Author Archive
Patrick Tucker
Science & Technology Editor
Patrick Tucker is science and technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, The Sun, MIT Technology Review, Wilson Quarterly, The American Legion Magazine, BBC News Magazine, Utne Reader, and elsewhere.
Threats
Why the ‘narrow,’ ‘short-term’ sanctions reversal for Russia is neither
Sanctions relief for Russia will be difficult to undo.
- Patrick Tucker
Defense Systems
AI-enabled watch towers set to proliferate along the border
GDIT pitches autonomous station with better sensors, more computing power.
- Patrick Tucker
Science & Tech
New science on heat is changing the future of soldiering
Suffering in the sun doesn’t make better troops.
- Patrick Tucker
Science & Tech
Meet the startups trying to build military-specific AI
The Anthropic-Pentagon feud revealed a giant gap between what giant frontier models do and what troops actually need.
- Patrick Tucker
Business
Pentagon’s war on Anthropic based on ‘dubious’ legal thinking and ideology—not real risk, sources say
The company will "likely file suit against everybody,” one legal expert said.
- Patrick Tucker
Threats
Shahed drone meets clone in US war on Iran
The Feb. 28 strikes saw the first combat use of the LUCAS, a near-copy of Iran’s cheap and effective Shahed-136.
- Patrick Tucker
Threats
It would take the Pentagon months to replace Anthropic’s AI tools: sources
AI maker digs in with Thursday statement rejecting DOD pleas for unfettered use.
- Patrick Tucker
Special Report
Business
Several trends are shifting defense tech toward Europe
War, regulation, and distrust of the United States are tilting a big market homeward.
- Patrick Tucker
Policy
Pentagon’s spending plan doubles down on land, air, sea robots
A look at new tech efforts in the Pentagon’s $151 billion reconciliation allocation plan.
- Patrick Tucker
Ideas
Defense One Radio, Ep. 203: Fictional intelligence
The authors of a new series discuss how they're exploring the future of conflict through short stories.
- Ben Watson and Patrick Tucker
Science & Tech
The Pentagon says it’s getting its AI providers on ‘the same baseline’
Military is still abiding by ethics principles, according to DOD research head.
- Patrick Tucker
Threats
Russia still sees US as its top adversary, Estonian intelligence report says
Moscow’s gestures toward normalized relations are no more than an “illusory thaw.”
- Patrick Tucker
Threats
NATO innovation chief: Alliance must speed up, or risk Russian invasion
Ukraine shows that “the obsolescence is nearly immediate,” for even the best weapons.
- Patrick Tucker
Science & Tech
Pentagon leaders should have more control over services’ tech budgets, GAO suggests
Unsurprisingly, “The Departments of Army, Air Force, and Navy disagreed.”
- Patrick Tucker
Threats
Fears of a nuclear arms race rise as New START expires
Fading U.S. leadership has countries from Poland to South Korea thinking about nuclear-weapons programs of their own.
- Patrick Tucker
Science & Tech
New Pentagon science-and-innovation board arrives as administration cuts research funding
Even as department leaders work to fast-track new tech, the administration is slashing funding that supports and secures innovation.
- Patrick Tucker
Science & Tech
As combat evolves, leaders seek not ‘super-athletes’ but ‘human weapon systems’
The military wants to measure and build the ability to perform missions, not just do pushups.
- Patrick Tucker
Threats
Russian hybrid warfare has become indistinguishable from politics
The war of realities in 2026 will determine the reality of war in 2027.
- Patrick Tucker
Science & Tech
The Pentagon leans into drone swarms with a $100M challenge
An Ender’s Game challenge illustrates the U.S. military's evolving approach to AI.
- Patrick Tucker