In case you missed it, on Friday, SecDef Pete Hegseth met with his Baltic counterparts at the Pentagon, where the Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian defense leaders committed to spending 5% of GDP on defense by next year. Yes, next year, as in 2026. Impressive, especially when you consider the rest of NATO isn’t on track […]
In case you missed it, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump unveiled his “AI Action Plan” to slash red tape for AI development, promote the export of American AI, and counter “ideological bias” in artificial intelligence. Plus, there’s all that fun countering China stuff. The plan is wide-ranging, but the 28-page document (paired with all of […]
Between Iron Dome and Golden Dome headlines, debates over the E-7 Wedgetail AEW&C and space-based ISR, and calls to send more Patriots to Ukraine, air and missile defense (AMD) is the talk of the town. But despite all this talk, US AMD is still pretty crap for a few key reasons: We still rely on […]
Shortly after the House released the Chairman’s Mark for the FY26 NDAA last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) passed their own vision for next year’s defense budget on Friday. While there were some notable differences (we’ll get to that), the two chambers are clearly focused on spurring innovation, largely through their two competing […]
Drones are having a moment. Last Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released a memo that the Pentagon would be making some big changes to the way it buys, uses, and trains with drones. In true showman fashion, he announced the changes in a viral video set to Metallica’s Enter Sandman, posted on X with a […]
Most people wouldn’t get too excited about the release of a thousand-page bill draft. But for the defense tech world, there’s a lot to smile about in the Chairman’s Mark of the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). For those lucky enough not to spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill: The Chairman’s Mark […]
In case you haven’t read the news lately, President Trump has faced a bit of an uphill battle securing peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza. But he has had success in an unlikely place: the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Last week, Rwanda and the Congo—bad history there, we’ll get into that—signed a deal under […]
As the saying goes, there are some weeks where decades happen. Between intel leaks at home, the NATO summit in The Hague, and a rather unorthodox ceasefire in Iran, last week was (another) one of those in the defense world. And then came the kicker: On Thursday, the Pentagon unveiled its FY26 budget request. Like, […]
Ah, to be a fly on the wall of the NATO summit. In case you missed it, alliance leaders met this week in the Hague and, well, they had a lot to talk about. Some highlights included: Trump flying in pretty pissed at Iran and Israel, Rutte sending Trump a wall of complimentary text (and […]
It’s been quite the week for Pete Hegseth. In the past few days, he faced lawmakers on the Hill for the first time since becoming SecDef to defend a $1T DoD budget request that, well, he hasn’t released. Then, the House went ahead and released their appropriations bill, his procurement budget was leaked, and he […]
