Raw Intel

To start off with—usual caveats apply. Yes, this is Axios, but Barak Ravid is a serious reporter that I have no evidence that he has a history of making stuff up. I also know that the Trump administration is pretty good at message control and minimizing leaks…especially on national security issues. I also know that is DC, which is leaky for both official and unofficial reasons. As such, I’ll put forward an opening bet that this is 51% close to right. If I had to place the odds: 10% this is fake news; 20% chance this is an unofficial leak; 70% it is an official leak. Ambient noise and transmission loss of about 30%…so we’re seeing something—good chance—but not quite what h…

Axon Vision, an Israeli defense technology company based in Tel Aviv, announced Monday that it has teamed up with ParaZero Technologies, an Israeli firm based in Kfar Saba, to build an integrated counter-drone system aimed at protecting critical infrastructure sites where blowing an incoming drone out of the sky simply isn’t an option. The new […]View the full article

Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy will extend the contract for the Global Combat Air Programme through the end of 2027, after Britain’s delayed defense spending plan created an impasse that had left the three-nation stealth fighter effort operating on temporary bridge funding since April, Nikkei reported. The extension resolves the immediate crisis triggered when […]View the full article

On Sweden’s National Day, a country that spent more than two centuries avoiding military alliances took formal command of a NATO battlegroup positioned at the edge of the Arctic, placing its soldiers under the alliance’s direct authority for the first time and completing a strategic transformation that would have been unimaginable before Russia’s invasion of […]View the full article

An unmanned fighter jet built to fly and fight alongside human pilots has left the sterile confines of a test range and flown its first real-world combat exercise in the Nevada desert, according to a release from Air Force Warfare Center Public Affairs published July 27, 2026. The exercise, conducted at Creech Air Force Base […]View the full article

Voltaic Marine has completed live trials pairing its AEU39 uncrewed surface vessel with a Moog Space and Defense RIwP remote weapon turret, the company said this week. During the trials, the turret drew power directly from the AEU39’s 300 kilowatt-hour battery bank through standard interfaces, while the vessel held position on the water. The RIwP, […]View the full article

The U.S. military has signed on for its first-ever bilateral artificial intelligence unit with a Middle Eastern partner, a Tampa-based command confirmed Tuesday, betting that shared access to AI tools can speed up how fast American and Emirati forces detect threats across one of the world’s most volatile regions. U.S. Central Command announced an agreement […]View the full article

Amazing how a good night’s sleep can change the flavor of a post. On Tuesday when I read this spoof-worthy weak-cheese hit piece on the Chief of Naval Operations by Greg Jaffe and Kate Kelly over at the New York Times, I was—to be blunt—pissed. It was so clear what this was and the goal of it all. After a Wednesday at the paying gig that got too busy to finish the post, I found myself Wednesday night as I doing my final editing, feeling a bit bad. Not for Admiral Caudle—he’ll be fine as this smear is so lame—but for Jaffe and Kelly. It is such a poorly constructed hatchet-job that it couldn’t be something that a pair—a pair—of reporters would take to their editor and sa…

Two of NASA’s most storied research jets have traded their usual gray paint for a full red, white, and blue makeover, and the aircraft getting the treatment have spent decades doing work most Americans have never heard of despite watching some of its results on the evening news for years. NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center […]View the full article

A Chinese Navy submarine fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, and Tokyo says it “strongly urged” Beijing to call off the test beforehand, the Japan Times reported. The launch, carried out with a mock warhead rather than a live one, hit its intended impact zone according to China’s state-run Xinhua […]View the full article

A seven-ton U.S. Marine Corps supply truck can now creep past enemy positions in near silence, running purely on battery power with its diesel engine switched off entirely, and the company that built that capability is about to show it off in Michigan. Eaton, an intelligent power management company, announced its Mobility segment will display […]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

The Pentagon just opened the door for private companies to pitch prototype hypersonic weapons capable of flying more than five times the speed of sound, releasing a formal Request for Solutions on July 9 that gives industry until August 10 to respond. The opportunity, titled Next Generation Hypersonics for the Department of War, runs through […]View the full article

Norwegian defense and technology group Kongsberg posted a second quarter that outpaced its own recent growth trajectory by a wide margin, with revenue climbing 31 percent to NOK 10,389 million (roughly $1.06 billion) and operating profit jumping nearly 50 percent to NOK 1,669 million (about $171 million), as demand for its missile systems and layered […]View the full article

I am of the last cohort of military officers who grew up training for nuclear war expected at any moment. By the time I had been on this planet less than 25 years, I was cleared, if ordered, to deliver nuclear weapons—so were thousands of us. From frigates to submarines to helicopters, pointy nosed jets and prop engined patrol aircraft—our Navy was thick with nuclear weapons. As a junior officer, it was just another PQS book, another exercise, another inspection, another qualification. No big deal. Well, it was a big deal. I saw a grown man cry over an inspection as a JO. In hindsight, it was actually kind of amazing how we just lived with those things on a hair-trigger …

Japan’s military procurement agency has handed a German drone company a foothold in one of the most urgent defense priorities in the Indo-Pacific: figuring out how to shoot down enemy drones before they hit anything. Quantum Systems, a German unmanned aircraft maker, announced Wednesday that Japan’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency, the defense ministry’s procurement […]View the full article

Ukraine now builds roughly 10 million drones a year, a tenfold jump from the target President Volodymyr Zelenskyy first announced just three years ago, Radio Svoboda, the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reported. Zelenskyy delivered the figure during a ceremony in Kyiv marking Ukrainian Statehood Day, framing it as proof that a goal […]View the full article

Andreas Rupprecht, a researcher who tracks Chinese military aviation, published a photograph he says shows what is likely the first clear image of a J-10CE fighter jet belonging to the Uzbekistan Air Force. “Likely the first clear(er) image of an Uzbekistan Air Force J-10CE,” Rupprecht wrote. Uzbekistan has reportedly agreed to purchase 24 J-10CE fighters […]View the full article

Saab has released the first public look at its concept for a Collaborative Combat Aircraft, an unmanned fighter designed to fly alongside crewed jets. The video shows an aircraft marked A3-01, featuring a delta-wing design, a single jet engine, and two intakes positioned on either side of the fuselage. The airframe shows visible attention to […]View the full article

British manufacturer MSI-Defence Systems unveiled a new remote weapon station called TERRAHAWK RAPTOR at the DVD 2026 exhibition in Millbrook, calling it the lightest gun mount in its counter-drone product line. RAPTOR is a remote weapon station, a gun turret a soldier can aim and fire from inside a vehicle rather than exposing themselves on […]View the full article