power generation for our command posts.”

Bell also said troops also need batteries that carry more charge and last longer, which would “reduce the number of batteries you have to charge and have to carry, because solder load is a real thing.”

]]>

House, mostly, backs $1.5B White House moves to fund E-7 Wedgetail

Thomas Novelly — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 20:06:49 -0400

House appropriators supported a $1.5 billion White House budget request to back E-7 Wedgetail development, but pushed back on an attempt to raid the Navy’s airborne early warning account to partially fund the Air Force’s next-generation radar plane.

In a letter last week, Russell Vought, the Office of Management and Budget director, detailed the E-7 shuffle to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. The Pentagon suggested pulling $651 million from the Navy’s E-2 procurement account and $899 million from the Air Force’s classified special update programs. While House appropriators backed the full E-7 funding in their version of the annual defense spending bill on Wednesday, they also restored the money to the Navy’s coffers.

“While the [Appropriations] Committee wholly supports the E–7 program and funding realignment, the Committee also restored the E–2D program to six aircraft for fiscal year 2027,” lawmakers wrote in their report. “The Committee understands the operational necessity of the E–2D platform; the complementary nature of the E–2D and E–7; and believes that more aircraft, not fewer, are necessary to support our warfighters now and in the future.”

An Air Force spokesperson declined to comment on the programs affected by the shuffle.

Airpower advocates have intensified their push for E-7 funding and battlespace awareness upgrades since an Air Force E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control aircraft was damaged in March during the war in Iran. While the Pentagon omitted the Wedgetail its 2027 budget requests, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reversed course and told lawmakers last month that the next-generation replacement is needed for future conflicts.

Given the dwindling E-3 fleet, appropriators said the military’s reliance on airborne battle management aircraft means more investment is needed in a next-generation replacement.

“The conflict in Iran has reinforced the need for the Air Force to maintain a credible airborne battle management capability, currently being met with the Air Force’s E–3 Airborne Warning and Control System and the Navy’s E–2D Hawkeye programs,” lawmakers wrote. “As the E–3 is set to retire, the E–7 Wedgetail will serve as [a] modern replacement for lost battle management capability, commensurate and interoperable with assets already being utilized by key allies.”

Lawmakers also ordered Air Force Secretary Troy Meink to brief the House and Senate defense appropriation subcommittees “on the full E–7 acquisition strategy, to include required quantity; funding requirements across the future years defense program; and schedules for development and production” by the time the 2028 budget request is submitted.

One expert said having the White House, Pentagon, and Congress on the same page, bodes well for the program.

“I believe the likelihood of the program getting off to a great start is very, very high,” said Mark Gunzinger, the Mitchell Institute’s director of future concepts and capability assessments. He added that any shuffling of funds within the service’s accounts “will hurt programs.”

]]>

Defense Business Brief: SECARMY’s dream marketplace; USARPAC + USVs; and Quantum EOs

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

ARLINGTON, Va.—From rockets to tanks, the Army wants to expand its current Amazon-esque marketplace where soldiers, allies and partners now buy drones and counter-UAS tech.

“The grand strategy of conflict going forward is compatibility,” Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told reporters Tuesday during the Army’s industry day for low-cost interceptors. “The way that small nations like Finland are going to be able to partner with large nations like the United States, and we are going to be able to parachute into a theater where a lot of our stuff doesn't exist, is that our allies have compatible equipment to us.”

To do that, everyone needs to have the right “plumbing” for information-sharing, “and then—in theory, in a perfect world, you want everyone buying from the same places. They don't have to buy the same thing, but they want to buy that compatible stuff,” Driscoll said. “We're functioning almost like Consumer Reports, where we are reviewing many of the products on there, we're allowing other countries to put their reviews on there, and then…just let free market forces dictate what are the best products.”

The service already has dedicated marketplaces for cUAS and aerial drones and, last week, inked a deal with NATO allies and partners to use the platforms. Nine partner countries signed a letter of intent at the Eurosatory conference: Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the Army confirmed to Defense One. They join the eight nations already signed on: Australia, Argentina, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand.

The unmanned aerial system marketplace has approximately 45 companies represented and more than $200 million in sales, said Brent Ingraham, the Army’s acquisition chief. It’s also generating sales from allies and partners.

The ultimate goal is to have just one platform with virtually all Army materiel available. And when a soldier places an order, it goes directly to the vendor within 24 hours.

“We're merging the marketplaces together,” Ingraham told reporters. “When a soldier goes in and says: I want to buy 110, 300 of some product on this on the current UAS or counter-UAS marketplace, that automatically kicks directly over to an order that flows to that company.”

Driscoll described a future, broader digital marketplace as something that could reshape how the military positions materiel abroad vis-à-vis prepositioned stock: “It's kind of a rewriting of how we, the United States, can engage in conflict abroad.”

And perhaps, one day, low-cost interceptors could be a part of that marketplace. The Army plans to release an RFI for low-cost interceptors July 6 with a four-week window for submissions, and the goal of having tech demonstrations by the first quarter of fiscal year 2027.

Welcome

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

USARPAC + drone boats. Gen. Ronald Clark, commander of U.S. Army Pacific, is all about using unmanned systems for logistics and sustainment. But the key is working with companies that can build what the command needs.

The Army primarily uses watercraft for sustainment, which is something unmanned surface vessels could help with “at range and scale,” Clark told reporters.
“We're not there yet, but again, we're working with a number of companies to try to get them to build to the requirements we need to assist us with the business of logistics and sustainment on behalf of the joint force across the Pacific. So [there’s] a lot of opportunity associated with unmanned and uncrewed systems.”
When it comes to numbers and size of the USVs, Clark said he is open—as long as it gets the job done.
“I got asked a question at the Pacific Forum by a vendor, if I would rather have one 200-foot autonomous system or 20 10-foot autonomous systems—and I said both.”
“The bottom line is: we have to be able to provide logistics and sustainment at scale. And as the theater Army, our responsibility to provide resiliency to the joint force through logistics and sustainment is part of our mission” and the service is “working directly with companies to try to build what we need in order to meet the requirements to be able to conduct both inter and intra-theater logistics.”

All quantum everything. The Pentagon released its “Post Quantum Cryptography Strategy” Tuesday, following the signing of two White House executive orders designed to speed up development of quantum computing.

Those orders charge the department with identifying at least three new quantum sensors in the next 60 days, which would then be fielded by September 2028.
But while the Pentagon’s strategy says it “will update, replace, or remove from use edge systems” with quantum-vulnerable cryptography, modernization “is only a first step,” Kirsten Davies, the department’s chief information officer, said Wednesday at a SAP event in Washington, D.C. “It's important, but it's only a first step.”
All in all, the moves have spurred much excitement from the quantum industry:
"America’s quantum moment is arriving," Victor Peng, CEO at PsiQuantum said in a statement to Defense One.
Sristy Agrawal, Mesa Quantum co-founder and CEO, said U.S. tech dominance “relies on quantum, from computing to sensing” and the executive orders ensure “the domestic quantum ecosystem will continue to grow and flourish.”
Background: Quantum computing promises the ability to solve problems and make calculations that modern binary computers can’t handle, which could mean discovering new materials or compounds, and breaking the encryption used to safeguard state secrets and financial data.
But while the tech still needs to be proven, the EOs make it the last piece in a trifecta—alongside AI and semiconductors—for the future of compute. Get the whole story from Nextgov’s Alexandra Kelley here.

Making moves + other news

The Pentagon announced plans for a 90-day assessment of its research labs and development centers.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised ethics concerns with the Trump administration’s nominee to lead space acquisition, Erich Hernandez-Baquero, Raytheon’s vice president for space intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
Rune snagged a $99 million contract with the Army for predictive logistics.
The Marine Corps ordered more than 70 of Polaris’ MRZR Alphas as part of the Ultra-Light Tactical Vehicle, or ULTV, contract.
Robert Neller, the former Marine Corps commandant, joins critical minerals company Mint Innovation as a strategic advisor.
The Defense Logistics Agency awarded eVAC Magnetics $13 million to manufacture domestic rare-earth magnets.
Robert Geckle will be the new CEO for Thales’s North American business on July 1. Geckle was previously the CEO of Airbus U.S. Space & Defense.
Booz Allen plans to acquire the defense tech company Ultra Mission Solutions for $720 million.

]]>

RIMPAC kicks off in Hawaii with a focus on experimentation

Jennifer Hlad — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:07:20 -0400

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii—The 30th iteration of RIMPAC will feature 30 to 35 experiments that involve unmanned systems, the Pacific Fleet’s second-in-command said Wednesday.

The experiments are “a major part” of this year’s edition of the biennial Exercise Rim of the Pacific, Vice Adm. Jeffrey Jablon told reporters at a press conference. He declined to provide specifics.

Along with the drones, RIMPAC also includes 30 countries, 31 surface ships, five submarines, and nearly 200 aircraft, Jablon said. While the theme is “partners: integrated and prepared,” he said his top priorities for each of the 30,000 participants are “safety, environmental stewardship, and professionalism.”

Though deterring China while getting ready to defend against a potential attack is a major focus for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Jablon said RIMPAC “is not about any one particular country or a deterrent for any one particular country.”

And the war with Iran “had no impact” on RIMPAC, Jablon said. “The United States is contributing the same number of forces that we normally contribute.”

Jablon is serving as the commander of the combined task force for RIMPAC. Underscoring the partnership aspect of the exercise, the deputy commander is a Chilean navy officer, the vice commander is a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force officer, the maritime component commander is a Korean navy officer, and the air component commander is a Royal Canadian Navy officer.

The exercise will end with the sinking of two decommissioned U.S. Navy ships.

]]>

ODNI deputy director pushed out amid Pulte shakeup

David DiMolfetta — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 22:00:00 -0400

Will Ruger, the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration, was placed on administrative leave as part of a broader personnel shakeup at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that has removed roughly 50 career and political staffers from their roles since Bill Pulte became acting director Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Around 15 to 20 mission integration personnel detailed to ODNI from other U.S. intelligence units are believed to have been sent back to their home agencies, added the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to communicate the personnel shifts.

The removals could have practical consequences because mission integration is one of the main offices ODNI uses to link work across the intelligence landscape. The directorate is responsible for coordinating the 18 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community and helping ensure they perform as a unified enterprise. The unit also advises the director of national intelligence on how findings are collected, analyzed and used to inform policy and operational decisions.

CBS News first reported details of Ruger’s dismissal. The estimated number of mission integration staff moved back to their home agencies has not been previously reported.

The moves have occurred under the broader shakeup at ODNI since Pulte took over as acting director after former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard left the role. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Wednesday that Pulte had told him roughly 45 to 50 career officers were being sent back to their home agencies, while a smaller number of front-office personnel were leaving federal service altogether.

Many ODNI employees serve on joint duty assignments, temporary postings that bring personnel from other intelligence agencies into the director’s office.

ODNI has not returned requests for comment about the downsizing plans.

Pulte’s early moves come as Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee to serve as the Senate-confirmed intelligence chief, awaits Senate consideration, though the president ordered the cancellation of Clayton’s hearing last week until the Senate could confirm the new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who would be Clayton’s replacement.

Democrats warned that Pulte’s role in the president’s mortgage fraud reviews last year could foreshadow an abuse of intelligence tools to target the president’s political opponents, leading to the historic lapse of a key surveillance authority earlier this month.

Confirming Clayton would have helped reshore support from key Democrats for the surveillance power. But Trump also asserted that the spying authority — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — should not pass without the concurrent passage of a controversial voter identification bill that doesn’t have enough support in Congress.

Cotton said Wednesday that Pulte broadly agrees with returning ODNI to its “original size, scope and mission,” including by spinning off some functional centers and sending detailed officers back to their home agencies.

The downsizing push began under Gabbard, whose office had announced plans to cut roughly 40% of ODNI’s workforce and said the effort was a streamlining measure that would save more than $700 million annually.

Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees warned Pulte this week against making major changes while serving in an acting capacity, arguing that large-scale personnel moves and other consequential decisions should be left to a Senate-confirmed director.

]]>

Pentagon's quantum strategy ‘a first step’ in preparing for the future, CIO says

Edward Graham — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:30:00 -0400

The Pentagon’s new strategy for defending against quantum computers will ensure “the integrity of our systems for decades to come,” its IT lead said Wednesday, but network modernization “is only a first step” in readying the U.S. military for the threat.

Speaking at the SAP NOW summit in Washington, D.C., Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies said the Defense Department's new guidance for “accelerating our adoption of post-quantum cryptography” will mitigate the danger.

The strategy was released on Tuesday, one day after President Donald Trump signed two executive orders meant to hasten domestic development of quantum capabilities and ward off threats to federal agencies’ cryptographic security systems.

The strategy outlines five “major lines-of-effort”: centralize department governance, scan for vulnerabilities and develop a migration framework, develop post-quantum cryptographic algorithms and protocols, integrate secure commercial products into department operations, and deploy quantum-resistant devices.

It also sets deadlines: all Pentagon systems must support post-quantum cryptography “or be phased out” by the end of 2030, with all systems supporting new standards by the end of 2031 “unless otherwise noted.”

Davies said these steps are just part of the department’s need to “ensure the national security infrastructure and the complex supply chains that underpin every mission are robust and ready in an increasingly unpredictable world.”

Other steps include better adoption of new technologies. Davies said the department is “unlocking the full potential of data and artificial intelligence” to improve its operations.

‘We're transforming information into decision dominance, automating complex logistical challenges, predicting supply chain bottlenecks before they happen and ensuring our commanders and the warfighters have the intelligence they need at the speed of relevance,” she said.

The Pentagon has also been trying to attract skilled cyber-defense workers. In April, the department announced a Cyber Registered Apprenticeship Program that emphasizes skills-based hiring over educational backgrounds, something the Trump administration has pushed for. The pilot is set to launch in July. Davies said the program “has already generated more than 70,000 inquiries.”

“By breaking down silos across industry and the federal enterprise, by reinvigorating our vital supply chains, by harnessing the power of innovation and unleashing the unmatched talents of the American workforce, we will dominate the digital frontier,” she said.

]]>

General Atomics plans upgrade so ground stations can fly newer MQ-9 drones

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:50:07 -0400

General Atomics is working to enable older MQ-9 ground stations to control the latest version of the drone, allowing longtime operators moving to newer models to buy the upgrade package instead of a whole new terminal.

The company is expected to announce this week that its Block 30 ground control stations, introduced in 2016 to control the MQ-9A Reaper, will be modified to also fly the MQ-9B SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian drones. General Atomics expects to begin flight testing with the new stations by the end of the year.

“We understand that [ground control station] compatibility is a concern for some current MQ-9A operators considering the MQ-9B, and we want to remove that issue for them,” C. Mark Brinkley, a General Atomics spokesperson, said in a statement. “This upfront investment of our own internal research and development funding is one way we hope to make the overall acquisition process smoother.”

The Air Force operates roughly 140 Block 30 stations to control its MQ-9As, which have seen heavy use, and losses, in the ongoing war on Iran. The Air Force’s top uniformed leader called the drone the “most valuable player” of Operation Epic Fury.

The Senate Armed Service Committee is also a fan of the aircraft. Provisions in the committee’s version of the pending 2027 National Defense Authorization Act would limit the service’s ability to retire MQ-9s and direct it to acquire more by 2028.

But the Air Force is looking to replace the venerable drone, and General Atomics has a pitch ready: the MQ-9B, with a larger wingspan, range, and endurance than its predecessor.

Brinkley said the upgraded ground stations will make it more affordable for militaries to buy the SkyGuardian and SeaGuardians.

Current Block 30 ground control station users include the U.S. military, the Italian Air Force, the French Air Force, the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces, the Spanish Air Force, and the Royal Netherlands Air Force, according to the company.

“The upgraded Block 30 GCS will allow existing Reaper customers to also operate MQ-9B from that same GCS,” Brinkley said. “Upgrading existing Block 30s will be significantly cheaper overall than purchasing new CGCS units, and delivery will be faster.”

The hardware upgrades for those ground control stations are focused on the datalink capability for the MQ-9B, which includes a new datalink rack and the company’s Interface Multiplexor Encryptor, General Atomics said in a statement. The software is also being modified to “interface with the unique capabilities” of the SkyGuardian and SeaGuardians.

General Atomics' certifiable ground control station, or CGCS, is meant specifically for the MQ-9B and can be used to fly the aircraft in military and civilian airspaces. The upgrades to the Block 30 ground control stations will still limit the MQ-9A and MQ-9B to military airspace, although the company did fly the SeaGuardians with the Block 30 before during development.

“The upgraded Block 30 will not be certifiable in the same way the CGCS has been developed to meet various global standards and the new GCS has a better, more modern human-machine interface,” Brinkley said. “But for customers looking to fly a mixed fleet, the Block 30 upgrade gets them there sooner.”

]]>

Sen. Warren seeks ethics pledge from Raytheon exec nominated to top space acquisition job

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:09:39 -0400

A U.S. senator wants a Raytheon executive who was nominated to serve as a top Air Force space acquisition official to commit to impartial and ethical business dealings if confirmed to the post, according to a new letter reviewed by Defense One.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is seeking an ethics pledge from Erich Hernandez-Baquero, Raytheon’s vice president for space intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, according to the letter sent from her office on Tuesday. He was nominated by the White House to serve as the Air Force’s assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration in April. In her letter, Warren asked the former Air Force officer and current defense executive to recuse himself from all matters involving his former employer for four years and not to seek money from a firm tied to the Defense Department for four years after he leaves the role.

“Your relationship with a defense contractor that you served for five years as a senior executive

will raise concerns about the appearance of impartiality if you are confirmed in your new role,” she wrote. “In order to address the concerns about your conflicts, I urge you to voluntarily commit to mitigate your conflicts of interest and assure Americans that you will serve in their best interest.”

Hernandez-Baquero could not be reached at multiple numbers listed for him in public records.

Raytheon spokespeople did not return a request for comment.

Warren’s letter is part of her continued crusade against the government-defense revolving door, which ethics watchdogs have warned can lead to self-dealing and conflicts of interest within the Pentagon. She has asked for similar commitments from Lloyd Austin, who became defense secretary after serving on Raytheon’s board, and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown, who joined the Trump-backed drone firm Powerus shortly after being booted from the administration.

A 2023 report from Warren’s office listed roughly 700 former high-ranking defense and government officials who were later hired by the top 20 defense contractors. Federal ethics laws prohibit government employees from being involved in matters that concern their former employers for one year; the laws also prohibit being involved in deals that an employee would financially benefit from.

Warren is seeking a more substantial pledge including “committing not to work for or accept compensation for at least four years from any company that you engage with while serving” after exiting the role.

“While these laws create important guardrails, they fall short of fully addressing conflict of interest concerns: they may still allow government officials to work on matters that could affect their previous employers once a one-year period and full divestiture have passed, and they can be undermined by exemptions,” she wrote. “And they still allow officials to move through the revolving door by accepting senior advisory roles within the defense industry or lobbying DoD.”

Hernandez-Baquero joined Raytheon in 2021 after a 27-year career in the Air Force, according to his LinkedIn page. In April, the defense executive signed an ethics agreement where he agreed that once confirmed he would “forfeit my unvested restricted stock units, unvested performance stock units, and unvested stock appreciation rights” after resigning from the defense contractor.

]]>

Space Force must prepare for all-out warfare, think tank says

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 22:52:57 -0400

The Space Force needs to better define its policies regarding conflict in space and better rehearse for various scenarios, a new research paper argues.

The paper flowed from a January workshop held by the Mitchell Institute. About 50 space experts envisioned various new ways that satellites and spacecraft might be used in gray-zone or even wartime conflicts. These included Russian cyber-attacks in Europe, jamming of U.S. satellites, the mysterious destruction of Cape Canaveral’s bridges, the “repositioning of a recently inoperable European commercial satellite without prior coordination,” the deactivation of Midwestern power grids—even an unattributed “nuclear detonation” in low earth orbit.

But determining who is behind a space-focused strike and how the U.S. military should appropriately respond is often difficult, according to the Mitchell Institute’s findings.

“Space presents a uniquely complex warfighting environment. The global and technical nature of the domain complicates the understanding of and response to hostile acts,” Mitchell Institute researchers wrote. “As a result, attribution, escalation management, and credible response selection are daunting. Further, actions taken in space rarely produce isolated or localized effects; instead, they cascade across geographic combatant commands, civilian infrastructure, and global equities.”

The U.S. Space Force is embracing a warfighting-focused identity and is pitching its largest budget in the service’s six-year history. But as the Space Force grows, there continues to be a lack of norms and laws for how the military should respond to a variety of future attacks.

The increased ambiguity and difficulty of attribution for attacks makes it difficult for the U.S. to take decisive action, the report said.

“Workshop discussions highlighted the inherent complexity of space as a domain that defies traditional geographic and legal constructs, complicates attribution, and enables adversaries to normalize coercive behavior below clear thresholds of armed conflict,” the report said. “Participants emphasized that this ambiguity favors competitors by slowing decision-making and conditioning acceptance of increasingly hostile actions.”

The Asian, European, and Middle Eastern theaters could all be targeted by space attacks. Participants discussed the possibilities such as “regional GPS jamming disrupting airlines” in U.S. Central Command, or China firing an anti-satellite weapon in the Indo-Pacific, causing the orbital debris to damage the International Space Station “killing a U.S. astronaut and positioning of satellites near U.S. systems,” the report said.

More direct attacks on the U.S. could also stymie the military’s space operations. Other examples in the report included unattributed “explosions against all bridges connecting the mainland with Cape Canaveral” that would cease missions at the Florida space complex or if a submarine “launched a volley of 20 conventional ballistic and cruise missiles” at key West Coast installations such as California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Participants said space is “a decision environment characterized by uncertainty and delay,” according to the report. While determining the cause of certain space-based attacks and calculating a potential military response was complicated, Mitchell researchers said it is a necessary exercise that should inform space force policy.

“None of this can remain theoretical. Guardians, joint force leaders, allies, and partners all need to train and exercise against these scenarios,” Jennifer Reeves, a retired Air Force colonel and Mitchell Institute resident fellow said during a roundtable on Tuesday. “Repeated exercises build familiarity, improve decision making, and help translate concepts into executable options.”

An enemy’s space operations rely heavily on cyber attacks or jamming satellites, and often fall in the “gray zone” that dodges the laws of armed conflict. Participants said they believed “that U.S.-China interactions in space are firmly within the gray zone, characterized by actions that are coercive, often deniable, and deliberately calibrated to avoid triggering a decisive response.”

While the Mitchell researchers argued that the U.S. must “build combat credibility by reducing ambiguity through clearer norms and frameworks,” they also acknowledged there’s some benefit to not having defined rules for space conflict.

“While clearer expectations could help guide behavior and improve decision speed, establishing explicit thresholds presents trade-offs,” the researchers wrote. “Clearly defined red lines risk constraining U.S. decision space while incentivizing adversaries to operate just below those thresholds, achieving meaningful effects without triggering a response.”

Charles Galbreath, a retired Space Force colonel and Mitchell’s space studies director and senior resident, said during Tuesday’s roundtable that “there really isn't a lot legally prohibiting us from pursuing effective counter-space operations” and added that “we need to make sure that we understand what our policies are and why they're in place in such a way, and also not limit ourselves in terms of response options.”

The Mitchell Institute’s research paper is the think tank’s latest report advocating for the Space Force to adopt more aggressive strategies and policies. In May, researchers argued for putting troops on the moon to prepare for an in-person conflict with China and last year pitched the idea of putting guardians aboard critical assets in orbit.

]]>

Senate joins House in rebuke of Trump over his war in Iran

Ashley Murray, Stateline — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 22:07:39 -0400

The Republican-led U.S. Senate served up a rare public check on President Donald Trump’s agenda Tuesday when it voted to approve a House-passed War Powers Resolution to end hostilities in Iran.

Senate approval marked the first time both chambers have agreed in a rebuke of Trump over his war in Iran.

The concurrent resolution, which passed 50-48, does not require the president’s signature and its enforceability has been a perennial topic of debate.

The Senate’s approval occurred against the backdrop of the administration’s peace deal negotiations with Iran, which have been criticized from both sides of the aisle.

Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the measure: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Rand Paul of Kentucky; Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, who recently lost his primary race after Trump endorsed an opponent; and Susan Collins, who’s fighting a tough reelection campaign in Maine.

Democrat John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted no. Paul and Fetterman have broken ranks with their parties on several previous Iran War Powers Resolution votes.

Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was recently hospitalized, and Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania did not vote. McCormick was with Trump on a trip to Pennsylvania.

Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, argue that War Powers Resolutions are not constitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 ruled against the validity of congressional measures that do not require a president’s signature.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Congress “stood up to Donald Trump and voted to end his costly, unnecessary, and devastating war with Iran.”

“Let me be clear: for the first time, this resolution has passed both chambers of Congress and does not require the President’s signature. The message from the only branch of government with the power to declare war is unmistakable: the Trump administration must withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities in Iran. The pressure on Republicans mounts,” Schumer said in a statement following the vote.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., who sponsored the original resolution that passed the House on June 3, said the measure is binding and the president “must cease all hostilities against Iran.”

“Regardless of what President Trump says, this measure is binding under the War Powers Resolution, and I will explore all legal avenues to ensure the Executive complies with the will of Congress. Congress never authorized this failed war, and the president certainly has no authority to continue it indefinitely without our consent as the Constitution demands,” Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement.

The White House declined to comment on the vote.

Negotiations continue

Administration officials, who maintain hostilities ended in early April, are on a 60-day clock to hammer out a final agreement with Iran.

As part of a temporary memorandum of understanding in effect during talks, the administration lifted its naval blockade of Iranian ports and economic sanctions on Iranian oil, allowing the Islamic Republic to now sell on the global market.

The interim deal also charges Iran with demining the Strait of Hormuz and allowing tankers and cargo ships to travel unimpeded while Iran and Oman create a scheme for passage through the narrow shipping route where one-fifth of the world’s petroleum traveled prior to the war.

Trump issued social media threats to Iran over the weekend as Iran’s new Persian Gulf Strait Authority continued to impose certain requirements for ships to pass.

Thirteen American service members died in the war launched by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, and over 400 have been injured, according to the Pentagon. Thousands of civilians across Iran and the Gulf region were killed during the fighting.

All States Newsroom content is free to republish. Read our republishing policyfor more information.

]]>

Parts of NSA lose Mythos 5 access after White House imposes limits

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 20:43:00 -0400

Parts of the National Security Agency have lost access to Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model after the Trump administration restricted its export, though the agency may have limited ways to use the technology, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Some agency analysts were notified Friday that they would lose access to Mythos, one of the people said. The NSA may still be able to use earlier versions of the technology under prior arrangements, said the second person. Both were granted anonymity to speak freely about the situation.

The change could disrupt at least some NSA work involving one of the most closely watched AI tools in government, where civilian and defense officials have been testing whether advanced models can help identify software weaknesses in their systems.

The access issues stem from the administration’s decision this month to impose export controls on Anthropic, citing national-security concerns, which forced the company to pull back the release of its most advanced models, including Mythos 5 and Fable 5. The decision has raised questions about how U.S. cyber agencies will continue using the technology.

This month, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said NSA Director Gen. Joshua Rudd had told him that Mythos “broke into almost all of our classified systems, not in weeks, but in hours.” The comment, later cited by The Economist, set off a wave of online speculation that the latest AI systems were far more disruptive to cybersecurity than previously understood.

The Economist’s defense editor later posted on X that a U.S. official told him Warner had misunderstood Rudd’s comments and that the specific Mythos work was part of a red-teaming effort to test the security of internal networks. Red-teaming efforts are controlled security exercises in which authorized testers try to break into or stress-test systems so an organization can find and fix weaknesses before real attackers exploit them.

The post, citing the official, added that the agency’s red teams no longer have access to Mythos because their authority to use it came through Project Glasswing, launched in April as an effort to give select security researchers and organizations early access to Mythos Preview, a model the company said showed capabilities that could reshape cybersecurity.

The company later expanded the program to roughly 150 organizations in more than 15 countries, including critical infrastructure operators and cyber defenders, after weeks of work with government, industry and open-source software partners.

After the Economist post, the New York Times reported details about the NSA losing access to the model.

On Monday, the Five Eyes intelligence alliance warned that frontier AI models could sharply change the cyber threat landscape within months, not years, by helping attackers and defenders move faster.

]]>

Army aims to sync two divisions using next-gen C2 by year’s end

Lauren C. Williams — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 20:32:59 -0400

Two Army infantry divisions will soon run the same next-gen command-and-control system, if all goes as planned, bringing the service one step closer to digitally sharing key battle data.

That’s the next phase for NGC2, which began as experiments in 2024 and became a program of record in April 2025. In recent months, two divisions have been working on prototypes: the 25th Infantry Division, led by Lockheed Martin, and the 4th Infantry Division, led by Anduril and Palantir. The Colorado-based 4ID has been using the technology for about a year, testing the “full stack” system in recent military exercises.

“Both prototype divisions will begin implementing the common data layer baseline as soon as possible, with minimum disruption to operational exercises and training events. We expect to move quickly, as the two divisions and industry teams have already been working together during the Ivy Sting-Mass and Lightning Surge events to share lessons learned, reuse applications, and converge capabilities to help the Army scale the NGC2 framework,” the Army said in a statement to Defense One.

The effort to bring both prototyping divisions to a common NGC2 configuration will be led by Anduril, Army officials announced on Monday.

Each division will tailor the system to their needs, but once fully implemented, the units, if physically nearby, could share data drawn from shared sources or sensors.

“This is a major step forward as NGC2 evolves into a phase of continuous delivery and we provide this capability at the speed of relevance,” Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor, capability program executive for Command and Control Information Network, said in a news release, announcing the decision on Monday.

Anduril will use its Lattice software.

NGC2 enables soldiers and commanders to use a common platform for battle planning in multiple locations and with multiple devices. For example, during a live-fire Ivy Sting 4 event, an Army M777 howitzer shot down a target using data generated by the Marine Corps. The Army also used NGC2 to share target data with the Marine Corps.

It is meant to push the Army closer to create the resilient and reliable network it has long wanted for soldiers, and it’s part of the service’s approach to continuous transformation: developing and adopting new technology marked by prototyping and soldier feedback.

Eyes on a more connected future

Monday’s contract announcement, which didn’t come with a dollar amount, is part of an enterprise licensing agreement with Anduril.

“We are already moving out with the converged data layer architecture,” Joseph Welch, portfolio acquisition executive for command and control and counter C2, said in a release. “Our vendor partners have demonstrated great teamwork and flexibility in helping us establish this baseline and set the groundwork for rapid scaling.”

The plan is to have the systems fully integrated across both divisions by the end of the year, Zach Kramer, Anduril’s general manager for mission command, told reporters on Monday.

“The intention is certainly by the end of the year…if not sooner, that we would get them onto a common baseline. It is important to get them on a common baseline to make sure there’s no drift,” he said.

Kramer said the company has benchmarks for scale, usage, and unit feedback to measure whether the system actually works: “Are the soldiers using the system,” is it helping them “be successful, and how are they seeing the system working and functioning.”

Anduril, teaming with Palantir, will keep leading work on the system’s common data layer, which various applications plug into, such as for logistics or analytics.

“There's a common API surface that we think about. There's a bunch of different applications, so things like Govini and Rune on the logistics side, both plug their applications into the data layer,” Kramer said. “We also see a lot of things that are UASs or other sensors or effectors that are being integrated directly. And then finally we see lots of different hardware that we’re leveraging, whether it's different types of communications, radio, or different types of compute platforms that can then run the data layer and the applications that are hosted with it.”

The goal is for disparate sources of information to congeal into a universally accessible platform from various places.

“One of the ways, frankly, is through existing things that they have, like Maven Smart Systems, or some of the Palantir tools on a laptop,” Kramer said. “We also have a new Android-based form factor that allows them to have, kind of, a wearable piece where they're actually interacting with it and the touchscreen there. And then we see it populating data through other applications that show up in either in a vehicle” or other existing applications.

]]>

Don't abandon the US-UK nuclear relationship

Jamie Kwong — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 19:41:16 -0400

The United Kingdom will have a new prime minister by the end of summer. While sure to inherit a host of challenges at home, Downing Street’s newest occupant will also have to contend with a troubling reality across the Atlantic: Britain’s special relationship with the United States is on shaky ground. These brewing tensions raise the question of whether London should—and if it could—reduce its reliance on Washington. And perhaps nowhere is this reliance heavier than nuclear deterrence, as Britain depends on American Trident missiles to equip its nuclear-armed submarines.

An underexamined—and underappreciated—aspect of this nuclear relationship, however, is how the United States benefits, too. For over 65 years, Washington has made technical, operational, and strategic gains for its own deterrent through cooperation with London. America, too, would lose out from a rupture.

Preserving and protecting the nuclear relationship therefore remains firmly in the interest of both countries.

The benefits of the nuclear relationship to Britain are clear. The UK nuclear force is often characterized as technically dependent on the United States, even while the British prime minister maintains operational independence over its use. London’s nuclear collaboration with Washington has proven an efficient way for the UK to remain a nuclear weapons power. Without it, London would have been forced to bear significantly greater, and plausibly unsustainable, costs to stay in the nuclear business. Moreover, the linkages that this nuclear collaboration has created across the states’ nuclear enterprises have kept Washington engaged in the most crucial aspects of British security for decades.

Less understood are the benefits that the United States accrues. Although Washington does not rely on nuclear collaboration with London to the same extent that London does with Washington, research and interviews with current and former officials and experts in both countries highlight Washington’s gains. Those benefits are only likely to become more important as the United States contends with a rapidly evolving strategic landscape and the growing technical challenges faced by its own nuclear weapons modernization programs.

To start, Britain pays a hefty cost for its access to U.S. technologies. Take Trident, for which the U.K. government paid initial procurement fees, makes annual maintenance contributions, and contributes to life extension costs. These expenses total well into the many billions of dollars.

Yet the benefits to the United States are not purely—or even primarily—financial. The UK maintains top-notch scientific and technical nuclear expertise. Through regular exchanges, British experts work closely with their American counterparts, providing peer review, red-teaming, and other input that improves the work taking place at U.S. nuclear laboratories. London’s technical contributions to the U.S. nuclear navy also now have room to grow following a 2024 amendment to the Mutual Defense Agreement that allows for two-way exchanges on naval nuclear propulsion, including the enriched uranium needed to fuel seagoing reactors.

Of course, the British nuclear weapons enterprise is not without its problems. There are concerns, for example, about the UK’s capacity to deliver its new warhead program. But such challenges are hardly unique to Britain. The United States also confronts aging systems and atrophied infrastructure, and as noted by John Foster, the former head of a U.S. nuclear weapons lab, it has historically benefited from Britain’s “clever ways to get the job done more efficiently.”

Beyond these programmatic considerations, Washington benefits from London’s nuclear role in Europe. The UK provides an additional deterrent capability committed to defending the Euro-Atlantic. In fact, the original U.S.-UK missile sales agreement was negotiated on the premise that Britain assigns these weapons to the defense of NATO. Washington assessed then, as it should now, that these forces “strengthen the nuclear defense of the Western Alliance.”

A core tenant of NATO nuclear policy holds that since the UK deterrent is operationally independent, London acts as a second center of decision-making, complicating Moscow’s threat calculus and thus contributing to the deterrence of Russia. Moscow must weigh the possibility that, even without a collective NATO or U.S. decision to use nuclear weapons, the UK could independently decide to employ its nuclear force. There are some doubts about whether Russia actually believes London would carry out a nuclear strike without Washington’s involvement or even explicit approval. But Russia does seem to perceive the UK deterrent as credible, suggesting that it affects Moscow’s threat calculus regardless.

Washington has also found it politically and strategically valuable to have a European nuclear ally in lockstep on deterrence and broader nuclear issues and who can facilitate consensus-building within the alliance. This role will likely only be more important as U.S. defense priorities increasingly shift away from Europe but while effective deterrence on the continent remains in U.S. interests. Washington will need to rely more on London to help shoulder the European deterrence burden, both to help meet allied assurance demands and ensure that any reconfiguration of U.S. assets, even if only conventional, does not degrade regional deterrence.

London has a way to go in developing the necessary capabilities besides its strategic deterrent. But it is working on them, while promoting an approach to make Europe a stronger security partner for, rather than strategically autonomous from, Washington.

Finally, the nuclear relationship, as well as the two countries’ intelligence ties, has fostered a deep closeness on defense issues far beyond the European theater. Washington has benefited from such cooperation for decades. Were there a rupture in the relationship, it is probable that Britain would limit or entirely cut off its defense support—including access to bases such as Fairford or Diego Garcia, which have played important roles in the Iran conflict—and reduce its altogether high degree of support for U.S. foreign policy.

British dependencies on an, at minimum, increasingly unpredictable and, at worst, increasingly unreliable United States are a genuine concern. They raise serious and difficult questions about whether London should remain technically dependent on Washington for nuclear deterrence or whether it needs to explore alternative, or at least supplementary, arrangements. The new prime minister will have to tackle these questions head on.

Yet cooperation is not zero-sum. While the UK may benefit more, the United States also benefits in significant ways. As officials and experts in Washington chart the course ahead for the transatlantic partnership, they would do well to remember this.

Jamie Kwong is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This piece reflects preliminary findings from a project on the implications of the changing security environment for UK-U.S. nuclear deterrence collaboration.

]]>

If Iran accepts new inspections, can the US even make them work?

Patrick Tucker — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 22:07:04 -0400

A new U.S.-Iran peace plan can work only if the United States can overcome three difficult challenges, experts said: the Iranians must agree to tighter international inspections, the inspecting agency must fix its budget crisis, and the White House must heed nuclear experts over real-estate developers with ties to President Trump.

As U.S. and Iranian diplomats met in Switzerland on Monday, they seemed unable to agree even about whether they disagreed on inspections. U.S. Vice President JD Vance triumphantly proclaimed that the Iranians had agreed to allow the return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back to monitor nuclear materials and research activity. Iranian officials said they’d done no such thing. Should the Iranians agree, experts said, the IAEA will have enough technical expertise to make inspections work again, but only if U.S. nuclear security professionals are involved, experts said.

That’s because the job would be harder than it was in 2015, when Tehran accepted broader international monitoring and sharp limits on nuclear development under the JCPOA deal forged by the Obama administration and several international partners. After the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2021, Iran began restricting inspectors' access to data and facilities.

Inspectors would begin without a clear understanding of how much nuclear material Iran holds or how many centrifuges and other enrichment tools it has.

“There is a real risk that Iran has diverted centrifuges to an undeclared location, and that the IAEA does not know where those machines are,” Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, told reporters on Friday. “If we look at Iran's production capabilities, they were capable of producing more centrifuges than were installed at Natanz and Fordow”—two heavily fortified Iranian enrichment sites that the U.S. bombed last June. “One of the key tasks for the IAEA will be to work with Iran to try to kind of track them down.”

The agency will find it difficult to “provide any confidence that Iran does not retain an undeclared enrichment capability somewhere outside of the facilities attacked last summer, which would be a huge problem,” Matthew Sharp, a senior nuclear fellow at MIT’s Center for Nuclear Security Policy, said in an email. “If there are discrepancies between what material Iran makes available now and what the IAEA last observed more than a year ago (e.g., if some of the material is buried or otherwise unavailable), that will be more difficult to make sense of.”

The IAEA does have an “Additional Protocol” that allows the agency to hunt for material and devices that may have been “destroyed in the strikes or have been hidden away by Tehran,” said Eric Brewer, the deputy vice president for NTI’s Nuclear Materials Security Program.

But, he said, the Additional Protocol must be in the final agreement for inspections to really work.

The experts said today’s inspectors can draw upon advancements in satellite imagery, open-source intelligence, and even AI, but that there remains no substitute for on-site inspections.

Underfunded IAEA

Another obstacle is the financial health of the agency. Earlier this month, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the agency’s board of directors that it is missing €250 million in “overdue assessed contribution amounts.” He also warned that if dues aren’t paid by mid-August, the agency won’t be able to make payroll or fund key operations.

MIT’s Sharp called that scenario a “self-made catastrophe” for the United States.

The agency has largely escaped the sort of condemnation and threats that Trump directs at other international institutions, such as its parent organization, the United Nations. Sharp called that good news. “President Trump did not include the IAEA in the 66 multilateral organizations from which he withdrew last year, and IAEA Director General Grossi has apparently been engaged in the U.S.-Iran talks, which is a positive sign of confidence in the IAEA and understanding.”

But “understanding” isn’t the same as full support. As recently as March, the State Department was pressuring the IAEA to re-examine compensation for inspectors and other staff and rein in expenses.

“Grossi didn't name names, but it seems very likely to me that the United States is a primary driver of the shortfall and therefore to blame,” said Sharp.

Either way, said Sharp, the White House should stop congratulating itself.

“Any idea that Iran ‘inviting’ the IAEA to come back to its facilities is somehow a victory to be compensated is farcical. Iran has for more than fifty years had a legal obligation to allow inspections in ALL of its nuclear facilities under its safeguards agreement with the IAEA.”

A bigger question, at least for the ACA’s Davenport, is whether the White House will actually listen to U.S. and IAEA experts if their advice or findings inconvenience Trump and his allies, such as envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who had been playing a role in the negotiations while simultaneously working a series of personal side-deals.

Davenport said that “Kushner and Witkoff need to center nuclear experts and listen to nuclear experts because their technical incompetence caused the United States to miss critical diplomatic opportunities in the past.”

]]>

'A huge grab of power': Trump is defying Congress on foreign aid

Anna Maria Barry-Jester, ProPublica — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 20:35:07 -0400

After the Trump administration upended the world’s largest foreign aid provider last year, terminating thousands of programs and firing nearly all of its staff, its plan for the agency was clear: Eliminate it entirely.

But because it is a congressionally created agency, President Donald Trump needed lawmakers’ permission to do so. So this year, Trump officials asked Congress for permission to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development and dramatically reduce federal spending on food, medicine and lifesaving work around the world.

Congress said no. Lawmakers, who hold the government’s purse strings and have oversight of federal agencies, wanted USAID to remain, even in its diminished form. They detailed precisely how much the State Department should spend on foreign aid and for what, including $9.4 billion on global health to treat and prevent maladies like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and more than $5 billion on emergency humanitarian aid. They also insisted on regular, detailed reports about how the administration was spending the money.

Trump signed the bill, enshrining their orders into law.

Now, eight months into the fiscal year, Trump officials are failing to follow many of those orders, ProPublica has found. Officials have delayed spending on global health, have not issued funds for some projects and have labeled money destined for humanitarian aid as “unallocated” to control how it can be spent, according to a ProPublica review of government records and interviews with legal experts, current and former government employees, and members of Congress. And when lawmakers have asked about their actions, officials often have not responded.

The White House and Congress have been battling over federal spending since Day 1 of the Trump administration, setting up a constitutional crisis — a breakdown of the division of power among the three branches of the federal government, according to several legal scholars.

Nowhere has that crisis been more visible than with foreign aid. Last year, the administration took the unprecedented step of gutting USAID, terminating thousands of aid programs and letting funding expire, all without permission from Congress. Lawmakers did little to stop it.

Now, in defying Congress on foreign aid that Trump himself agreed to spend, the administration is quietly escalating the battle.

“It is a huge grab of power from the president, taking powers away from Congress,” said David Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University and a leading scholar on administrative and constitutional law.

USAID was created by Congress decades ago as a means of promoting American diplomacy and soft power around the world. As ProPublica previously reported, when Trump officials dismantled the agency last year, stopping payments on thousands of lifesaving programs that provided food, medicine and other supplies to impoverished nations, many people died, including children.

Even with USAID in shambles, Congress has made clear that it expects the administration to continue providing foreign aid — in some cases, at nearly the level it did in previous years.

“It’s proof that there is still broad, bipartisan support for America showing up in the world, helping people and working with our allies and partners on shared challenges, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it directly benefits us,” said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, the ranking member of the Senate committee with oversight of foreign aid funds. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the committee’s chair, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

But the administration has taken a variety of steps to thwart Congress’ directives. The Office of Management and Budget, run by Russell Vought, was instrumental in blocking the spending of aid money last year. This year, it has labeled both humanitarian aid and global health money as “unallocated,” meaning the OMB must approve how it is spent.

Legal scholars say such moves, and the delayed spending by the State Department, likely violate the law. Foreign aid is a prime example of why Congress made it illegal for administrations and agencies to slow-walk such funds, said Bobby Kogan, an OMB adviser under former President Joe Biden currently with the Center for American Progress. “If you spend no money for a year and all the clinics close, then those people die,” he said.

The State Department has made little effort to spend some foreign aid money that Congress earmarked for specific purposes, including family planning, neglected diseases and nutrition, according to government staff and budget documents.

And programs have been given fewer dollars, even when Congress has kept funding steady. That includes the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the hallmark HIV program credited with saving 26 million lives around the world.

Administration officials are also spending on foreign aid at a much slower rate than they had in recent years, according to an analysis of federal funding data shared with ProPublica by Aid on the Hill, an advocacy group created by former USAID employees, although the State Department disputes its conclusions. Another group published a similar analysis last week.

Where Trump officials have made plans to spend funds, it’s often spurred outrage. Under the new America First Global Health Strategy, Trump officials are signing bilateral deals with poor countries, asking for access to health data as a condition for receiving lifesaving medications the U.S. once donated.

Jeremy Lewin, a 29-year-old lawyer who came into government via Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency with no prior humanitarian experience, is in charge of foreign aid. He has said that this new strategy will not only save countless lives, but also reform the aid sector and reduce dependence on U.S. funding.

Since last July, Lewin has been “performing the duties” of undersecretary for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs, a position that must be approved by Congress, though the administration has yet to nominate him or anyone else to the job.

But he rarely, if ever, meets with career staff and doesn’t share information about his plans, even with the people who are expected to carry them out, according to six current and former career officials. Lewin insists that he approve even routine payments, creating a stranglehold on funding and information.

And all the while, Trump appointees have failed to answer basic questions from Congress about what they are doing. Letters from lawmakers have gone unanswered and required reports unfiled.

To understand the administration’s compliance with congressional mandates and federal law, ProPublica reviewed administration documents, including agreements, memos, and internal communications, and spoke with dozens of current and former government officials, congressional staff, and international experts in global health and humanitarian aid. Many people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the administration.

In response to a list of detailed questions about the concerns, a State Department spokesperson who declined to be named said they would continue to follow the president’s direction on foreign aid spending. “We are not withholding any funds appropriated to, or available to, State,” they said. “If additional funds are made available to State, we will work to obligate them consistent with legal requirements and Administration priorities.”

They said officials have regularly briefed Congress and that Lewin had recently spent four hours discussing foreign assistance. They also said they have “reduced by 80% the number of outstanding reports and letters” since Trump retook office.

“We are working with Congress to spend appropriated balances and find the right future-appropriated level for global health,” the spokesperson said.

In response to a series of detailed questions about this story, OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley said, “This is patently false,” adding that “USAID was a weaponized government agency.” She did not respond to a follow-up question asking what was false.

Spending Less — or Not at All

After nearly all of USAID’s employees were fired and the majority of its programs closed down last summer, the agency’s remnants were transferred to the State Department. Despite repeated promises from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that lifesaving aid would continue, the State Department began winding down many of the remaining programs earlier this year.

And staff have been working with a severely constricted budget; officials gave them just half of the available money for PEPFAR, said Dr. Mike Reid, who was the program’s chief scientific officer until he left earlier this year over concerns about how the program is being run. Of the $9.4 billion for global health spending for the State Department that Trump signed into law earlier this year, Congress earmarked about $4.6 billion for PEPFAR. But staff say it’s unclear how much of that they will be allowed to spend.

Congress also explicitly directed the State Department to spend pots of money on family planning ($524 million), nutrition ($165 million) and neglected tropical diseases ($109 million), according to the bill. According to a review of government records and two people with knowledge of the department’s activities, State Department officials have made little or no effort to spend from those pots.

In response, a State Department spokesperson said it has “continued to obligate and spend every dollar appropriated for global HIV/AIDS programs” and “we continue to implement life-saving care in global health priority areas, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and maternal and child health.”

They added: “The State Department has been in the process of slowly replacing old carry-over USAID grants with new State Department grants and contracts which have fresh funds, new terms and conditions, and better align with the new America First foreign assistance strategy.”

Global health programming in general is moving at a much slower rate than it did previously, according to the Aid on the Hill analysis of federal funding data. Of the more than $9 billion that Congress told the Trump administration to spend on global health last year, the administration had by the end of this March obligated just $190 million, 5% of what was spent on average in that period in the five years before Trump returned to office. Typically, officials would have obligated about half of the money by then. Another advocacy organization, Health Security Policy Academy, published an analysis last week that drew a similar conclusion.

The State Department said it “cannot and will not” verify any independent analysis, but disagreed with the figures, saying that it has “approved and implemented spending” for more than $7.5 billion to align with the bilateral agreements and disaster response. “You either have vastly outdated numbers or are simply mistaken,” it said, but would not elaborate.

The agreements signed with nations around the world, a centerpiece of the State Department’s foreign aid policy, will in many cases involve sending funds directly to those governments, some of which have been mired in corruption scandals. But the specifics of the programs are still being determined, and the funding has yet to flow.

Meanwhile, Lewin has been increasingly leaning on large international organizations to deliver aid once managed by USAID employees.

Earlier this year, Lewin funneled $3.8 billion to a small arm of the United Nations, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, quadrupling the budget of the agency.

Trump has frequently criticized the U.N. as ineffective. But after nearly all of USAID’s staff was fired, the skeleton crew at the State Department doesn’t have the capacity or expertise to manage so much humanitarian aid themselves, according to a dozen people familiar with the new system.

The agreement with OCHA, a copy of which was reviewed by ProPublica, also does not allow the U.S. to independently audit the funds, though the U.N. agreed to run a pilot project for greater internal oversight.

Eri Kaneko, OCHA’s spokesperson, said the agency has worked quickly since December to disburse funds for “the most urgent and life-threatening needs” and that U.N. entities are “fully committed to the highest standards of accountability and oversight.”

The U.S. has been the largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a multilateral organization that provides medicines and prevention measures to millions of people around the world, since its inception. Lewin recently announced an expanded partnership with the fund to provide HIV prevention across Africa. But the Trump administration last year withheld payments pledged under the Biden administration, forcing the fund to reduce the amounts it gave to nations.

So in this year’s spending bill, Congress directed the State Department to make good on its pledges, issuing specific instructions to Rubio on what to pay and when, and telling him to make those contributions “in a timely manner.”

That hasn’t happened.

A State Department spokesperson told ProPublica that “all current funding obligations have been met.” But according to a board member for the Global Fund, congressional staff and Friends of the Global Fight, an organization that advocates for the fund in the U.S., the administration should contribute another $661 million.

“The State Department is underfunding the Global Fund,” Schatz said. “It’s out of compliance with congressional appropriations.”

When the senator asked about the funding during Rubio’s recent testimony to Congress, Rubio said, “I think that will move shortly, very quickly.”

A “Fundamental Threat to the Rule of Law”

During previous administrations, once Congress passed laws to approve federal spending, the money flowed through the OMB, which in turn parceled out the funds to designated agencies, making sure they didn’t spend the funds too quickly or too slowly.

Under Trump, the OMB, led by Vought, has repeatedly blocked funds approved by Congress from going to agencies using legally dubious maneuvers, experts in federal spending and constitutional law told ProPublica.

As ProPublica has chronicled, Vought takes an expansive view of presidential power and has moved to give the executive branch dramatically greater authority to not spend legally appropriated money. Foreign aid has been a clear focus; after USAID was razed last year, Vought was made acting administrator and tasked with overseeing the closeout of the agency. Eric Ueland, a Vought deputy at the OMB, is currently performing those duties.

The OMB currently has labeled more than $500 million in global health money as “unallocated,” according to its own data, which makes it impossible for the State Department to spend without first going through the OMB. It had also labeled most of the humanitarian aid money this way, but began releasing some of those funds in May. By June 11, the OMB had released all of that money to the State Department.

Several people inside and outside the government told ProPublica they fear that the administration is withholding the funds because it is planning not to spend them at all. They have good reason to be concerned: That’s exactly what Trump did last year.

In 2025, the administration clawed back some $13 billion in foreign aid that Congress had passed into law, some of it by using a maneuver widely understood by legal experts to be illegal.

That maneuver, which Vought calls a “pocket rescission,” essentially asks Congress to cancel funds so late in the fiscal year that there isn’t enough time for them to be spent if Congress says no. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog, has said pocket rescissions are illegal, and several constitutional scholars told ProPublica the move violates the Impoundment Control Act. That law, passed in 1974 in the wake of disputes with President Richard Nixon, restricts the president’s authority to withhold, or impound, funds approved by Congress.

A federal court initially blocked the maneuver as part of ongoing lawsuits related to the dismantling of USAID. But the administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued an emergency ruling split along ideological lines that allowed the clawback to continue, though it did not rule on the merits.

The GAO has standing to take legal action on a pocket rescission. Edda Emmanuelli Perez, GAO’s general counsel, told ProPublica that her office was continuing to review potential impoundments and monitoring ongoing litigation, and that it has not made a decision to file any lawsuits at this time.

While there are still nearly four months left in this fiscal year, career officials and legal experts say another rescission — legal or not — would further erode Congress’ power of the purse, threatening the U.S. democracy.

“If that’s going to be a regular occurrence, then we have a real fundamental threat to the rule of law,” said Cerin Lindgrensavage, a former Justice Department lawyer who works for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that fights against authoritarianism. “Congress has said spend the money, and the president doesn’t want to. The question is, who wins? Under the law, Congress is supposed to win. Right now, the president is.”

Budget watchers say there are concerning signs that the administration plans to withhold more funds.

In April, the OMB announced to Congress that it was withholding funds earmarked for global health to pay the hefty bills for severance fees and other costs for the thousands of USAID programs Trump officials terminated last year.

OMB officials told lawmakers they were setting aside $19 billion to cover those costs, though they anticipated the total would be “substantially” less. (Internal documents reviewed by ProPublica say the figure doesn’t include the cost of the litany of lawsuits associated with the closures — or the dozens of new hires and other agency operations needed to process them.)

The bulk of that money came from unspent funds for the canceled programs and other unobligated dollars from previous years. But $3.2 billion came from funds earmarked by Congress for global health and development programs that Trump signed into law in 2025. If it’s not obligated by the end of September, that money will expire and can no longer be spent.

Democratic lawmakers were incensed by the OMB’s decision. In a letter to Trump officials, senators called it an “appalling admission of waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars” and demanded that the administration use the $3.2 billion as directed, “consistent with the law.” They asked for a response by May 8. As of June 16, lawmakers had not received one.

Asked about the funds during the recent Senate hearing, Rubio claimed they were under the purview of the OMB. Schatz pointed out that Rubio had moved all foreign aid under the State Department and had just wrestled some of that money away from the OMB to respond to an Ebola outbreak. “It also demonstrates you are perfectly capable of getting money released from those closeout funds if you wish,” he told the secretary. “Ebola is an urgent priority, but so is malaria, so is TB and so is HIV/AIDS.”

“Proposing a rescission is a Presidential authority, and we will follow President Trump’s direction as to any future rescissions,” the State Department spokesperson told ProPublica. “We are currently planning to obligate all appropriated balances, consistent with law.”

]]>

Executive orders seek to hasten quantum computing—and guard against its use

Alexandra Kelley — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:06:00 -0400

Two two executive orders on Monday aim to hasten the arrival of useful quantum computers while protecting U.S. systems from them.

“Innovation and security have to be balanced,” National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said during the White House signing ceremony on Monday.

As expected, the orders address different aspects of the burgeoning quantum information sciences and technology landscape.

One, “Ushering In The Next Frontier Of Quantum Innovation,” launches “a national effort” to create a quantum computer that can perform basic operations and improve quantum sensors. It directs the creation of a "Quantum Computer for Application Development and Discovery Science Effort" at in a Department of Energy facility, while other provisions support quantum computing supply chains, foster workforce development, and explore private sector and international partnerships. The order also expands the Quantum Information Science and Technology Counterintelligence Protection Team to study threats to domestic quantum-computing efforts.

The other order, Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks,” pushes the government to move to cryptographic standards that can withstand quantum computers. It puts several agencies in charge of the effort, including the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, and the National Security Agency. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has helmed the effort to identify and test new encryption algorithms.

The order sets a deadline of 2030 to update key elements of critical infrastructure, and of 2031 for "high-impact environments."

Garfield Jones, the executive vice president of Strategy and Research at QuSecure, said the executive order on post-quantum cryptography is an "unambiguous signal" of the need.

"The 2030 deadline for key establishment is a tangible compliance deadline, and the gap between where most organizations are today and where they need to be is significant,” Jones said in a statement. “Agencies and contractors that haven't started a cryptographic inventory are already behind. The organizations that move now will have options. The ones that wait will find themselves managing a crisis.”

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who was present at the signing ceremony, said his company “applauds” the Trump administration for both orders.

“Sound policy, sustained investment and public-private partnership are vital to sustaining U.S. quantum leadership and technological resilience,” Krishna said in a statement. “Today's Executive Orders bring that same spirit of policy and investment working in lockstep to the national stage.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said quantum computing will join artificial intelligence and advanced semiconductors as the three-part foundation of future computing technology.

“This is tricky. We're not there yet. We're close, but with this executive order and this coordinated effort, we will have scientifically relevant — meaning error-corrected — quantum computing during this administration. The impacts of it will be tremendous,” Wright said during the ceremony.

]]>

Lawmakers warn acting DNI against workforce shakeup

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:53:00 -0400

Top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees warned acting spy chief Bill Pulte on Monday not to use his temporary post to make major changes at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, citing concerns that he could pursue sweeping personnel cuts or politically motivated declassification decisions before a Senate-confirmed director is in place.

In a June 22 letter to Pulte, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Pulte should not take actions “more appropriately left to a Senate-confirmed Director” and reminded him of his legal obligation to preserve records related to any actions he takes in the role.

The warning comes days after Pulte, who lacks intelligence experience, began serving as acting director of national intelligence after the cancellation of a Senate hearing for Jay Clayton, Trump’s nominee to permanently lead the intelligence community. The delay ensured Pulte would assume the acting role, prolonging a fight that has already complicated bipartisan efforts to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a powerful foreign spying authority that lapsed earlier this month.

Democrats have warned that Pulte's role in the administration's mortgage-fraud reviews last year could foreshadow the use of intelligence tools to pursue the president’s political opponents.

In Monday’s letter, Himes and Warner sharpened that concern, saying Pulte’s record as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency showed “a willingness to misuse your position, including your access to sensitive information,” to pursue Trump’s perceived political enemies.

The lawmakers said they expect Pulte to not declassify information in a way that would compromise intelligence sources and methods or “weaponize the declassification process for partisan political purposes.” They also said any declassification effort should follow established policies and include input from career intelligence officials on the national security risks of releasing classified material.

The letter also directly addresses multiple reports that Pulte could soon fire or place on leave hundreds of ODNI employees. Himes and Warner said they were concerned by those reports, noting that ODNI already shrank this year.

Pulte could serve in the acting role through August, The New York Times reported Monday, citing an administration official.

“Given your lack of experience within the Intelligence Community, it is difficult to imagine that in such a short amount of time you have already developed fully-informed views as to how to shrink ODNI without incurring risks to national security,” they wrote.

A spokesperson for ODNI didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The office was created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to improve coordination across the intelligence community. Trump has said he wants Pulte to further downsize the office and continue election-related investigations launched under former DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

Himes and Warner said Pulte should refrain from making significant structural changes to ODNI, including any reduction in force, while serving in an acting capacity and without consulting Congress.

The lawmakers also said Pulte and ODNI employees must preserve records related to declassification, publication or release of classified materials, as well as personnel actions. They said that obligation extends to electronic messages sent through official or personal accounts, text messages, phone-based messaging apps and encrypted software.

They requested that Pulte soon acknowledge the letter and confirm his “full and immediate compliance” with legal records-preservation requirements.

]]>

NDAA provisions would reshape Pentagon’s use of ownership stakes in private companies

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:53:05 -0400

The Pentagon office that lends money to weapons developers would be allowed to take equity stakes in private companies deemed critical to national security under draft provisions of the 2027 defense policy bill.

“We have allowed them to take equity in certain sectors. We have, what I think, is a very robust reporting regime and ethics regime, and we are working to reorganize or rationalize equity at the department by co-locating it with the loan authority at the Office of Strategic Capital and leaving the industrial-based fund, IBAS, as a tool for smaller dollar grants…as it's traditionally been used,” a congressional staffer with the Senate Armed Services Committee told reporters last week.

Meanwhile, the defense spending bill passed out of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel would give the Office of Strategic Capital $2.16 billion in loan authority and $216 million “to carry out the capital assistance program, including loans, loan guarantees, and technical assistance,” according to legislative language and the bill summary.

The Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act earlier this week to be considered on the Senate floor. It included provisions regarding the Pentagon’s ability to take financial stakes in defense contractors.

Using existing authorities, the Pentagon has already taken equity stakes worth more than a billion dollars in defense-related companies. High-profile examples include taking a $400 million stake in a rare-earths producer last July and a $1 billion stake in L3Harris’ solid rocket motor business in April. The latter drew congressional scrutiny.

The SASC bill does several things with respect to equity investments, according to the bill summary:

Explicitly bestows that power to the Office of Strategic Capital, which facilitates private investment in critical technologies through loans, and creates a “defense equity investment account” in the U.S. Treasury;
Requires congressional notification of debt and equity investments
Mandates the defense secretary to conduct ownership reviews, including “any conflicts of interest before obligating or disbursing any funds for an equity investment;” and
Bars the use of the Pentagon’s industrial-base fund, which is used to address supply chain vulnerabilities, assess and expand the defense industrial base, for equity stakes.

The bill also limits use of the direct equity investment account to fund “critical minerals, materials, and chemicals; and batteries,” and direct equity investments would be limited to 40 percent “of the total amount of all equity investments made to the entity,” according to the text. Investments would also be capped at $500 million.

The bill would also create an Economic Defense Unit, which would meet quarterly and enforce briefing requirements, including the defense secretary’s “ownership review of all companies in which the Department of Defense holds equity” and certification the Pentagon “does not hold, and does not have the option to hold, any seat on the board of directors or any other form of voting representation or control in any entity in which the Department holds equity,” according to the bill’s executive summary.

“We can see some value in this tool. We have differing opinions about how much value,” the SASC staffer said.

Senators on the committee are aiming for a long-lasting solution to match the yearslong challenge of reshoring supply chains and sectors to the U.S.

“Because whether you're talking about critical minerals, batteries, some of these other fundamental sectors where the Chinese have domination—this is going to be a decade-plus long project,” the staffer said.

]]>

Before SpaceX IPO, investors in China secretly acquired stakes

Joshua Kaplan and Justin Elliott, ProPublica — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 13:05:30 -0400

Before SpaceX IPO, Investors in China Secretly Acquired A businessman with ties to Chinese military contractors was among the overseas investors who acquired stakes in SpaceX while it was still a private company. An entity linked to the Qatari royal family also took a stake.

The new details come from a private investor list obtained by ProPublica that sheds light on a particularly delicate issue for Elon Musk’s rocket company: which people in countries like China bought into the company, and how. SpaceX built its business off sensitive U.S. government work like making spy satellites for the Pentagon. While there is no ban on Chinese investment in U.S. military contractors, such investment is heavily regulated.

In a sign of its sensitivity to the concerns, SpaceX barred investors from China and Hong Kong from buying shares in its initial public offering last week due to “regulatory and compliance risks,” Bloomberg reported. The U.S. government alleges that China has a strategy of using investments in sensitive industries for espionage and to get access to cutting-edge technology.

The company’s IPO last week was the largest ever, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Musk has extensive business interests in China, where Tesla builds many of its cars.

The new records detail at least a dozen investors with addresses in mainland China, Hong Kong or Russia who acquired stakes in SpaceX years ago through a middleman firm in the U.S. called Tomales Bay Capital. The investments are relatively small, ranging from $800,000 to $40 million, and were made between 2018 and 2021.

One investment came from an entity owned by David Su, the co-founder of the prominent Beijing venture capital firm MPCi. The Su entity invested $15 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020, according to the investor list. It was not Su’s only foray into the space industry; his company has been a high-profile backer of some of SpaceX’s Chinese competitors. Two satellite companies that Su’s firm invested in were sanctioned by the U.S. government for allegedly assisting the notorious Russian mercenary organization the Wagner Group. One of the companies was sanctioned again last month for allegedly helping Iran attack U.S. military forces during the war.

MPCi has also worked with Chinese government investment funds. Last year, the website for China’s Ministry of Science and Technology named Su’s firm as a partner in a state-backed effort to develop the country’s aerospace industry.

There is no evidence that Su did anything improper. But the key question from the U.S. government’s perspective would be whether China-based investors got access to nonpublic information about SpaceX’s technology or strategies, said Sarah Bauerle Danzman, an Indiana University professor who has worked for the State Department scrutinizing foreign investments. “If an investor has conflicts of interests with other companies in China — if they could feed that information to competitors — it could be a national security concern,” she said.

In a statement, MPCi said that Su “has not received any nonpublic information of SpaceX.” The statement described Su as “a Singapore citizen who resides in Singapore,” adding: “MPCi is a brand name with different teams and funds. Mr. Su is responsible for the US dollar funds.” According to a 2024 profile of him, Su “spent almost 100 per cent of his time in China over the last 20 years.”

A lawyer for Tomales Bay Capital said in a statement that the firm “has not provided any non-public, sensitive information regarding SpaceX to investors.” He said the investors are passive limited partners: “Aside from fund financials that include quarterly valuations, Tomales Bay’s investors have not received any further information regarding SpaceX.”

“The vast majority, if not all, of the investors included on the unsealed Tomales Bay investor list are not citizens of any foreign adversary, including Russia or China,” said the lawyer, Ryan Stonerock, “and certainly none of them are agents of Russia or China, or any other foreign adversary.” He added that some of the investors “may have mailing addresses listed” in Russia or China but do not actually live there “and are in fact citizens and residents of the United States or other countries that are not foreign adversaries.”

SpaceX did not respond to questions. One of the Chinese space companies sanctioned by the U.S. government, Spacety, previously denied providing support to the Wagner Group.

All the investors located in China or Russia that ProPublica identified appeared to be either wealthy businesspeople or their children.

The new documents come from a corporate dispute in Delaware involving Tomales Bay Capital. The court records were unsealed this month after ProPublica moved to make them public, with the help of attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the law firm Shaw Keller. Tomales Bay Capital appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of ProPublica.

Tomales Bay Capital is run by an investor named Iqbaljit Kahlon, who has long been close to SpaceX’s leadership and even involved in the company’s operations. SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen, who’s worked there for 15 years, testified that Kahlon “has been with the company in one form or fashion longer than I have.”

Before SpaceX went public, Kahlon made a fortune by acting as a middleman for investors hoping to add the rocket company to their portfolio. His firm regularly bought SpaceX stock, packaged it into investment funds and then charged fees to investors who bought pieces of those funds.

In a 2021 pitch to one potential investor in China, Kahlon promised special access to SpaceX, including quarterly updates on the company’s business development, “visits to SpaceX, and the opportunities to interview with Space X’s CFO,” according to the meeting minutes, which later appeared in court records.

While ProPublica and other outlets have previously reported on the existence of Chinese investors in SpaceX, the identities of most of the rocket company’s investors have been closely guarded. The Kahlon investor list adds hundreds of names to the public picture of who owns SpaceX. The list details investments in several Tomales Bay Capital funds that have acquired SpaceX stock; it is possible that some of the funds own stakes in other companies too.

Some of the SpaceX investors on Kahlon’s ledger are easy to identify: the Indian politician Abhishek Singhvi; Betsy DeVos, the former U.S. secretary of education; a British Virgin Islands company owned by Indonesian billionaires. But others on the list are shell companies whose ultimate owners remain hidden.

One such company is a Delaware LLC called HAL9001 Partners Fund I, which invested roughly $10 million in a SpaceX fund in 2020. The incorporation documents for HAL9001 were signed by the venture capitalist Roman Sobachevskiy. The Treasury Department recently fined a company that was co-owned by Sobachevskiy hundreds of millions of dollars for managing a different investment on behalf of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Sobachevskiy has not been personally accused of wrongdoing.

A Tomales Bay Capital spokesperson said that the oligarch “had no involvement with the investment.” Sobachevskiy did not respond to questions, including who put up the money for the SpaceX investment.

The records also shed some light on the connections between SpaceX and Qatar. Funds affiliated with Bracket Capital — an investment firm with offices in Los Angeles, London and Qatar — invested about $48 million through a series of deals from 2017 through 2020, the documents show. Bracket has money from the Qatari royal family, according to an email that Kahlon sent to SpaceX’s CFO. The ledger also lists Doha, Qatar, as the address for a mysterious entity called AM FIG Cayman Limited, which invested around $10 million in 2020.

The documents do not specify whether the Bracket investments were made on behalf of the royal family or some other client. In 2021, as Kahlon was soliciting backers for yet another SpaceX deal, he texted a Bracket employee: “At the end we can just send Yalda to talk to big guy. We need a bail out lol.” (Yalda Aoukar is Bracket’s co-founder. It’s unclear whether the “big guy” refers to a member of the royal family and what Kahlon meant by “a bail out.”)

Bracket did not respond to requests for comment.

The investments covered in the ledger were tiny percentages of SpaceX but would have generated windfalls. The company’s valuation has exploded in recent years, from $33.3 billion in 2019 to $2.7 trillion as of Wednesday morning.

Last year, ProPublica reported on SpaceX’s unusual approach to accepting money from Chinese investors. According to testimony from the Delaware case, the company allowed Chinese investors to buy stakes in SpaceX so long as the money was routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy hubs.

]]>

Defense Business Brief: Tech Summit recap; Invoking the Defense Production Act; and INDOPACOM’s name change

Lauren C. Williams — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 03:45:14 -0400

The Defense Production Act has entered the munitions chat even as concerns persist about weapons stockpiles spent in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

“It's not a sudden shift, it's taken us nine months to make this work,” Michael Cadenazzi, the Pentagon’s industrial base policy chief, said during an event Tuesday at the Center for a New American Security on Tuesday. “So that was one of my first chores when I came into the Pentagon back in September was to launch something called a ‘voluntary agreement,’” under the Defense Production Act.

Cadenazzi’s comments follow the White House’s quiet invocation of the Defense Production Act. The DPA is up for reauthorization and expires Sept. 30.

The Pentagon currently has two such arrangements: the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, where the government can call on commercial airlines and aerospace manufacturers for national needs; and the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement for maritime vessels, which allows U.S. merchant vessels to participate in exchange for priority access to Defense Department cargoes during peacetime.

“This tool and this designation allows us…to talk about different things like electronics, materials, ammonium perchlorate, rocket motors” and bring competing companies in to discuss needs and challenges without worrying about “antitrust rules,” Cadenazzi said.

“It's a way for us to communicate and leverage industry using a specific set of authorities. In this particular case, our interest is using voluntary agreements as a way to bring industry in—in an antitrust environment—to go ahead and have conversations with them, for us to articulate problems to them around nasty issues in the supply chain or the industrial base that allow them to communicate and work together, essentially collude, for want of a better term.”

The DPA authority could also create a steady demand signal, Cadenazzi said, noting voluntary agreements could also be used to include a myriad of defense suppliers, such as tire makers.

“We want these to be set up as an enduring capability, so expect to see more of these. I want to bring the tires people in to have conversations about tires,” he said. “It's just the gritty underbelly of the industrial base, but I think they deserve a lot more attention, and this is one of the tools we want to bring to bear.”

Welcome

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

My D1 Tech Summit takeaway: The Office of Naval Research is working on a strategy to bring new tech to the fleet faster. The plan, which is in its final production stages, will spell out what the service wants and highlight key areas of scientific interest, like having one human controlling a swarm of drones.

“That is a lot harder than people realize because people think, oh, you have one joystick and 100 drones are moving. Well, in practice, that looks like little kids playing soccer…And that's not good enough for our American warfighters,” Rachel Riley, head of naval research, said during Defense One’s annual Tech Summit event Tuesday.
Other challenges with drone swarming include next-generation algorithms and command and control across platforms—which can include the air, sea and subsea.
“Folks think that if you can fly a UAV, you can fly a UUV—kind of a different game,” Riley said. The Navy is also “thinking about how can we generate new sensors and effectors that are scalable, feasible at the edge with the right number of compute [that can] fit on a relatively small platform. These are all technical problems that are really gnarly and

stacking them on top of one another is not linear, it's exponential.”

Plus, the Navy is looking to nature for clues on how to control a massive number of robots.
“We're still doing some really interesting academic research that has to do with, for example, how insects swarm and how they coordinate,” Riley said, because that can inform a mathematical model that can be applied to maritime drones.

Making moves + other news

INDOPACOM changed its name back to U.S. Pacific Command.
Govini is now Air.
The Army direct-commissioned three more tech executives. Oh, and they also bought thousands of IVAS headsets they don’t plan to use…
Seaglider maker Regent’s defense division is celebrating its first anniversary as the company finishes up a 255,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
The Defense Innovation Unit awarded drone maker Mach Industries a contract for its Runway Independent Maritime Expeditionary Strike, or RIMES, program.

One last Tech Summit view. We had a stacked line up, with NATO’s top digital transformation official, Maj. Gen. Dominique Luzeaux, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency's Rear Adm. Michael Baker. There were also a couple of great industrial base panels led by yours truly: one that tackled startup culture and special operations with Shield AI’s co-founder Brandon Tseng, Ondas’ chairman and CEO Eric Brock, Gregory Coleman of 5Side Strategy; and another on how private capital is influencing the defense sector with Red Cell Partners’ Veronica Daigle, CSIS’s Jerry McGinn, and DIU’s Kedar Pavgi. Visit DefenseOne.com for coverage of the event.

]]>

Anduril, General Atomics get Air Force contracts to build first drone wingmen

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 22:36:27 -0400

Air Force leaders have given initial production contracts to Anduril and General Atomics, which will both build collaborative combat aircraft based on their respective prototypes. Northrop Grumman’s self-financed offering was not selected.

Several companies also received money to develop software that will compete to pilot the service’s future fleet of drone wingmen.

The Increment 1 CCA contracts are for three lots of the drone wingmen, Air Force Col. Timothy Helfrich, the portfolio acquisition executive for fighters and advanced aircraft, told reporters during a briefing on Wednesday. He declined to say how many CCAs would be in each lot, nor how much each would cost.

Helfrich told Defense One in March that the Air Force was beating its goal of buying each CCA for about one-third of the cost of an F-35 fighter jet. The Defense Department is seeking nearly $1 billion to buy CCAs, 2027 budget documents show.

The announcement made winners of both Anduril and General Atomics in their two-year battle to furnish the Air Force’s first CCAs.

But more competitions are underway. Three firms are vying to build the drone wingman’s autonomous software platform. As well, nine vendors are competing for Increment 2 of the CCA program.

“By moving fast from competitive selection into full-scale manufacturing, we position ourselves

to field highly credible and combat-ready semi-autonomous systems to stay ahead of the pacing challenge,” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said in a press release. “These contracts reaffirm our confidence in the strategic path forward for the program to procure over 150 combat capable CCA by the end of the decade.”

Both Anduril and General Atomics had setbacks while prototyping their CCA variants.

In April, General Atomics’ YFQ-42A Dark Merlin crashed at the company’s California airport after an autopilot program error. The incident halted flight testing for a little more than a month.

“This is an exciting day for our company and the nation,” General Atomics President David Alexander said in a Wednesday press release. “Moving to production on FQ-42A is the result of an extraordinary partnership and many years of investments between General Atomics and the U.S. Air Force. We’ve been preparing for this order, and manufacturing is already well underway.”

Anduril’s push for semi-autonomous software led to a months-long delay in notching its first flight. The company got its YFQ-44A Fury prototype off the ground in late October.

“We have been refining, testing, and iterating on our production system, in parallel with aircraft development, for the past two years. We have already implemented our full rate production processes and tooling on prototype aircraft, identifying and addressing issues during prototyping to streamline the transition into production,” Mark Shushnar, Anduril’s vice president for autonomous airpower, said in a statement. “The Air Force’s decision marks the first time that a new company has won a fighter aircraft program since the 1970s.”

The “Y” will be dropped from Anduril and General Atomics CCAs names to show they’re no longer prototypes.

Autonomy contracts

The Air Force also awarded CCA mission-autonomy production options to six companies.

A baseline, six-year contract vehicle was extended to Anduril, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Shield AI, Northrop Grumman, and RTX Collins, to create a pool of vendors eligible to build the autonomy software.

Anduril, Shield AI, and RTX Collins received additional Air Force production contracts and will compete to build the CCA’s final autonomous software. After six months, the Air Force plans to review those firms' initial performance. A second selection will follow that initial review, with a final selection expected by Summer 2027.

“Mission autonomy is the cornerstone of the CCA concept, and leveraging a competitive, multi-

vendor environment ensures we capture the latest technology,” Meink said in the news release. “This approach guarantees our airmen are equipped with state-of-the-art capabilities today but keeps the door open for the breakthroughs necessary to maintain air superiority.”

The Air Force said its software contract will use a “first-of-its-kind” award that is tied directly to reviews from the troops.

“The Air Force will only pay the entire licensing fee if a vendor provides a combat capability aligned with warfighter needs and feedback,” the news release said. “The licensing approach also allows the Air Force to award software licenses to any of the six vendors within the pool at any point over the next six years.”

Earlier this year, the Air Force tested the government-owned Autonomy Government Reference Architecture, or A-GR, by placing RTX Collins software on General Atomics YFQ-42 aircraft and Shield AI’s technology on Anduril's YFQ-44 CCA. Compliance with the A-GRA is mandatory for vendors so the service can enable a mix-and-match approach to the software and hardware, the service said in the news release.

“Open systems architecture is critical in modern warfare,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the Air Force chief of staff, said in the news release. “It allows us to capitalize on the most advanced autonomy solutions to ensure we incorporate the best technology in our weapon systems.”

Late last year, the Air Force announced that nine vendors would receive money to develop a second iteration of CCAs. Helfrich did not have any timeline updates on the Increment 2 competition.

“The government is always learning through both CCA Increment 2 and Increment 1 and honing in on what is needed from Increment 2,” Helfrich said.

]]>

CISA now has full Mythos Preview access, people familiar say

David DiMolfetta — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:21:00 -0400

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency now has full access to Anthropic’s flagship Mythos Preview model, according to a U.S. official and a second person familiar with the matter.

The cyberdefense agency received access around a week ago, the official said. Both sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The White House Office of the National Cyber Director has not yet set clear parameters for how the agency should use the model, the official added.

The lack of parameters echoes earlier Nextgov/FCW reporting showing federal tech leaders have privately complained that ONCD has not adequately briefed them on implementing or using the model for vulnerability scanning.

CISA did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the last few months, Anthropic surgically rolled out Mythos Preview to select organizations and recently expanded this effort — dubbed Project Glasswing — to partners in industry and other nations. The model has been distributed through a non-public process on grounds that, in the wrong hands, it can significantly boost adversaries’ hacking capabilities.

CISA was not included in an initial Mythos rollout, Axios reported in April. Last week, Nextgov/FCW reported that agency access to the model was imminent.

Mythos Preview is different from Anthropic’s similar-sounding Mythos 5 successor model, which the U.S. effectively banned over the weekend via an export control mechanism alongside the AI company’s Fable 5 model. The move has caused uproar across the cyber and AI community.

Both Mythos 5 and Mythos Preview have only been made available to vetted providers via Project Glasswing.

The Trump administration’s approach to AI has shifted in recent months as officials confront an emerging class of models that can rapidly identify vulnerabilities across computer networks, becoming a major driver of discussions over how AI systems could reshape the future of cybersecurity.

Models like Mythos can help federal agencies identify vulnerabilities faster by analyzing large amounts of software and system data, then surfacing weaknesses and possible attack paths for human defenders to review. Conversely, cyber operators in the intelligence community and Defense Department can also use such models to accelerate their offensive hacking operations.

]]>