Raw Intel

Europe’s defense industry has faced a growing series of fires, explosions and deliberate attacks in 2026, many of them affecting companies that manufacture weapons, ammunition, drones or other equipment for Ukraine. Western intelligence sources increasingly view the incidents as part of a Russian campaign intended to disrupt military supply chains, intimidate manufacturers and test how […]View the full article

The European Commission approved €6.1 billion ($7.12 billion) in new defense procurement funding for Ukraine on August 24, 2026, the same day Ukraine marked its Independence Day. The money covers air and missile defense systems, missiles, ammunition and radars. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tied the timing directly to the war. “On Ukraine’s Independence […]View the full article

Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Denys Brasheuk told Kyodo News in an exclusive interview that Japanese-manufactured components have been identified in approximately 90 percent of the cruise missile and drone types Russia has used in its invasion of Ukraine, Kyodo News reported on June 28, 2026. Brasheuk presented internal Ukrainian government documents during the interview, including materials […]View the full article

It was only 2019 that I first posted this…but given the news about the UK defense cuts…now is a good time too. How do you protest draconian defense cuts? Well, this is one way. Alan loved the RAF and felt its 50th anniversary should be celebrated with a flypast over London. There had been an official dinner and a few parades — but no flypast. This, he felt, was a terrible slight. ‘One thing that was in the Air Force’s blood was that you celebrated in the air, not on the ground,’ Alan, now 82, says at his home in Surrey. He was serving at the time in No. 1 Squadron. This is the RAF’s oldest unit and as such he believed it had a responsibility to take the lead in ensurin…

Three countries have taken a real step toward keeping their new stealth fighters flying without shipping them back to Texas every time something breaks, and the Pentagon just handed Lockheed Martin $23 million to make it happen. The U.S. Naval Air Systems Command awarded Lockheed Martin Corporation, the Fort Worth, Texas defense giant that builds […]View the full article

A single explosion at one South Korean missile factory has exposed just how fragile the supply chain behind the country’s booming arms export business really is, since many of the components that go into a guided missile can only be built by one qualified company in the entire nation. The Korea Times reported that the […]View the full article

Y Combinator-backed startup IMPACT Drones says it built a working prototype of its high-speed interceptor drone, called SABLE, in two weeks, according to posts by the company’s two co-founders on social media. Jasper Lortije, whom the company lists as CEO, and Alessandro Fiume, listed as founder, both posted about the prototype this week. IMPACT Drones […]View the full article

RTX Corp.’s Pratt & Whitney Military Engines division in East Hartford, Connecticut, has been awarded a $54 million order to perform engineering work on the F135, the engine that powers every version of the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter, according to the contract announcement. The order, issued under a fixed-price incentive structure that rewards the […]View the full article

The Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course at Fort Rucker, Alabama, increased its live kinetic engagements, meaning exercises where students actually fly a drone armed with a real explosive payload against a target rather than practicing in simulation, from five to 12 per class, according to Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Gatta, the course manager. Gatta and […]View the full article

The Russian United Shipbuilding Corporation’s Sevmash shipyard held a ceremony to move the multi-purpose nuclear-powered submarine Ulyanovsk out of its construction hall, marking the completion of the vessel’s slipway construction phase, according to a statement from the shipyard. Ulyanovsk is the sixth submarine built in Russia’s modernized Yasen-M class, known formally as Project 885M, a […]View the full article

A machine gun once reserved for infantry squads and vehicle mounts has found a new home strapped to the back of a motorcycle, and the company behind the setup says this is only the beginning of a rapidly evolving niche in European special operations equipment. French tactical equipment distributor TR Equipement staged a live demonstration […]View the full article

A Swedish aerospace startup has let journalists watch its foot-long, carbon-fiber interceptor drone chase down and destroy a target aircraft in real time, the first live public demonstration of a system the company hopes will help defend against the wave of cheap attack drones reshaping modern warfare. Nordic Air Defence held what it called a […]View the full article

Is it a good idea to start the week with a nightmare? Of course it is. All the cool kids like to talk about the “cyber domain” and the “digital battlespace.” Heck, we try to be cool ourselves here now and then…but there is something we don’t appreciate as much as we should. We know that in 2026 we do not have enough strategic sealift nor enough strategic airlift to move what we need to move if we should find ourselves in a fight west of the International Date Line. Heck, we’re not that sure we can even do a much easier lift to Europe should things get sporty there for more than a punitive expedition. During the latest Iran conflict, we did kind of smoke check our airlift …

The German Navy successfully completed a dual firing trial of Israel Aerospace Industries’ Naval LORA ballistic missile, launching the weapon from an operational German vessel and hitting its target with precision in both test scenarios, IAI said. The trial was conducted as part of the German Navy’s Operational Experimentation program, known as OPEX, a testing […]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

It’s been almost nine months since the last Long Game post. We’re overdue. For a while I thought I might stop the Long Game series I started in 2004, after all, the Long is Now…but I was mistaken. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is still playing a long game…and we—and that includes me—just keep getting distracted. I had the following exchange with Brent Sadler at about the 52-minute mark toward the end of last Sunday’s Midrats Podcast that reminded me that, even in 2026, we’re still thinking like it’s 1996. Sal: It seem like it just happened a little while ago when they said, “Hey, there are there are PRC police stations right here in New York City.” It’s fairly hig…

The British military’s newest helicopter fleet finally has an engine, closing a question that even reporters covering the program in real time couldn’t get UK officials to answer for months. GE Aerospace announced July 14 that Leonardo selected its CT7-2E1 engine to power all 23 AW149 helicopters being built for the UK Ministry of Defence’s […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has hired four civilian cargo ships capable of driving military vehicles directly onto beaches and island piers without fixed port infrastructure, chartering them for operations out of Naha, Japan, starting July 30, 2026, in a $37 million contract that tells a precise story about how seriously American military planners are taking the […]View the full article

Israel’s largest defense contractor is bringing a laser cannon that shoots down rockets with light, a missile precise enough to hit hardened underground bunkers, and a record-breaking $2.3 billion European air defense deal to one of the world’s biggest aviation trade shows this week. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced it will showcase a wide portfolio […]View the full article

One of my favorite corners in the maritime world is that corner room few people visit, the “Unsexy but Important.” Taking up some of the space in that corner is one area of naval warfare that the U.S. Navy simply has shrugged at—mining—especially offensive mining. We don’t have mine layers, really. Not surface ones, and in the aviation and subsurface communities, it is a tertiary mission no one really wants to do. From the air, facing a modern integrated air defense system, putting offensive air-laid minefields up close to the enemy’s Sea Lines of Communication in the number to make an effective field is, well, suicidal. Yes, our submarines can lay mines…but when you loo…