Raw Intel

CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow for meetings on August 25, CBS News reported, citing multiple sources. The trip explains the previously unexplained flight of a U.S. Air Force C-17A Globemaster III that landed at Vnukovo International Airport near Moscow that morning after departing Riga, Latvia. The Kremlin said it had “no information” about […]View the full article

The general director of a Russian state-backed drone development center was arrested and jailed on fraud charges, according to Russian outlets reporting August 25. Yevgeny Grigoryev, head of the TulaDrone Research and Production Center, was detained in Tula and ordered held for two months by a court on August 14, according to the local outlets […]View the full article

Rocket Lab Corporation, the publicly traded space company known primarily for its small satellite launch vehicles, announced a $266 million multi-launch contract with the U.S. Space Force, the branch of the Department of War responsible for military operations in and through space, marking the largest single launch agreement the company has ever secured. The deal […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy handed a brand-new missile maker $70 million to build a cheap cruise missile, and it says this is only the opening move. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition confirmed that PAE Munitions, the Navy’s precision-strike acquisition arm, awarded CoAspire, a company it described as […]View the full article

A defense manufacturer in the middle of Nebraska farm country has landed a $33.9 million contract to build the outer shells of bombs engineered to kill fewer bystanders, a niche corner of American weapons-making that reflects one of the hardest problems in modern warfare: how to strike an enemy hiding among civilians without leveling the […]View the full article

The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit recently fielded the Light Marine Air-Defense Integrated System, known as LMADIS, and immediately began working it into underway training aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island off the California coast, Staff Sgt. Michael Virtue reported for the 13th MEU. Marines assigned to the 3rd Low Altitude Air Defense […]View the full article

A fire destroyed a two-story warehouse building in Lublin, Poland, Sunday afternoon, gutting facilities owned by JFG Composites, a subcontractor to Leonardo’s PZL-Świdnik helicopter plant, according to Polish outlet Defence24. The fire broke out around 2:00 p.m. local time on Kasprowicza Street and spread through the building’s warehouse and office sections, PAP reported, according to […]View the full article

The U.S. Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon office tasked with pulling commercial technology into military use faster than traditional defense contracting normally allows, announced that it completed a successful unmanned stores separation flight test with Hermeus, an Atlanta-based hypersonic aircraft company, as part of the DIU’s Hypersonic and High-Cadence Airborne Testing Capabilities program, known as […]View the full article

Over the course of the last 18 months or so, you’d have to have been at an extended ibogaine, psilocybin, and 5-MeO-DMT retreat not to suffer through the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes as the Department of War moves to a resize and align the American General Officer and Flag Officer (GOFO) cadre. It is nothing like what is going on in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC isn’t a nation at war, even a low-boil war—so what is going on there isn’t all that germane when looking at what is going on in the U.S. What is the next large-ish power that is at war? Russia. How are things looking with their GOFO cadre? Lucky for us, the Center for Naval Analyses (CN…

Remember when we raised the issue of lasers earlier this year? Half decade ago, I wrote this, Lasers are not “new” – they have been growing in power and efficiency incrementally for decades. Each year they are and will increase along the same path. As they do, they will carve out more and more of a utility wedge for defensive and naturally offensive operations. Will they be a wonder weapon that will solve our problems? No. The torpedo wasn’t either … but it did change behavior, tactics, and design of warships. There is another warning from the history of torpedo development; you cannot classify technology or math. Smart nations with resources will see something that work…

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense confirmed on July 6 that the country’s air force has begun operating JF-17 Thunder fighter jets, releasing a video showing two of the Chinese-Pakistani aircraft taking off and landing on training sorties, the first official acknowledgment that the long-promised fighters have actually entered service. OSINT analyst Guy Plopsky examined still images […]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

Australia’s Army flew its Vector AI fixed-wing drone during Exercise Southern Jackaroo at the Townsville Field Training Area in Queensland, using the aircraft to identify targets in depth and feed that information directly into drone and artillery strikes on simulated enemy positions. The drone is built by Quantum Systems, a German manufacturer whose reconnaissance aircraft […]View the full article

Helicopters have carried flares to dodge heat-seeking missiles since the late 1960s. The U.S. Army just committed nearly $4.84 billion to replace that decades-old defense with a laser that jams the missile itself. The Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, awarded Northrop Grumman the firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract on September 8 for full-rate production of […]View the full article

Russia’s new Shturm uncrewed tank failed in its first major outing, losing its control link again and again during the Tsentr-2026 strategic exercise and finally getting stuck in mud, even with a human driver at the controls. The remotely operated vehicle, built on a T-72 tank chassis, repeatedly dropped the radio link that connects it […]View the full article

France will let Ukraine build its own French-designed cruise missiles, guided bombs, and air defense interceptors on Ukrainian soil, President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday, an offer Reuters reported came alongside confirmation that Ukraine will receive 16 Rafale fighter jets starting in 2028, the first specific delivery window French officials have ever attached to Kyiv’s long-standing […]View the full article

The world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is finally getting torn apart, and this time the Navy is paying more than $118 million less than it originally planned to spend doing it. The U.S. Navy awarded NorthStar Maritime Dismantlement Services, based in Vernon, Vermont, a $418.5 million contract to completely dismantle, recycle, and dispose of the […]View the full article

A Ukrainian government official just told the country’s electronic warfare industry to stop overselling itself, and the missiles falling on Kyiv this month are the reason why. Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukraine’s Commissioner for Sanctions Policy, posted a blunt public rebuke this week aimed at claims that Ukrainian jamming technology can reliably knock Russian ballistic missiles off […]View the full article

Russian officials say a volunteer air defense unit in Kursk Region shot down a Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile using machine-gun fire during an overnight attack this weekend, an unusual claim for a weapon Russia has typically engaged with surface-to-air missile systems. Kursk Region Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein said the intercept happened overnight Saturday into Sunday, […]View the full article

A Russian shipyard supplier best known for arming warships just patented a way to put its naval gun on wheels, and the design tells a story about a much larger program that appears to have stalled. Saint Petersburg-based Arsenal Machine-Building Plant, the manufacturer behind Russia’s AK-100, AK-130, AK-726 and A-192M naval guns, has patented a […]View the full article