Raw Intel

Washington has approved a $214 million sale of AIM-9X Sidewinder Block II missiles to Lithuania, the U.S. Department of State announced, handing the NATO ally a significant boost to its short-range air defense arsenal. The deal covers 152 additional AIM-9X Block II tactical missiles, eight tactical guidance units, and six captive air training missiles — […]View the full article

A small Brooklyn knitwear company just landed one of the biggest apparel contracts the Pentagon has put on the table this year. Karlas and Emmas Knits LLC, based in Brooklyn, New York, has been awarded a maximum $763 million contract to supply physical fitness gear to every branch of the U.S. military. The contract runs […]View the full article

BAE Systems just picked up another slice of one of the most sensitive defense programs in existence. The Rockville, Maryland-based contractor has been awarded a $45.5 million contract modification — the 51st modification to an existing contract — to continue providing engineering and technical support for the U.S. Trident II D5 Strategic Weapon Systems Program, […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has brought Orbis Sibro, Inc. into a massive multi-vendor maintenance contract worth up to $1.9 billion to keep its nuclear-powered attack submarines operational. The Charleston, South Carolina-based firm is one of several companies awarded spots on the deal, announced April 22, 2026, which targets repair, maintenance, and modernization work at all four […]View the full article

The U.S. Army procured ten Valinor Condor unmanned aerial vehicles for flight testing and evaluation at Arcane Thunder 26, according to an announcement by Valinor Enterprises published Tuesday. UAS pilots from U.S. Army Multi-Domain Task Force – Europe got hands-on time with the system during the exercise, evaluating its capabilities including high-altitude balloon deployment and […]View the full article

Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defense announced Wednesday that it is acquiring the Merops AS-3 Surveyor counter-drone system from U.S. manufacturer Perennial Autonomy, including 48 interceptor drones, as part of an accelerated procurement process approved by the Lithuanian Government. The purchase marks another step in Vilnius’s push to field capable air defenses against the same drone […]View the full article

Soldiers from Boxer Battery, 1st Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Field Artillery Brigade, completed a multi-day High Mobility Artillery Rocket System rapid infiltration — known as HIRAIN — from Yakima Training Center, Washington, to Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, on April 17. The exercise was conducted in support of Operation Courage Lethality 26, a larger […]View the full article

The Department of War has submitted a $4.2 billion request for a program called Sovereign Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure in its Fiscal Year 2027 budget. The scale of the request, and the fact that it materialized out of nowhere in a single budget cycle, makes it one of the most striking non-kinetic entries in the entire […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has requested $994 million for counter-small unmanned aerial system capabilities in its Fiscal Year 2027 budget — a figure that reflects just how dramatically the drone threat has reshaped ground force priorities over the past three years. The request, recorded in the Department of the Army’s official FY 2027 President’s Budget Exhibit […]View the full article

The U.S. Army has requested $5.47 billion to buy ammunition in Fiscal Year 2027 — everything from 5.56mm rifle cartridges to 155mm artillery shells to tank rounds — according to the Department of the Army’s official budget document submitted to Congress in April 2026. It is the largest single-year Army ammunition request in recent memory, […]View the full article

It has taken a week since we first discussed the 34 ships on the way. Now, thanks to our friend Charlie B., we have additional details…with an extra special addition on weapons. Let’s see what Santa has in store for us…besides a really cute fireboat avatar. It is nice, four years after we asked the question, to finally have an answer about fireboats.. Is there anything really shocking here? No, not really, but I would draw your attention to the fact that it seems that we are diverting funds from aircraft carriers to battleships…despite the fact that events over the last year, especially but not exclusively, have proven once again we are woefully short of aircraft carriers…

The U.S. Navy wants to spend nearly a billion dollars on one of its most feared anti-ship weapons in the coming fiscal year — a clear sign that Washington is thinking hard about what a war at sea might actually look like. The FY2027 budget request, submitted to Congress in April 2026, includes funding for […]View the full article

The U.S. Navy has formally requested approximately $3.009 billion to procure 785 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles in its Fiscal Year 2027 President’s Budget, as sustained combat operations against Iran continue to drain one of the military’s most critical long-range strike assets. The request represents one of the starkest single-year escalations in cruise missile procurement the […]View the full article

Sion Power has introduced two lithium-metal battery cells built for unmanned military systems, aiming to extend flight time and increase payload capacity for drones used across modern operations. The new products, called Licerion Strike and Licerion Echo, deliver energy density exceeding 500 watt-hours per kilogram, a level that goes beyond current lithium-ion technology. The company […]View the full article

Turkey-based ARCA Savunma plans to build a large ammunition production facility in Estonia’s Põhja-Kiviõli defense industry zone, with production expected to begin in 2028 under a program valued at about €300 million ($352 million). The project, named “ARCA Baltic,” will establish a fully integrated manufacturing site capable of producing several types of munitions in large […]View the full article

A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier appears to have been operating north of Madagascar en route to the Arabian Sea after an onboard aircraft transmitted its position, according to open-source flight tracking data. Data from Flightradar24 shows a Bell-Boeing CMV-22B Osprey with the callsign “CHOSEN2” flying near the Comoros Islands earlier in the day. The aircraft, […]View the full article

The Australian government announced Tuesday it will allocate up to $7 billion for counter-drone capabilities within the Australian Defence Force over the next decade, with two initial contracts awarded to Australian companies as the first step under a new accelerated procurement mission. The announcement, made by Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, represents more than a […]View the full article

Three members of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force were killed Tuesday morning when a shell detonated inside a tank during a live-fire exercise at the Hijudai training area in Oita Prefecture, southwestern Japan. The incident, one of the most serious training accidents to affect the GSDF in recent memory, also left a fourth soldier seriously wounded. […]View the full article

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has completed the initial flight series of a new J85 engine-powered variant of its Firejet unmanned aerial system, the company said. Developed in coordination with the U.S. Army’s Target Systems Management Office, the new configuration — designated Mk1 Firejet — represents the second major variant of the Firejet platform and […]View the full article

I mentioned in passing on Sunday’s Midrats Podcast a graph attributed to Bloomberg that wandered into my feed right before the show. Here it is. It’s not new. It came out a few years ago. I’ve looked for the original article, but no joy. However, it has been picked up in quite a few places with no challenge, so let’s assume it is ligit. The implications here are absolutely critical, as it should impact a lot of the planning assumptions people have been using as they look at a rising China and the moment that it passes the U.S. economically. Not wanting to get head-faked, I looked around for other data that might show similar data. There’s more. That shows the same inflec…