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Raytheon has won a phase one contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop photonic circuits that process signals entirely with light, the company said on Nov. 3. The work falls under DARPA’s PICASSO program, short for Photonic Integrated Circuit Architectures for Scalable System Objectives. Raytheon, an RTX business, did not disclose the […]View the full article

Edgerun, a U.S.-based, Y Combinator-backed company building a powered hip exoskeleton for soldiers, says it has run more than 100 field tests with Ukrainian troops since May 2026. The company launched the device publicly on Aug. 25. It weighs about 10 pounds, runs for more than 12 hours, and, based on internal testing, cuts the […]View the full article

Russia Spent Decades Modernizing One Giant Cruiser—Now Its Flagship Is Headed for Scrap (United 24 Media)

I decided a few weeks ago to take a bit of my own medicine. I needed to take a spell and return to the fundamentals. That means, of course, to lean over on the bookcase. Last month I finished a return to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. This week, I’m diving back into the work of WWI veteran and one of the premier military historians of the mid-20th century, Captain Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, KCB, GBR A — Strategy: Second Revised Edition. As the quote at the top of the page makes clear, Hart was not a man stuck in the past. He was often a step or two ahead of everyone else, even if they did not realize it. Prior to WWII, his thinking was more aligned with that of the Germans of his time and the American Army of the late Cold War than with the British Army of the late 1930s. However, his thoughts were not detached from the lessons of the past. Just the opposite—everything is built on the lessons of thousands of years of war. In the preface to his work, also known as Strategy: The Indirect Approach, this bit hit home to me. It hits on a common theme we’ve touched on for years, and it also reminded me of our friend Claude Berube’s February 2009 article, The Navy Can Handle the Truth: Creative Friction without Conflict. Truth, both in leadership and action, was hard to come by this century. The optimism of Claude’s article was drowned out in the decade that followed. Our Navy and many of the institutions that were associated with it took another path which had no use for open discussion, challenge, or creative friction. The results of the second decade of the 21st century speak for themselves. Our system of incentives and disincentives—and the priorities of our nomenklatura—simply did not provide the right leaders at the right time. Enough of my prattle; I’ll let Liddell Hart take it from here and just ask you to ponder how it reads from your seat. … true conclusions can only be reached, or approached, by pursuing the truth without regard to where it may lead or what its effect may be on different interests. History bears witness to the vital part that the ‘prophets’ have played in human progress, which is evidence of the ultimate practical value of expressing unreservedly the truth as one sees it. Yet it also becomes clear that the acceptance and spreading of their vision depended on another class of men - ‘leaders’ who had to be philosophical strategists, striking a compromise between truth and men’s receptivity to it. Their effect has often depended as much on their own limitations in perceiving the truth as on their practical wisdom in proclaiming it. The prophets must be stoned; that is their lot, and the test of their self-fulfillment. But a leader who is stoned may merely prove that he has failed in his function through a deficiency of wisdom, or through confusing his function with that of a prophet. Time alone can tell whether the effect of such a sacrifice redeems the apparent failure as a leader that does honour to him as a man. At the least, he avoids the more common fault of leaders - that of sacrificing the truth to expediency without ultimate advantage to the cause. For whoever habitually suppresses the truth in the interests of tact will produce a deformity from the womb of his thought. Is there a practical way of combining progress towards the attainment of truth with progress towards its acceptance? A possible solution of the problem is suggested by reflection on strategic principles, which point to the importance of maintaining an object consistently and, also, of pursuing it in a way adapted to circumstances. Opposition to the truth is inevitable, especially if it takes the form of a new idea, but the degree of resistance can be diminished - by giving thought not only to the aim but to the method of approach. Avoid a frontal attack on a long-established position; instead, seek to turn it by a flank movement, so that a more penetrable side is exposed to the thrust of truth. But, in any such indirect approach, take care not to diverge from the truth - for nothing is more fatal to its real advancement than to lapse into untruth. The meaning of these reflections may be made clearer by illustration from one’s own experience. Looking back on the stages by which various fresh ideas gained acceptance, it can be seen that the process was eased when they could be presented, not as something radically new, but as the revival in modern terms of a time-honoured principle or practice that had been forgotten. This required not deception, but care to trace the connection - since ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. A notable example was the way that the opposition to mechanization was diminished by showing that the mobile armoured vehicle - the fast-moving tank - was fundamentally the heir of the armoured horseman, and thus the natural means of reviving the decisive role which cavalry had played in past ages. How do we recapture that process? Who can do it? 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

Russian forces dropped 8,016 guided aerial bombs on Ukrainian positions in October, an 11% fall from September’s record, the monitoring project Oko Gora said in a post summarizing the month. The figure works out to an average of 259 bombs a day and is the first monthly decline after a long climb through the summer. […]View the full article

Two Polish defense companies have agreed to work together on the wheeled chassis for 155mm self-propelled howitzers that Poland plans to build under license from Ukraine. PK MIL, part of the PONAR Wadowice group, and SZCZĘŚNIAK Pojazdy Specjalne of Bielsko-Biała signed a memorandum of understanding to select and adapt chassis for the systems, the companies […]View the full article

Poland has delivered more Rosomak 8×8 armored vehicles armed with the ZSSW-30 unmanned turret and Spike anti-tank missiles to the Land Forces Training Ground Center in Poznań, where they will be used to train soldiers from mechanized units, the country’s Armament Agency said on social media. The agency said the delivery is the next stage […]View the full article

Counter-drone missile maker Perseus Defense has released video of one of its small, low-cost interceptors climbing into the sky and hitting a hovering multirotor drone, which the company’s chief executive described as the first time an “attritable” missile has shot down a drone. Jason Cornelius, co-founder and CEO of the Texas-based company, posted the eight-second […]View the full article

Siemens Mobility and Lufthansa Technik Defense plan to build a hospital train for the German armed forces and NATO allies that could carry more than 150 wounded or sick patients, including those needing intensive care, the two companies said on Nov. 3. The companies signed a memorandum of understanding ahead of the Berlin Security Conference […]View the full article

Japanese satellite-servicing company Astroscale and German space firm OHB have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore working together on technology to protect satellites and other infrastructure in orbit, with a focus on linking Astroscale’s British subsidiary with OHB in Germany. The two companies announced the agreement on Oct. 28 at the German Embassy in […]View the full article

Auriga Space, a California company building electromagnetic launch technology, wants to fix one of the slowest steps in developing American hypersonic weapons: testing their materials and parts on the ground. Instead of a rocket-powered sled racing down steel rails, its Prometheus accelerator uses an electric linear motor to push a magnetically levitated test article through […]View the full article

Kazakhstan has taken delivery of its second Airbus A400M Atlas heavy military transport aircraft, completing a two-plane order the Central Asian country placed in 2021, the Kazakh Defense Ministry said on Nov. 2. The aircraft flew from Airbus’ A400M final assembly line in Seville, Spain, to Almaty, where it joins the Air Defense Forces, Kazakhstan’s […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy’s top officer, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, got a close look at Blackbeard, the new air-launched hypersonic strike missile that the Navy is preparing to arm its F/A-18E/F Super Hornets with, during a visit to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland on Oct. 28, the U.S. Navy said. Caudle […]View the full article

The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital has agreed to lend up to $450 million to Neros, the California maker of the Archer attack drone, to build drones and their key parts in the United States, the Department of War announced on Nov. 2. Neros said it will put $165 million of its own equity into […]View the full article

The U.S. military has deployed high-energy laser weapons around President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, as part of a counter-drone shield set up at the request of the Secret Service, a military spokesperson told the directed-energy news outlet Laser Wars. Laser Wars identified one of them in an Oct. 31 photo as […]View the full article

Luxembourg-based satellite company Hydrosat is developing a high-resolution heat-sensing satellite capability called Nyktòs that governments can task to photograph specific targets day or night, the company announced on Nov. 2, aiming the service at NATO members and other allies that want their own space-based intelligence. Nyktòs will use mid-wave infrared sensors, which detect heat rather […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has taken delivery of the 1,000th Evolved SeaSparrow Missile Block 2, the ship-defense interceptor built for a 12-nation NATO consortium, after doubling the number delivered in just over a year. The Navy’s NATO SEASPARROW program office, known as PMX-312, said the program reached its 500th Block 2 delivery in June 2025. It […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has flown a mid-sized drone powered by a 3D-printed rotary engine that runs on jet fuel, the Army Research Laboratory announced, wrapping up a multiyear research program aimed at giving future unmanned aircraft more range, power and endurance. The engine drives a generator in a series-hybrid system, meaning it produces electricity for […]View the full article

Leonardo DRS will supply the power, cooling and vehicle integration hardware for the U.S. Army’s first production laser weapon, after AeroVironment picked the company as a subcontractor on the Enduring-High Energy Laser program, DRS announced on Nov. 2. The work supports AeroVironment’s production of its LOCUST X3, a 30-kilowatt laser designed to shoot down small […]View the full article

A grinding war can devolve into almost a tidal environment. Lines move forward and then back. Cycle. Then you have to wait for a moment. Two months is not a breakthrough, but given Russia’s efforts over the summer, Ukraine’s wee gains should cause one to pay closer attention. While most Americans after Labor Day have been focused on the election, the Iran War and the “issues” from Paris to Warsaw, as the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 approaches its 5th Anniversary next winter, ISW’s latest Campaign Assessment has some hard facts for Team Russia to ponder. Russian forces lost ground on the battlefield in October 2026 for the second month in a row. ISW has observed evidence to assess that Russian forces consolidated positions or seized 139.85 kilometers but lost 167.14 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine in October 2026 for a net loss of 27.29 square kilometers. That is an average pace of -0.88 square kilometers per day. Russian forces only made gains in Sumy and Zaporizhia oblasts, while losing territory in all other sectors of the frontline, including their priority objective of Donetsk Oblast. Russian forces also lost ground in October when accounting for Russian infiltrations into areas over which Russian forces have not gained control, with Russian forces suffering a net loss of 76.38 square kilometers in such areas for an average pace of -2.46 square kilometers per day. Russian forces seized 10 settlements totaling 5.86 square kilometers, but Ukrainian forces liberated or cleared Russian infiltrators from 11 settlements with an area of 3.24 square kilometers. This has been an almost static front for a very long time. Russia—on paper at least—should have won this war long ago, and that’s the problem. She entered the war with approximately 3.3 times Ukraine's population base and nine times its nominal economic resources. There are some things in war you cannot quantify…so you need to be very careful before starting one. On paper, Vietnam and Afghanistan should not have been a problem for the U.S.A., but we got our a55 handed to us each time. As we’ve discussed from the beginning of the conflict, Russia started with war with a bad plan that came through a series of optimism filters. From missile cruisers to the SU-57 to their newest tanks, none of their high-profile weapons have been able to close the deal. Plucky Ukraine continues to deliver the undeliverable. Russian forces suffered their highest monthly losses of the war thus far in October 2026, paying a growing price for their territorial losses. I continue to remind myself that I cannot fully understand the Russian—or Ukrainian—mindset from my comfortable seat in North America, and that I should not make predictions. I won’t, but I will comment on what we are all seeing on the ground. How does Russia continue to sell this to their people? The only thing that is going for them is that Ukraine’s supporters in NATO Europe seem to be distracted by their own burning cities and tottering welfare states to do much more to help. In North America, there is no desire to support Ukraine more than the Europeans want to support them, if that. After all, it is their back yard and Uncle Sam has more pressing concerns in the Pacific. So, the Pontic Steppe is about to enter another winter of war, more than it saw in WWII, with little progress on either side, just more death. More and more, I think this is becoming a rather strange war of will. All wars are about ‘will’, really, but in this one, both sides are holding their lines +/- as if they are waiting for some tangentially related political crisis to cause one side or the other’s military to just, well, walk away. Who quits first before some damn foolish thing happens that pulls more nations into the fight? 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

North Defence Group has shown new images of its unmanned ground vehicle, a compact electric or hybrid robot built to haul more than 1,000 kg (2,200 pounds) of gear for frontline troops, follow soldiers on its own and carry counter-drone weapons, as the British-Luxembourg company prepares it for NATO trials in Switzerland. The company said […]View the full article

Russia has banned exports of benzene, toluene, xylenes and phenol for three months, saying it needs to keep its own factories supplied with the industrial chemicals, the government announced on Nov. 2. The ban, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, covers coal-derived and petroleum benzene, toluene, ortho-xylene, para-xylene and phenol shipped outside the Eurasian Economic […]View the full article

Russia expects to reach a deal to sell Pantsir-S1 air defense systems to Azerbaijan, the head of Russia’s arms export regulator said, in a sign that military trade between Moscow and Baku is picking up again after a year-long diplomatic rupture. Dmitry Shugaev, director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, said on Russian state […]View the full article

Israel’s Defense Ministry has signed a 15-year contract with Elbit Systems worth about 600 million shekels, or roughly $192 million, to build and run a training and simulation center for the Israel Defense Forces Artillery Corps as it brings the new Roem self-propelled howitzer and Lahav rocket launcher into service. The ministry’s Directorate of Defense […]View the full article

Japan tracked four Chinese navy ships moving through the Miyako Strait between Okinawa and Miyako Island over two days, with one destroyer pair heading back into the East China Sea and another heading out into the Pacific, the Joint Staff of Japan’s Defense Ministry said in a post on Nov. 2. On Nov. 1, a […]View the full article