The Pentagon is exploring ways to keep the power on at critical bases after attacks or natural disasters, and there's a history of ships acting in this role. The post Supercarrier USS Gerald R. Ford To Act As Floating Nuclear Power Plant For Facilities On Land appeared first on The War Zone .

AI agents are coming to a special operations mission near you—if they can fit in the pack.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao’s insistence this week that the Pentagon had paused a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan over a munitions review has undercut the Trump administration’s narrative on both Iran and Taipei. Cao on Thursday told Senate appropriators that while the U.S. has “plenty” of missiles and interceptors, the Trump administration is holding off...

NASA plans to add more missions to SpaceX’s commercial crew contract, protecting the agency from the possibility that Boeing’s spacecraft is never certified for missions to the International Space Station. The post NASA to add missions to SpaceX commercial crew contract appeared first on SpaceNews .

The mission is SpaceX’s 60th orbital flight of the year, including one Falcon Heavy launch and 59 Falcon 9 flights. Liftoff of the Starlink 10-47 mission from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled during a window that opens at 7:41 a.m. EDT (1141 UTC).

In a statement released on Friday, May 15, 2026, BAE Systems announced the delivery of critical flight hardware to support the U.S. Space Force’s Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Polar […]

This Memorial Day, The Cipher Brief is remembering the Americans who answered the call after Russia launched its unprovoked, deadly invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. What follows is a deeply personal account of the war through the eyes of two Americans who have lived it. This piece was written by Dr. Douglas Davis in cooperation with Colonel Sam Hartwell (Ret.). PERSPECTIVE / OPINION – I di

Guardians need a human spaceflight program for future lunar missions, Mitchell Institute says.

Blue Origin has completed the investigation into the failure on the third flight of its New Glenn rocket, clearing launches of the vehicle to resume. The post Blue Origin completes investigation into New Glenn launch failure appeared first on SpaceNews .

SpaceX launched the newest version of its Starship vehicle for the first time May 22, completing most of the test objectives planned for the suborbital flight. The post SpaceX launches first Starship V3 appeared first on SpaceNews .

The Starship upper stage was equipped with six third-generation Raptor engines and one of three optimized for operating in vacuum shut down early during the climb to space. The flight computer kept the other five engines running longer than originally planned to make up for the shortfall, putting the craft on an acceptable sub-orbital trajectory.

SpaceX has more to prove before flying Starship all the way to low-Earth orbit.

Chris Forrester — Hardly mentioned in the huge SpaceX IPO Prospectus published last Wednesday (May 20) was information repeated by the company’s President & COO Gwynne Shotwell, and confirmed by […]

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced the creation of a nomination form on Thursday that they said enables “researchers, vendors, and industry partners” to report bugs that need to be added to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.

Elon Muks's xAI has gone all in on natural gas, while SpaceX is obsessed with orbital data centers. What happened to the "solar-electric economy" he promised?

“These aren’t just ideas or papers going back and forth,” Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said of the Pentagon’s munitions ramp. “We know it’s going to be good, and we know it’s going to happen.”

Air Force Col. Timothy Helfrich said the response to the drone’s April 6 crash “validates our approach to accept acquisition/test risk instead of operational risk allowing us to accelerate the program towards fielding.”

The itinerary is set to include briefings at Pituffik Space Base in Greenland on Arctic defense and strategic competition in the region.

Drones took the heaviest hit, accounting for 25 of the 42 aircraft losses listed in the report.

The Department of Defense does not primarily have a cyber recruiting problem — it has a cyber talent management problem. The military already possesses serious qualification frameworks, scholarship programs, credentialing systems, and selection tools. What it still lacks is a system tying assessment, training, assignment, performance, and retention together across an entire cyber career.In March 2

During Congressional testimony from Department of Defense leadership last week, Representative George Whitesides asked Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, “How does canceling a command-initiated review support a culture of accountability?” But before the secretary could answer, Whitesides instead decided to direct the question to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine. Clearly un

With new DAWG initiative, the DOD is attempting to fix a historically slow-moving, broken acquisition pipeline.

The Space Force is planning to host two on-orbit demonstrations in 2027 to advance the technology and inform future plans to create a space-based logistics enterprise. The post Space Force accelerating work to operationalize on-orbit logistics tech appeared first on DefenseScoop .

“The White House’s AI Action Plan, released last year, outlines the importance of establishing robust AI infrastructure,” an official said. The post DOD wants nearly $30 billion to modernize its AI supercomputing arsenal in fiscal 2027 appeared first on DefenseScoop .

The files include over 40 videos requested by lawmakers. NewsNation will be reviewing the files and providing analysis.

The companies will build four small geostationary satellites for the Protected Tactical Satcom-Global program The post Space Force awards Viasat, SES $437 million for military satellite network appeared first on SpaceNews .

SpaceX’s IPO prospectus casts Starlink Mobile as more than a remote-area backup, with next-generation direct-to-smartphone services designed to be “on par with terrestrial mobile networks” even in urban areas. The post SpaceX IPO filing casts Starlink Mobile as future wireless challenger appeared first on SpaceNews .

Rocket Lab launched another radar imaging satellite for Synspective as the company plans to sell up to $3 billion in stock to fund future initiatives. The post Rocket Lab launches ninth Synspective satellite appeared first on SpaceNews .

The $90 million contract is to build build and operate two satellites carrying optical payloads The post Rocket Lab wins first GEO satellite production contract from U.S. Space Force appeared first on SpaceNews .

SpaceX called off the first attempt to launch the newest version of its Starship vehicle May 21 because of a problem with ground equipment. The post Ground equipment problem scrubs Starship launch attempt appeared first on SpaceNews .

"This capability is not common for satellites conducting typical missions."

Engineers could make another attempt to launch Starship as soon as Friday evening.

A new space domain awareness (SDA) software for the U.K. government is now operational, six months ahead of schedule. The new software, called Borealis, improves tracking of satellites and space […] The post UK Inaugurates New Space Domain Awareness Software Borealis appeared first on Via Satellite .

Rocket Lab has secured its first orders for two Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellites from the U.S. Space Force for a space domain awareness (SDA) mission. Rocket Lab announced a $90 million […] The post Rocket Lab to Build First GEO Satellites for Space Force Space Domain Awareness Mission appeared first on Via Satellite .

ESA's Director of Technology oversees every mission the agency flies. After recovering a tumbling spacecraft in a three-month rescue operation, Dr. Dietmar Pilz brings Europe's technology readiness question to SmallSat Europe's defense stage.

Rear Admiral Louis Tillier directs the EU Satellite Centre, the geospatial intelligence agency serving 27 member states. His career traces from French naval intelligence through Space Command to the top of an EU defense agency. At SmallSat Europe, he joins a fireside chat on the defense stage.

Alexis Sáinz leads Hogan Lovells' global Space and Satellite practice. She structures the financings, M&A, and regulatory work behind the sector's biggest transactions. At SmallSat Europe, she joins a panel on the financial restructuring of European space.

Omar Qaise founded OQ Technology to build 5G NB-IoT connectivity from LEO. The company proved an end-to-end link with a standard terrestrial chipset — no hardware modifications required. At SmallSat Europe, he joins the panel on 5G NTN regulation.

Kali365, which was first observed in April, abuses legitimate Microsoft device authorization pages to grant persistent access to cybercriminal-controlled applications. The post FBI warns about fast-growing phishing kit targeting Microsoft 365 users appeared first on CyberScoop .

The law enforcement agency published an advisory on Thursday about Kali365 — a Telegram-based service for cybercriminals that allows them to capture legitimate "OAuth" tokens enabling widespread access to Microsoft 365 environments.

A generation after 9/11, the homeland has returned to the center of American national security strategy. The 2025 National Security Strategy , the National Defense Strategy (NDS), and last week's Counterterrorism Strategy each push in that direction. Parity is the right destination, but it is also a long road. Closing the distance requires a Department of Homeland Security that can chart its own c

By most accounts, President Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing ended ambiguously for the U.S. From Air Force One on his way back to the U.S., Trump touted a few concrete achievements that include an agreement for Beijing to purchase $17 billion per year in U.S. agricultural products and a purchase of 200 Boeing aircraft. Beijing’s final read out of the visit did not directly confirm those agreements b

The company had a mostly successful first launch of its upgraded Starship V3, which it needs to power its many ambitious goals in the years to come.

Jeff Bezos' rocket company confirmed an engine failure led to the loss of an AST SpaceMobile satellite last month, but offered little detail.

SpaceX fueled the third-generation rocket booster and ship and was just moments away from liftoff, before calling a scrub. It's expected to try again Friday.

Some AI startups are stretching traditional revenue metrics when talking about progress publicly. And their investors are fully aware.

The SpaceX S-1 is finally here, and the story it tells goes way further than rockets. The filing runs to 36 pages of risk factors alone, and the numbers inside match the ambition: a $28 trillion total addressable market, a pay package tied to establishing a Mars colony, and a valuation target that would make it the largest IPO in American […]

Google demoed prototype Android XR glasses that overlay Gemini-powered translation, navigation, and other information directly into your field of view.

The SpaceX S-1 is finally here, and the story it tells goes way further than rockets. The filing runs to 36 pages of risk factors alone, and the numbers inside match the ambition: a $28 trillion total addressable market, a pay package tied to establishing a Mars colony, and a valuation target that would make it the largest IPO in American […]

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Anthropic’s Code with Claude showed off coding’s future—whether you like it or not At Anthropic’s developer event in London this week, Code with Claude, attendees were asked if they’d shipped code…

Pentagon reporter Ashley Roque shares three things to know about the U.S. Army’s latest aviation plans.

The Army is continuing to expand military cooperation with Poland through the Pentagon’s counter-drone initiative, the service announced on Wednesday.

China’s diplomats are on an “AI governance” offensive. At a May 5 United Nations meeting, China’s vice minister of science and technology championed China’s role in shaping U.N.-led frameworks that determine how the technology should be built and used. Just a week earlier, two top Chinese AI experts actively involved in Beijing’s governance efforts appeared by video on a Capitol Hill panel discuss

An investigation by the Air Force and the defense contractor led to a software change.

Unmanned aerial systems and counter-drone technologies will be the first capabilities available on the forthcoming FMS Marketplace. The post Army plans to launch marketplace to streamline US weapons exports to allies appeared first on DefenseScoop .

“This is a no-fail mission and a national security imperative, but the threat is real, persistent and growing,” Brandon Pugh, principal cyber advisor to the secretary of the Army, told reporters Thursday. The post Facing growing threats, Army hosts Defense Critical Infrastructure summit to boost installation crisis response appeared first on DefenseScoop .

Saltzman said the service’s growth rate is constrained by training capacity and the pace at which new operational units can be established. The post Space Force on path to double active-duty force by 2030 appeared first on SpaceNews .

As SpaceX prepares for its next Starship test flight, the company’s prospectus underlines how critical that vehicle is to its ambitions. The post Starship underpins SpaceX’s growth ambitions appeared first on SpaceNews .

The mission will see the debut of several upgrades to the launch vehicle, including redesigned engines. Liftoff from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas, is scheduled during a window that opens at 5:30 p.m. CDT (6:30 p.m. EDT / 2230 UTC).

Satellite imagery shows a surge of new volcanic activity in the ocean near Papua New Guinea. The post New Eruption in the Bismarck Sea appeared first on NASA Science .

The Space Force‘s Space Systems Command (SSC) and the service’s SpaceWERX innovation arm are to launch an In-Domain Orbital Logistics Challenge to find and advance commercial technologies to sustain satellites. […] The post SSC and SpaceWERX to Launch Orbital Logistics Challenge appeared first on Via Satellite .

Planet is building an agentic AI geospatial query, where users could ask a question like “Where are new construction sites appearing in Florida?” and get an answer. The agent is […] The post Planet is Building an Agentic Geospatial AI Query appeared first on Via Satellite .

Jacob Butler, a 23-year-old from Ottawa, awaits extradition to the United States and faces up to 10 years in prison. The post Alleged leader of Kimwolf, a sweeping botnet for cybercriminals, arrested in Canada appeared first on CyberScoop .

Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and James Walkinshaw, D-Va., found rare bipartisan agreement that the agency tasked with defending civilian networks has been diminished at a moment when threats from China and others are growing. The post Lawmakers from both parties say CISA cuts have gone too far appeared first on CyberScoop .

Under a draft executive order, the NSA, Treasury Department and other federal agencies would get 90-days to test new models for cybersecurity and national security concerns. The post Trump postpones executive order focused on AI security appeared first on CyberScoop .

Acting director Nick Andersen’s comments came as a wave of malware attacks hit tech that’s publicly available for collaboration. The post CISA chief frets about open-source vulnerabilities, delayed security improvements appeared first on CyberScoop .

Officials arrested the alleged administrator of First VPN, seized its servers and domains. Europol said the service appeared in almost every major recent cybercrime investigation. The post European authorities take down prolific cybercrime VPN service appeared first on CyberScoop .

As AI expands the attack surface and alert fatigue grows, cyber exposure management offers a clearer path to understanding where risk truly concentrates and how to reduce it before a crisis hits. The post The readiness paradox: Why a false sense of cyber confidence is becoming a liability appeared first on CyberScoop .

Two straits, six thousand kilometers apart, are defining the global balance of power in 2026. The first, Hormuz, is closed by force and heavily impacting the world economy. The second, the Øresund, is open, and through it passes 60% of the oil that funds Russia's war in Ukraine. One chokepoint is being used against the West; the other could be used to protect it. The difference is not legality, ca

The first missile strikes hadn’t even cooled before Iranian-linked hackers were moving. When the U.S. and Israel launched military operations against Iran on February 28, 2026, Tehran’s cyber forces answered not with silence but with a systematic campaign against American infrastructure, one that has since moved well beyond reconnaissance into confirmed, disruptive attacks on United States soil. T

The United Kingdom must act to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, before it’s too late. The IRGC must be proscribed before more places of worship are torched, more citizens are violently harassed, more ambulances intentionally destroyed, more peaceful gatherings threatened. The IRGC has the capability and the intent to harm people on British soil with increasing ease. Thi

President Trump delayed signing an executive order that would have required pre-release government security reviews of AI models, citing dissatisfaction with the order's language.

Spotify will let you generate daily or weekly briefs based on your prompts

The AI-powered audiobook generation won't bind authors to an exclusive contract, meaning they are free to publish their generated audiobooks anywhere.

The Path says its AI model has scored 95 on the mental health safety AI benchmark, Vera-MH. This compares to a top score of 65 for the consumer bots.

One of the most promising introductions at Google’s I/O developer conference on Tuesday was a new way for consumers to use the web: AI agents. Unfortunately, it was also the most confusing.

The vibes were strong at Code with Claude, Anthropic’s two-day event for software developers in London that kicked off on May 19, the same day as Google’s I/O in Palo Alto. (A coincidence, not a flex, Anthropic staffers assured me.) “Who here has shipped a pull request in the last week that was completely written…

What if the next decisive intelligence advantage isn’t a recruited insider but a nation’s ability to model entire societies from its digital exhaust? Salt Typhoon’s multi-year cyber campaigns against U.S. telecommunications networks and critical infrastructure demonstrate China’s unparalleled focus on data-centric espionage: collect widely, analyze fast, and operationalize at scale — alongside con

Shield AI said its Hivemind software will “serve as the AI pilot for the LUCAS program, enabling groups of drones to coordinate, maneuver, and adapt together to changing conditions in real time, based on warfighter input." The post Pentagon selects Shield AI to plug swarm software into LUCAS drone, company says appeared first on DefenseScoop .

USSF-23 mission will launch vehicles to demonstrate refueling and satellite servicing in geostationary orbit The post Space Force eyes 2027 demonstrations of in-space refueling and satellite servicing appeared first on SpaceNews .

SpaceX filed documents for an initial public offering of stock May 20, revealing the company’s finances and enormous ambitions The post SpaceX files for IPO appeared first on SpaceNews .

As orbital data centers move from concept to reality, scalable power generation and efficient thermal management are emerging as critical enabling technologies. A new whitepaper from Redwire examines how power generation and distribution, along with […] The post Orbital Data Centers: Power and Thermal Management for Scalable Architectures appeared first on SpaceNews .

The Starlink 10-31 mission was the 58th Falcon 9 launch so far in 2026. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 6:04 a.m. EDT (1004 UTC).

SpaceX’s 45th Starlink mission of the year saw the company add another 24 broadband internet satellites into low Earth orbit. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 7:46 p.m. PDT (10:46 p.m. EDT / 0246 UTC).

"We believe we have identified the largest TAM in human history."

The space industry and public got the first real look into SpaceX’s financials on Wednesday as the company published initial documents ahead of a planned IPO. SpaceX published its S-1 […] The post SpaceX’s IPO Filing Gives First Look Into Company’s Financials appeared first on Via Satellite .

Microsoft’s AI red team lead talked to CyberScoop about the goals behind open sourcing a pair of security tools meant for developers and incident responders. The post Meet Rampart and Clarity, Microsoft’s new red team combo AI agents appeared first on CyberScoop .

GitHub said late Tuesday that internal repositories were exfiltrated after an employee device was compromised through a poisoned Visual Studio Code extension, an incident that underscores the growing risks facing software development platforms and the ecosystems built around third-party developer tools. The Microsoft-owned company said in posts on X that it detected and contained the […] The post

OPINION — Warfare has always operated at human speed, but we now have the capability to operate at machine speed. The risks are high, but so are the risks of failing to adapt. Our adversaries are moving toward machine speed faster than we are, and the gap is widening faster than our processes can evolve. Many companies are developing AI tools that accelerate the decision cycle and shrink OODA (Obs

There’s a profound assumption embedded in much of today’s conversation about AI and intelligence: better technology will solve our core problems. We need new infrastructure, better models, and faster processing—all tied to our unique data. But step inside most intelligence workflows and a different reality emerges. We are not constrained by what we can collect. We are constrained by what we can pr

SpaceX has finally made the contents of its IPO filing public, weeks ahead of what is expected to be the largest IPO ever and one that will make Musk the CEO, CTO, and chairman of the board.

SpaceX's IPO filing reveals xAI lost $6.4 billion in 2025 while planning a massive Grok expansion — offering the first public look at Elon Musk's AI financials and more details about his ambitions.

The Pentagon awarded Perennial Autonomy a $500 million contract to accelerate procurement of counter-drone technology.

The OA-1K Skyraider II is designed to support special operations forces by flying armed reconnaissance, close air support, and precision strike missions. The post Air Force now has 18 of its new Skyraider II ‘Swiss Army Knife’ aircraft, official says appeared first on Task & Purpose .

Joint Interagency Task Force 401 noted in its press release that these systems “are currently being employed by forces operating in U.S. Central Command.” The post Pentagon awards $500 million contract to Perennial Autonomy for counter-drone systems appeared first on DefenseScoop .

Gurpartap "GP" Sandhoo's new dual-hatted roles come as the Space Force shakes up its acquisition structure in line with broader Pentagon efforts. The post Sandhoo named Space Development Agency director, PAE for missile warning and tracking appeared first on DefenseScoop .

A researcher who found a repository that leaked on GitHub said it was one of the worst he’s witnessed. The post CISA credential leak raises alarms, and Capitol Hill demands answers appeared first on CyberScoop .

The ceasefire between the United States and Iran is barely holding. Pakistani mediators are still shuttling between capitals, fighting has flared in recent days, and President Trump is now sitting across from Xi Jinping in Beijing for a high-stakes summit covering trade, Iran, and Taiwan. Yet American intelligence has reached a different conclusion about what Beijing is actually doing: China is pr

OPINION — “The FBI requests $7 million to procure and deploy a digital watermarking solution capable of embedding unique digital forensic watermarks in commonly shared documents to mitigate unauthorized disclosures from the FBI’s classified and unclassified networks. Digital watermarking embeds a unique overt or covert forensic marker into emails and other commonly used file types, making it possi

For a quarter century, the Google search box has been one of the most recognizable interfaces in computing: a thin white rectangle, a blinking cursor, a few typed words, and a list of blue links. On Tuesday, Google will formally retire that paradigm. At its annual I/O developer conference , Google announced a sweeping redesign of the search box itself — the literal text field where billions of que

U.S. Special Operations Command’s strategy for fielding new technology to special operators emphasizes speed, a top acquisitions official with the command said. The post SOCOM wants to move fast on new tech: ‘We’re not building aircraft carriers here’ appeared first on Task & Purpose .

The Army knows it needs a more affordable and producible Patriot option as enemies seek overmatch through cheap drones and throngs of ballistic missiles. The post ‘Cheap’ Patriot Interceptor Costing Under $1 Million Now Being Sought By Army appeared first on The War Zone .

New technologies may bring risk and opportunity for the federal government, cyber experts explained.

Industry is pitching 'autonomous remediation' of network vulnerabilities.

“The ability to quickly integrate autonomous behaviors on multiple different platforms in multiple different domains, without it having to be specifically built for that platform, is something that I'd like to see move faster than we are right now,” said David Breede, deputy director of acquisition for SOCOM. The post ‘Collaborative autonomy’ development not moving fast enough for SOCOM appeared f

Last week’s high-level summit in Beijing between President Trump and President Xi achieved few traditional ‘deliverables’ between the two leaders, and this led many outside observers to dismiss its singular importance. No significant trade deals were made, and there was little diplomatic progress with respect to ending the wars between Iran and America, or Russia and Ukraine. There was no mention

The death is the latest worker safety issue at the Starbase facility, which has a higher injury rate than all other SpaceX sites.

What if fielding more nuclear weapons makes the United States less secure, not more? That question is now at the center of a growing debate as the United States confronts a nuclear landscape shaped by two major nuclear rivals.China is rapidly expanding and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, while the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the last remaining nuclear arms control deal between th

The 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment is the latest unit to see its orders to Europe reversed. The post Pentagon cancels planned deployment of long-range missile unit to Germany appeared first on Task & Purpose .

Recent Trump-administration moves may drop troop presence below legal minimums.

It’s the secretary's latest unusual move toward DOD’s military and civilian lawyers.

The president seemed to suggest that the Chinese leader tacitly confirmed actions that lower officials routinely deny.

Liftoff of the resupply mission, atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled for 6:05 p.m. EDT (2205 UTC). The Cargo Dragon is loaded with 6,500 pounds of science and supplies for the space station.

SpaceX's upgraded Starship is set to launch on its first test flight as soon as Tuesday, May 19.

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranA month after negotiators met for historic high-level talks in Pakistan, Washington and Tehran seem closer to a breakdown of the ceasefire that U.S. President Donald Trump announced on April 7 than a breakthr

The phone rang at 3:45 pm on a Friday afternoon. We were winding down for the weekend when the caller ID lit up — it was the counterterrorism analyst in our office we affectionately called “CT Brian.” When he called, it was never good news. An al-Qaeda-affiliated group seized an American aid worker. Her captors were preparing to move her within the hour and special operations forces needed cyber t

Program leader says CBO report based on Trump’s executive order doesn’t reflect current plans.

The fragile ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hezbollah last month is holding. But satellite imagery shows that at least 46 of 54 towns and villages within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “Yellow Line” in southern Lebanon have been heavily damaged or, in some cases, entirely flattened. Much of the destruction and demolition has taken place […] The post Satellite Imagery Shows Ongoing Demolitions

OPINION -- In an era where warfighters and decision-makers have on-demand access to vast data holdings and AI-generated insights, the future of intelligence analysis will be defined by the ability to apply modernized analytic tradecraft to transform data into decision-ready insight. Where others may optimize for speed, scale, and profit, the intelligence community must bring methodological rigor t

Welcome to The Iron Triangle, the Cipher Brief column serving Procurement Officers tasked with buying the future, Investors funding the next generation of defense technology, and the Policy Wonks analyzing its impact on the global order. At least once per week, I meet well-intended, patriotic investors putting together funds aimed at bolstering our national defense. They are frustrated with the go

More than 50 employees have reportedly left Elon Musk’s newly merged SpaceXAI since February, raising questions about burnout, leadership changes, talent poaching, and whether liquidity events weakened retention incentives.

Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said “necessity had been the mother of invention” in spurring the service to apply available machine learning tools in combat.

The Pentagon is announcing framework agreements with Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos and Zone 5 to acquire over 10,000 containerized missiles.

The Marine Corps will require all Marines to complete a basic artificial intelligence course by the end of the year.

OPINION – Last week, the 11th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, currently in session at the United Nations, elected Iran as one of its 34 vice presidents. It did so despite Iran's noncompliance with International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. The unfortunate decision undermines trust in a conference that should focus on the proliferation

What happens when the Arctic starts to look like the South China Sea?Historically, a neutral region where cooperation prevailed, the Arctic is quickly becoming a contested space. This is no more evident than in the increasing scope and volume of Russian and Chinese lawfare affecting the region. Through excessive maritime regulations, coordinated challenges to Western continental shelf claims, and

The mission will test a host of changes made to both the launch vehicle and the launch infrastructure as SpaceX prepares to support the Artemis 3 mission in 2027.

SpaceX’s 34th mission as part of the Commercial Resupply Services 2 contract with NASA will deliver 6,500 pounds of science and supplies to the International Space Station. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled for Friday, May 15, at 6:05 p.m. EDT (2205 UTC).

Since the beginning of 2026, at least four landslides are reported to have killed hundreds of people at the Rubaya mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a major global source of coltan. Coltan is widely used in smartphones, laptops and e-vehicles. With the mines currently under the control of the Rwandan-backed group M23, […] The post DRC’s Coltan Belt: Verifying Deadly Landslides at Mi

OPINION -- “That brings me to a concern I want to put on the record. In addition to the billions requested for the F-35 [fighter-bomber] enterprise, several of these programs I consider highest priority are being funded through the mandatory [reconciliation bill] request -- $17.5 billion for Golden Dome [anti-missile system], $7.7 billion for air moving-target indicator, $4.6 billion for munitions

OPINION -- In recent months, U.S. policy debates have increasingly acknowledged that the decisive contests of the 21st century will not be fought primarily on conventional battlefields. They will be fought in the cognitive domain, through influence, perception, legitimacy, and decision velocity. This recognition is important and depends on an adequate technical and institutional layer to deliver d

Google and SpaceX are in talks to build data centers in orbit, pitching space as the future home for AI compute, even as costs today remain far higher than on the ground.

A Ukrainian official said Russia is spoofing Ukraine's drones, diverting them to strike nearby Baltic nations instead of targets in Russia.

The NROL-72 mission was the 13th to date supporting what the NRO calls its “proliferated architecture” satellite constellation. Liftoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 7:13:50 p.m. PDT (10:13:50 p.m. EDT / 0213:50 UTC).

This investigation is a collaboration between Bellingcat and Colombian media outlet Cerosetenta. You can read Cerosetenta’s piece in Spanish here. A video posted on Feb. 26 shows several men painting over graffiti in Restrepo, a neighbourhood in Bogota, Colombia, and replacing them with images of their own: a logo used by Colombian political candidate and […] The post Unearthing a Colombian Politi

OPINION -- Technology has a way of helping us skip steps. China skipped mass adoption of credit cards and went straight to mobile payments. Nigeria bypassed landlines and went directly to mobile networks. Indonesia moved past cable and into streaming. That’s infrastructure leapfrogging—when entire systems evolve because a better alternative arrives before the old one fully forms. Since Covid-19, w

OPINION -- On February 9, the CIA announced a major overhaul of its technology acquisition from the private sector. Director John Ratcliffe described it as “a radical shift towards a culture of speed, agility, and innovation,” while Deputy Director Michael Ellis declared that “CIA is open for business” in areas ranging from AI to microelectronics. With DARPA veteran Efstathia Fragogiannis now lead

OPINION -- I recently had the opportunity to take part in a panel discussion on geopolitical issues at the Kyiv Security Forum in Kyiv. One of the key issues covered by the panel was the status of Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine and continued Western support for Ukraine. This is a topic I have addressed publicly many times since retiring from the CIA during public and private speakin

The technology can detect threats and distinguish them from non-threats, such as birds, faster than a human operator can.

The Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles the U.S. military fired during Operation Epic Fury take months to put on contract and years to produce.Whether driven by U.S. military operations or support to partners, the challenge of quickly replenishing U.S. munitions is not new. Exquisite munitions often take an exquisite amount of time to manufacture and deliver. Defense officials, in turn, frequently want

For nine months in 2024 and 2025, I had an additional duty — monitoring an inbox that connected potential direct commission candidates with the Army’s individual branches. I served on the Army Reserve’s senior leadership team, helping to stand up a brokerage between mid-career professionals and the decentralized branch pipelines that controlled direct commission slots.During that time, I personall

OPINION -- Since 1959, the U.S. and Cuban relationship has been defined by gray zone operations that have occasionally broken out into open confrontation. At the same time, Cuba has been the proxy area for US adversaries to spy on the US homeland and endanger US security. Due to a convergence of events, Cuba and the US are poised for a monumental change in the relationship that could move from gra

OPINION -- For decades, national security was defined by geography: borders, terrain, and physical infrastructure shaped how nations defended themselves and projected power. The private sector, while important, was largely adjacent to this domain. Companies built products and generated wealth, but they were not themselves considered strategic terrain. That distinction no longer holds. Governments

Skyroot's valuation has more than doubled since 2023 as the Indian rocket startup prepares for the country's first private orbital launch.

Asked what he plans to do next, Cingolani said, “I am getting on my motorbike and will travel around Europe for a while.”

Снявший голову, по волосам не плачут (When your head is cut off, you don’t cry about your hair) - Old Russian Proverb OPINION – Russia is readying for Victory Day celebrations at a time when Moscow is anything but victorious as its unprovoked war on Ukraine enters its fifth year of destruction and devastation. And for the first time, the impact of that war will be on full display in Moscow. Russia

Russia has industrialized cognitive warfare, producing synthetic media at scale through a modular system that targets soldiers, civilians, and Western publics with distinct engineered effects. A Chinese frontier AI capable of executing the same doctrine is now freely available worldwide, unrestricted and priced within reach of any actor. The U.S. federal institutions built to track and counter the

Gulf countries threatened by Iran could be some of the first nations to buy Ukrainian air-defense technology at scale.

One number buried in the Pentagon’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget request reveals a decade of acquisition decisions in a data point: The U.S. Navy is requesting 785 Tomahawk cruise missiles. In 2025, Congress funded 55. That 1,200 percent jump is the cost of choices never stress-tested against the scenario unfolding today — a sustained air campaign against Iran while China watches the magazine drain.As

When India’s third ballistic missile-carrying, nuclear-powered submarine — the INS Aridhaman — entered service on April 3, 2026, it marked a milestone decades in the making.With three boomers, India can now reliably always maintain at least one on deterrent patrol, thus completing the sea leg of its nuclear deterrent. Earlier, India successfully tested the capability to deploy multiple independent

“The unfortunate truth is that it's fallen to the lot of all of us to modernize the entire [U.S.] nuclear triad at once. Probably, in retrospect, we should have been doing pieces of it over the last 30 or plus years. Plus…we're having to modernize the nuclear weapon production [warheads, bombs] as well as the triad platforms [bombers, submarines, missiles]. I refer to it as the pig in the budgetar

After four years of watching the war in Ukraine, NATO defense decision-makers are finally beginning to pour money into drones. The Iran conflict has drawn further attention to these investments. The assumption is that unmanned aerial systems will ensure a long-term advantage in conflicts requiring ground operations and infrastructure defense.But the battlefield in Ukraine is already pointing towar

Caught between two hammers — international law and technological dependence on the private sector — modern state sovereignty is in crisis. When a state attempts to act decisively against an adversary operating below the threshold of armed attack, it risks not only diplomatic sanctions and international condemnation but the loss of access to critical digital infrastructure owned by private corporat

Latin America’s Pink Tide Recedes as Economic Reality Fractures Socialist Alliance Latin America’s leftist front is hitting a wall. The momentum that carried leaders like Gabriel Boric and Gustavo Petro to power has stalled, replaced by the harsh realities of inflation and cartel violence. This isn’t just a temporary dip in the polls — it’s a fundamental breakdown of the old order, and it’s reshap

Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranThree weeks since a ceasefire took effect, the United States and Iran have shifted from open hostilities to unsuccessful negotiations to economic brinksmanship. The Trump administration has been squeezing Teh

The term “affordable mass” entered public defense discourse in 2021 as a munitions concept, which the Air Force adopted in 2023 to describe its effort to field large numbers of lower-cost, semi-autonomous aircraft to complement crewed fighters. The term has since spread in defense reporting, think-tank commentary, service initiatives, and even on War on the Rocks.The Air Force, Army, and Navy are

The military modernization and technological ambitions of the People’s Republic of China dominate headlines in Washington. Hypersonic missiles, AI breakthroughs, and an expanding navy are the visible symbols of competition with the Chinese Communist Party. But if the United States is serious about long-term competition, it should prioritize — or at least pay equal attention to — the Chinese Commun

The U.S. military is firing million-dollar missiles at Iranian drones that cost a tiny fraction as much — a striking example of the kind of overmatch modern warfare punishes.The Department of Defense’s approach to electromagnetic spectrum policy follows a similar logic, occupying prime mid-band frequencies for vital but relatively low-throughput national security uses — including radars, satellite

Closing small boat stations has proven difficult. Leaving them unchanged is operationally inefficient. These units are enduring parts of the Coast Guard’s force structure, yet their full potential is not always realized. This article proposes a model to better align their mission with national priorities.During the recent Senate confirmation hearing for the next commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard,

Bellingcat has identified at least 80 police stations or infrastructure related to law enforcement agencies and the Basij paramilitary group that has been damaged or destroyed in the first three weeks of the United States and Israel’s war against Iran. Experts told Bellingcat that both countries aim to degrade the Iranian regime’s “repressive capacity”. Combined, […] The post “Make Iran Ungovernab

Michael Kofman joined Ryan at a live event earlier this year to discuss the performance of American defense technology in Ukraine and why it often falls short. They examine the challenges of fielding and iterating systems in combat, from poor implementation and weak feedback loops to deeper mismatches between design and battlefield reality. They also explore what it takes to succeed in this enviro

The debate over how best to deter China in the western Pacific has reached a new level of ambition. Ely Ratner, a former senior defense official in the Biden administration, proposed a “Pacific Defense Pact” — a legally binding multilateral treaty among the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines. This reflects serious concerns over China’s rise and its potential future use of force a

Editor’s note: This article is the seventh in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. This special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.

What happens when a country develops a cyber strategy that depends on the capabilities it is actively cutting?The White House’s new cyber strategy offers exactly that kind of contradiction by pairing a strong vision for resilience and competition with policy choices that pull in the opposite direction. On the merits, it gets several important things right. It treats cyberspace as a domain of susta

Recent experiments placing large language models in simulated nuclear crises have produced alarming headlines. “Bloodthirsty” AI systems escalate conflicts, threaten nuclear strikes, and behave erratically under simulated pressure. A recent set of experiments presented in a pre-print paper from Kenneth Payne at King’s College London finds that across 95 percent of simulated games across 21 match-u

Think of a violin made by a master craftsman: beautiful, precise, capable of extraordinary performance, but impossible to produce quickly or cheaply. It takes time, rare expertise, and materials that cannot be sourced at scale. You would not equip an entire orchestra with instruments like that. Yet that is essentially what the United States has attempted with its tactical air fleet.The F-35 progra

The challenges of conducting open-source research in China are well-documented. Consistently named one of the most digitally oppressive countries in the world, China blocks some of the world’s largest social media platforms, such as Facebook, Google, and YouTube. Those that are still accessible are mostly Chinese-owned, strictly regulated and monitored in real time by AI […] The post Mining China’

The New Glenn rocket will have to stay grounded while the company investigates what caused the apparent failure of its upper stage.

The first major failure of Blue Origin's new heavy-launch system could create delays to its ambition to help NASA and the Trump administration return to the moon.

It's a major milestone for the company's new mega-rocket system, putting it in position to challenge SpaceX's dominance of the global launch market.

This article is the result of a collaboration with Indian media outlet Newslaundry. You can find Newslaundry’s editorially independent coverage here. Indian companies have shipped more than 320 million synthetic opioid pills to West Africa – where they have not been approved by regulators – over the past three years, a Bellingcat investigation has found. […] The post Painkiller Pipeline: 300 Milli

A few hours before Anthropic announced the launch of its newest model, Claude Mythos Preview, on April 7, I had just completed a six-month analysis of AI-enabled cyberattacks. My research traced Chinese state-sponsored cyber campaigns against U.S. critical infrastructure and found that the barrier between nation-state-level hacking and everyone else was eroding far too fast.By the time I closed my

Editor’s note: This article is the sixth in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. This special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.Th

Almost 800 Hungarian government email addresses and associated passwords are circulating online, revealing basic vulnerabilities in the security protocols of ministries involved in classified and sensitive work. A Bellingcat analysis of breach data shows that 12 out of the government’s 13 ministries have been affected, which in some cases have exposed the confidential information of […] The post ‘

Access to open source visuals of the current Iran conflict, which has spread to many parts of the Middle East, continues to be sporadic. Videos and photos from within Iran trickle out on social media as the Iranian internet blackout hinders the flow of digital communication. In past conflicts, satellite imagery has provided a vital […] The post When Satellite Imagery Goes Dark: New Tool Shows Dama

Bellingcat has identified several high-profile incidents where authorities in the United Arab Emirates have downplayed damage, mischaracterised interceptions and in some instances not acknowledged successful Iranian drone strikes on the country. A review of official statements shows that the public account does not always align with what can be observed through open sources. This comes […] The pos

This article is the result of a collaboration with Josimar. You can find Josimar’s corresponding piece here. A European academic used a false name to represent an opaque Asian-facing bookmaker that is sponsoring Croatia’s national football team in the run up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Croatia’s national governing body of football, the Croatian […] The post Croatia’s Football Team Signed Deal With

Railway , a San Francisco-based cloud platform that has quietly amassed two million developers without spending a dollar on marketing, announced Thursday that it raised $100 million in a Series B funding round, as surging demand for artificial intelligence applications exposes the limitations of legacy cloud infrastructure. TQ Ventures led the round, with participation from FPV Ventures , Redpoint

The artificial intelligence coding revolution comes with a catch: it's expensive. Claude Code , Anthropic's terminal-based AI agent that can write, debug, and deploy code autonomously, has captured the imagination of software developers worldwide. But its pricing — ranging from $20 to $200 per month depending on usage — has sparked a growing rebellion among the very programmers it aims to serve. N

Alfred Wahlforss was running out of options. His startup, Listen Labs , needed to hire over 100 engineers, but competing against Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million offers seemed impossible. So he spent $5,000 — a fifth of his marketing budget — on a billboard in San Francisco displaying what looked like gibberish: five strings of random numbers. The numbers were actually AI tokens. Decoded, they led t

Salesforce on Tuesday launched an entirely rebuilt version of Slackbot , the company's workplace assistant, transforming it from a simple notification tool into what executives describe as a fully powered AI agent capable of searching enterprise data, drafting documents, and taking action on behalf of employees. The new Slackbot, now generally available to Business+ and Enterprise+ customers, is S

Anthropic released Cowork on Monday, a new AI agent capability that extends the power of its wildly successful Claude Code tool to non-technical users — and according to company insiders, the team built the entire feature in approximately a week and a half, largely using Claude Code itself. The launch marks a major inflection point in the race to deliver practical AI agents to mainstream users, po

Nous Research , the open-source artificial intelligence startup backed by crypto venture firm Paradigm , released a new competitive programming model on Monday that it says matches or exceeds several larger proprietary systems — trained in just four days using 48 of Nvidia's latest B200 graphics processors . The model, called NousCoder-14B , is another entry in a crowded field of AI coding assista

DARPA says it has built the world’s largest, most realistic electronic warfare test capability.

Most commercial firms can't access test space where they can refine their products under conditions they might face in the field. DIU wants to change that.