Author Archive

Patrick Tucker

Science & Technology Editor

Patrick Tucker
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.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.