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Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the Navy’s primary in-house science and technology arm, confirmed they successfully demonstrated a laser system that does both jobs without missing a beat, wirelessly transmitting power across long distances and then shifting into a defensive posture against drones, a dual-use capability the lab says could reshape how troops […]View the full article

Finland’s Minister of Defence, Antti Häkkänen, authorized the Finnish Defence Forces Logistics Command on June 18 to purchase additional GBU-53 Small Diameter Bomb II glide bombs from the United States, adding to a stockpile that will arm the country’s incoming fleet of F-35A stealth fighters with a weapon few air forces in the world currently […]View the full article

DroneShield and Defenture have signed a memorandum of understanding to combine the Australian company’s counter-drone hardware, software, command-and-control, and operational support with Defenture’s tactical vehicle platforms, including the GRF and Mammoth, betting that the pairing will give NATO armies the kind of mobile drone defense they have been scrambling to buy as cheap unmanned aircraft […]View the full article

Words matter. Clarity matters. Consistency matters. I don’t think anyone has been happy with how we describe “drones”, “unmanned”, or the cringy reactionary-woke “uncrewed” phraseology. Don’t even get me started with the “kamikaze drone” and other such kludges. OK, I may be nine months late to the game, but it appears we may be moving past the awkward and tiresome, “Do we call it unmanned, uncrewed, or something else that starts with a ‘u’? I’m tired of being yelled at.” stage. Have you noticed something seeping into the…drone?…space recently? From what I can tell—and if you can find earlier official uses please let us know in comments—what brought this acronym to the front was a memo by then-SECNAV Phelan on September 3, 2025. In accordance with the Secretary of Defense’s Memorandum dated 10 July 2025, “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance,” I am establishing the positions of Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (DASN (RAS)), Program Executive Office for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (PEO RAS) and Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (PAE RAS). The Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN (RD&A)) is directed to immediately conduct a focused 30-day analysis (the “sprint”) to develop an implementation plan. I don’t hate it. If I may extend the concept: Surface RAS = SRAS. Pronounced, “S-Rass” Air RAS = ARAS. Pronounced, “A-Rass” Underwater RAS = URAS. Pronounced, “You-Rass” Ground RAS = GRAS. Pronounced, “G-Rass” That works. I think this new phrasing may stick. On Monday, the GAO put out, Robotic Autonomous Systems: Navy Needs to Address Leadership and Organizational Challenges to Meet Urgent Needs, a document that should be getting more attention. Recent conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East prove that robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) are disrupting naval warfare and challenging traditional naval superiority. To provide more adaptable, dispersed operations, the Navy intends to shift away from its World War II-era operating model, which was based on closely knit battle groups comprised of several traditional platforms, such as planes, ships and submarines. According to Navy strategic documents, a hybrid fleet is necessary to enable this shift and would incorporate smaller, more numerous, and distributed capabilities—including RAS capabilities—as a complement to larger, more individually powerful, traditional capabilities. In this context, RAS capabilities could allow naval forces to take on greater operational risk while maintaining a tactical and strategic advantage. The Navy plans to spend billions of dollars on researching and developing enabling technologies for RAS. In March 2025, GAO found that the Navy had not taken steps to address key challenges to developing RAS capabilities quickly despite critical needs for RAS implementation. We need to ditch the “hybrid fleet” silly talk, but the RAS? Not bad. With expanding operational systems nearing IOC…we should firm up our lexicon. I haven’t seen better. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

Top Flight Aerostructures, a Georgia parts manufacturer, won two indefinite-delivery contracts from the Defense Logistics Agency to build wing components for the B-1 bomber fleet. One contract has a maximum value of $53.1 million for trailing edges, the other up to $23.4 million for wing tips, with completion dates in mid-June 2029. Both awards came […]View the full article

A Maryland company wants to build something nobody’s ever actually flown: a working gas station in orbit, and the Department of War is now paying for it. Quantum Space announced a contract through the Pentagon’s Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund to demonstrate a fuel depot spacecraft, built on its Ranger platform, that can refuel other […]View the full article

Somewhere beneath the ocean’s surface, a submarine the U.S. Navy can’t see is the threat that keeps American admirals awake at night, and the weapon built to find it just received continued funding to keep its sensors sharp. According to a June 17 contract notice, the Navy awarded General Dynamics Mission Systems a $116.6 million […]View the full article

Ukraine’s most demanding combat laboratory just produced two more weapons that a Greek defense company wants to sell to the rest of the world. Paramount Industries Innovation Systems Greece and Ukrainian defense technology firm MAC HUB announced an expansion of their strategic partnership at the Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris, extending a relationship that previously […]View the full article

The U.S. Army ordered 8,936 DAGIR-V1 laser systems to support the M7 rifle’s fire-control program, and the company building them happens to be a family-owned business that got its start making night vision gear five decades ago. B.E. Meyers & Co., a Redmond, Washington manufacturer, announced it has been awarded a contract to deliver the […]View the full article

A Russian drone struck an apartment building in Galați, Romania, in May 2026, and the incident has become a flashpoint in a broader story about a vulnerability the European defense industry has been racing to address. Separate reporting has linked some stray-drone incidents across the region to heavy electronic warfare, including GPS spoofing and jamming, […]View the full article

A Czech jet trainer that traces its lineage back to the Cold War just broke into two new continents in the same week, and the company behind it says its factory floor is now booked solid into 2027. AERO Vodochody AEROSPACE signed two new contracts for its L-39 Skyfox aircraft, one with a customer in […]View the full article

SummarySal discusses recent geopolitical developments including Iran’s negotiations, US military operations, UK military decline, Ukraine’s resilience, and global strategic shifts. This episode offers insights into current international security dynamics and future implications. Chapters00:00 Introduction and Context of the Iranian Conflict 02:55 Goals an… Read more View the full article

Alloy Surfaces Company, based in Aston, Pennsylvania, was awarded a $300 million modification on June 12, according to a latest contract notice, covering continued production of a family of infrared decoy flares used to protect American military aircraft from missiles that track heat instead of radar. The new funding brings the total value of the […]View the full article

Europe’s biggest missile maker has agreed to help Ukraine build a successor to the weapon that sank Russia’s cruiser Moskva, the flagship of its Black Sea Fleet. MBDA signed a memorandum of understanding with Ukrainian defense company LUCH at Eurosatory in Paris on June 16, 2026, agreeing to jointly pursue what both companies call disruptive […]View the full article

A tank that first rolled off a French production line in the 1960s just showed up at Eurosatory with no crew inside it and a robot turret on top, and the company behind the conversion wants it to represent something bigger than a single old tank getting a second life. S2M Equipment and KNDS France […]View the full article

Portugal is doubling down on a bet it made just a year ago: that the best way to watch its own coastline and territory is to own the satellites doing the watching, rather than renting someone else’s. ICEYE, the Finnish company that operates the world’s largest synthetic aperture radar satellite constellation, announced that CTI Aeroespacial, […]View the full article

A small British company best known for catching drones in mid-air nets just landed a much bigger job: helping Australia’s military spot the things before anyone needs to catch them at all. OpenWorks Engineering said its Vision Guard system has been selected for evaluation under Australia’s Land 156 counter-drone program, part of the country’s $1.3 […]View the full article

A Brazilian ammunition giant just took a step toward the U.S. medium-caliber market, and it picked an American partner to get there. CBC Global Ammunition and Paligen Technologies, a U.S.-based engineering and manufacturing firm, announced a Strategic Alliance Agreement on June 16, 2026, during Eurosatory, the defense exhibition in Paris. The deal sets up a […]View the full article

The French Army has placed an order for several thousand FN Evolys machine guns from Belgian manufacturer FN Herstal, marking a major production order for the FN Evolys since the weapon debuted five years ago. The deal was signed at the Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris, with French Defense Minister Catherine Vautrin and Belgian Defense […]View the full article

Last night I bumped into something I wrote in my second month of blogging in August 2004 about a contemporary article by Eliot Cohen in WaPo titled, The Thin Red Line, Getting Thinner. It was about Tony Blair’s expected cuts announced that year. What happens to the military in Great Britain matters not just to them, but to the U.S.A. and the entire Western security system. What Cohen said almost 22 years ago rings even more true today. …the real significance of this erosion of British strength, and the stake the United States has in stopping it. First, Britain is the only considerable state that can send substantial forces in the field to operate alongside ours. Others -- the Australians or the Norwegians, to take two very different examples -- have superb niche capabilities, but only the British have the size and sophistication to take on large military tasks. If Iraq has taught anything, it has been the extreme desirability of bringing along a coalition, with all of its awkwardness, to a large geopolitical problem. But to have a coalition one needs at least one large partner. The issue is not just capability in some narrow, mathematical sense but the legitimacy and reassurance that comes from knowing a substantial partner is in the fight with us. And the American military has gotten to be so good, so technologically advanced and so tactically adept that only a handful of militaries can operate alongside ours and hope to keep up. Foremost among those who can are the Brits. Second, Britain brings to bear real military expertise. Particularly in the field of counterinsurgency, its soldiers have the hard-won knowledge of decades of frustrating small-war experience, in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Their soldiers and generals have learned a great deal about pacifying distant trouble spots, knowledge from which the Yanks could and have benefited. But as we have learned in the Persian Gulf, numbers of boots on the ground count in this kind of fight -- even when it comes to training indigenous forces. Finally, Britain is a European power. In NATO it is unique among the militarily serious states. France is hostile to us; Germany is increasingly so, and has debilitated its armed forces by putting them on starvation rations for the past decade. Spain has tilted to France, and Italy, despite pockets of excellence, is an uneven power. The other states are either too small or as yet too poor and inexperienced to provide both muscle and leadership in complex fights. A few years later in 2010, I re-emphasized another aspect as to why keeping an eye on what is happening in the Mother Country is so important: One thing that kept coming to mind last week in San Diego, was the goings-on in the mother country. Some of the challenges the United Kingdom is experiencing now are about a decade ahead of us, methinks - if not closer. If the decline mattered when the above was written—and it did; I remember it well—then what about now? It took a couple of years for the cuts announced in 2004 to hit, and it looks like most of the first round was in by the end of 2006. 20 years ago. By 2006, the British Armed Forces had dropped to: Army: 108,000 Royal Navy: 39,000 Royal Air Force: 49,000 Let’s just see what the Royal Navy looked like at the time. I may be off a frigate or destroyer here or there, but I think this is a solid list. The major ships commissioned in active service in 2006: Aircraft Carriers: 2 2 Invincible class - HMS Illustrious (R06) and HMS Ark Royal (R07) Destroyers: 8 8 Type 42 - HMS Exeter (D89), HMS Southampton (D90), HMS Nottingham (D91), HMS Liverpool (D92), HMS Manchester (D95), HMS Gloucester (D96), HMS Edinburgh (D97), and HMS York (D98). Frigates:18 4 Type 22 - HMS Cornwall (F99), HMS Cumberland (F85), HMS Campbeltown (F86), HMS Chatham (F87). 14 Type 23 - HMS Argyll (F231), HMS Grafton (F80), HMS Iron Duke (F234), HMS Kent (F78), HMS Lancaster (F229), HMS Monmouth (F235), HMS Montrose (F236), HMS Northumberland (F238), HMS Portland (F79), HMS Richmond (F239), HMS Somerset (F82), HMS St Albans (F83), HMS Sutherland (F81) and HMS Westminster (F237). Submarines: 13 4 Vanguard Class SSBN - HMS Vanguard, HMS Victorious, HMS Vigilant, and HMS Vengeance. 7 Trafalgar Class SSNs: HMS Trafalgar, HMS Turbulent, HMS Tireless, HMS Torbay, HMS Trenchant, HMS Talent, and HMS Triumph. 2 Swiftsure Class SSNs: HMS Superb, and HMS Sceptre. Where are we in 2026? Aircraft Carriers: 2 2 Queen Elizabeth Class - HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) and HMS Prince of Wales (R09). Destroyers: 6 6 Type 45 - HMS Daring (D32), HMS Dauntless (D33), HMS Diamond (D34), HMS Dragon (D35), HMS Defender (D36) and HMS Duncan (D37). Frigates: 5 5 Type 23 - HMS Kent (F78), HMS Portland (F79), HMS Somerset (F82), HMS St Albans (F83) and HMS Sutherland (F81). Submarines: 10 4 Vanguard Class SSBN - HMS Vanguard, HMS Victorious, HMS Vigilant, and HMS Vengeance. 6 Astute Class SSN - HMS Astute (S119), HMS Ambush (S120), HMS Artful (S121), HMS Audacious (S122), HMS Anson (S123) and HMS Agamemnon (S124). I’ll avoid the complication of digging up the data, but in 2006, the Royal Navy had a higher readiness rate in addition to having more ships on paper. I don't think you will find anyone of substance who will disagree with the statement that, while individual ships in 2026 are generally more advanced than their 2006 equivalents, the quantity and day-to-day readiness of the fleet is considerably worse. The Royal Navy in 2026 has far less ability to sustain multiple operations or surge in a crisis compared to 2006. We’ve seen that play out this year in spades. So, that is the state of our most reliable European allied navy. Keep that in mind, and be nice to every Japanese person you meet. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

The single most important military headquarters in the Pacific got its old name back, and the decision quietly closes the book on a label that lasted only eight years. The Department of War announced Tuesday that U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the four-star headquarters responsible for American military operations across roughly half the planet, will officially revert […]View the full article

A Leonardo-owned vehicle maker has revealed an uncrewed light tank designed to fight directly alongside crewed armor, the UK Defence Journal reported, marking one of the more striking unveilings at this year’s Eurosatory defense show in Paris. IDV, the Italian manufacturer behind the platform, calls it the CL2X, and the company is showing it off […]View the full article

Thales has unveiled a new way to shoot down cheap drones without burning through expensive ammunition to do it, unveiling the LGR275 Proxy at the Eurosatory defense show in Paris. The system is a 70 mm laser-guided rocket fitted with a proximity sensor, built specifically to knock small unmanned aircraft out of the sky at […]View the full article

Thales and Renault Group are joining forces to mass-produce a French kamikaze drone, betting that the country’s largest carmaker can do for loitering munitions what it has long done for hatchbacks: build them at scale and at optimized cost. The two companies signed a partnership agreement on June 16, 2026, to jointly develop and industrialize […]View the full article

Germany and Ukraine signed agreements that include €750 million ($870 million) for 200 Bohdana self-propelled artillery systems on Zetros chassis, and those systems now have a confirmed name and barrel specification: defense analyst Jeff, reporting from Eurosatory 2026 in Paris on Tuesday, wrote that a representative from Ukrainian Armoured Vehicles [was likely referring to Ukrainian […]View the full article