Raw Intel

As a long-standing member of Team Philippines, I spent most of the day yesterday with a smile as I watched Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto C. Teodoro at Seoul Defense Dialogue 2026. One of the things that I have been so heartened by what I’ve seen over the last half decade or so is the growing closeness and maturity of our relationship with the Philippines. I have my biases as a retired naval officer who worked with Filipinos for decades, and my hometown has a well-established population of Filipinos in the tens of thousands. They are great people with so much talent and so much potential. We had a spotty decade or so post-Cold War, but with a more balanced view of …

British radar maker Blighter is pushing for more sales in Central and Eastern Europe, showcasing its border and low-altitude air surveillance radars this week at the MSPO defense exhibition in Kielce, Poland. The company builds ground-based radars that use electronic scanning array antennas rather than the mechanically rotating dishes found on older radar systems, letting […]View the full article

AEVEX Corp. has won $20.5 million in new U.S. government contracts to build and develop one-way attack drones, the company announced September 9. AEVEX did not name the government agency behind the awards or specify which of its drone models are covered. The work includes delivering the aircraft themselves along with engineering, development and integration […]View the full article

Elbit Systems has introduced FUSE, a new business line bringing together the Israeli defense contractor’s autonomous drone and ground vehicle systems under one portfolio, the company announced September 9 in Rosh HaAyin, Israel. FUSE centers on software called Dominion-X, which lets a single operator control multiple autonomous aircraft and ground vehicles at once, a setup […]View the full article

Israeli drone maker Aero Sentinel says its G2 unmanned aircraft completed a week of demonstrations with a Romanian defense company during a Romanian Land Forces exercise, flying reconnaissance missions of up to 75 minutes despite heavy electronic jamming. Aero Sentinel did not name the Romanian partner company, the exact exercise, or its location and dates. […]View the full article

Russia spent a record 44% of its federal budget on the military in the first half of 2026, according to calculations published by Janis Kluge, a research fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, based on data from Russia’s Finance Ministry. Direct military spending totaled 10.7 trillion rubles, about $125 billion at […]View the full article

Norwegian defense company KONGSBERG has selected a radar built by U.S. firm Echodyne to help its remote weapon systems detect and shoot down drones, the companies announced September 9. KONGSBERG has integrated Echodyne’s MESA radar into its PROTECTOR RS4 and RS6 remote weapon stations, turning the widely used gun mounts into counter-drone systems capable of […]View the full article

A Russian military-affiliated Telegram channel has raised alarm that Ukraine’s reach at sea now extends beyond the Black Sea into the Mediterranean, framing a string of drone strikes on Russian-linked vessels there as part of a wider pattern that has already put Russian military and commercial assets at risk across three separate seas. Ukraine’s drone […]View the full article

U.S. soldiers trained on a counter-drone defense system during a course at the Combined Arms Training Center in Grafenwoehr, Germany, the U.S. Mission to NATO said in a social media post. The training center, known as CATC, is run by the 7th Army Training Command and offers close to 60 courses for U.S. troops, ranging […]View the full article

Finland has agreed to buy more than 100 Patria TREMOS mortar systems, with an option for hundreds more, defense manufacturer Patria announced. Deliveries under the serial production contract begin this year and will continue through 2028, Patria said. The Finnish Army designates the system the 120 KRH M3. Finland already received a smaller pre-series batch […]View the full article

A Ukrainian armored vehicle maker has built more than 600 BTR-4 troop carriers since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, working through repeated missile strikes on the country’s defense industry. The Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau, known as KhKBM, disclosed the production figure to a Militarnyi correspondent at the MSPO defense exhibition in Kielce, Poland. The […]View the full article

Germany will supply Ukraine with several thousand more IRIS-T guided missiles, funded through the European Union’s 90 billion euro ($105 billion) loan package for Kyiv, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said September 8. Pistorius made the announcement ahead of a video conference of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the Ramstein-format meeting of Kyiv’s international backers, […]View the full article

Ukraine has publicly shown a launcher for its Koral surface-to-air missile for the first time, unveiling it at the MSPO defense exhibition in Kielce, Poland, a Militarnyi correspondent reported. State defense conglomerate Ukroboronprom released an image showing a missile launch from a self-propelled launcher mounted on a Czech-made Tatra truck chassis. Ukraine’s defense industry has […]View the full article

AeroVironment has received its first international order for the LOCUST laser weapon system, a purchase worth more than $50 million, the company announced September 8. The direct commercial sale covers an initial batch of LOCUST systems and support services. AeroVironment did not disclose the buying country, the number of units included, or a delivery date. […]View the full article

"Have I missed the mark, or, like true archer, do I strike my quarry? Or am I prophet of lies, a babbler from door to door?" - Cassaandra, from Aeschylus’s, Agamemnon Sometimes, WaPo puts something out that makes you realize that, in spite of all its sub-optimal performance as the DC town paper, there is still a lot of talent there. Case in point, in Monday’s opinion section, The U.S. cannot afford a major war. What if one comes anyway? For a whole host of reasons, I read it and thought, “Damn. This is good.” First of all, let’s set the table. In 2026, we are in a much better place than we would have been otherwise for the next big war for two reasons. Both have bought …

Poland’s state-owned defense conglomerate PGZ unveiled its new heavy infantry fighting vehicle in full for the first time at MSPO 2026, the Kielce arms fair, after days of teasing only partial glimpses of the vehicle on social media. The vehicle, known by its Polish designation CBWP, or Ciężki Bojowy Wóz Piechoty, was developed by Huta […]View the full article

Axon Vision has received its first order for ForceField, an AI-powered counter-drone system it launched in July, with an Israeli defense organization placing a deal worth up to roughly 15 million shekels ($5.0 million), the company announced September 7. The order includes an initial payment of about 6 million shekels ($2.0 million), with the customer […]View the full article

Brazil’s Avibras Aeroco and the Brazilian Army completed a successful test launch of the country’s first indigenous cruise missile on August 26, a milestone in a certification process that stalled for roughly four years while the missile’s manufacturer worked through a severe financial crisis. The test took place at the Army Evaluation Centre’s Marambaia Test […]View the full article

South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace and Hanwha Systems opened a joint exhibit at MSPO 2026 in Kielce, Poland, on September 8, presenting an expanded lineup of air defense, unmanned and artillery systems built around the company’s decade-long defense partnership with Warsaw. The two companies are sharing a stand at the exhibition, which runs through September 11, […]View the full article

Israeli satellite company ImageSat International unveiled a new Earth observation satellite on September 8 designed to capture imagery sharp enough to identify small objects on the ground from orbit, while processing some of that data in space before it ever reaches an analyst. The satellite, called EROS NOVA, will capture imagery at a native resolution […]View the full article