Defense Policy

The GAO determined that the Navy is already roughly two years behind schedule on modernizing the Zumwalt-class destroyers as part of the more than $50 billion hypersonic effort.

The U.S. Navy’s expensive effort to install hypersonic missiles on three Zumwalt-class destroyers is two years behind schedule.

Autonomous vessel maker Saronic is set to build Port Alpha, a shipyard the company describes as the most advanced in the world, in Texas.

[Sponsored] Artificial intelligence accelerates the speed, scale, and variety of cyber threats – especially at the seams.

Canada is significantly expanding its armored fleet with a new contract to acquire 190 combat support vehicles over the next four years.

Welcome to The Ukraine Compass, a weekly digest of Ukrainian commentary and analysis from across the political spectrum only for War on the Rocks members.Each Monday, we bring you a curated selection of articles from Ukrainian media offering insight into how Ukrainians themselves debate the issues shaping their country.Western coverage often narrows the view to the battlefield — these pieces widen it, revealing the texture of daily life, politics, and public argument in a nation at war. The perspectives gathered here are varied, candid, and often surprising, together forming a more complete picture of Ukraine as it really is.This week, The post The Fedorov Dismissal: On Trust, Technology, and Turnover appeared first on War on the Rocks.

The ship, which will support the Golden Dome effort, will be based on the national Security Multi-Mission Vessels Hanwha Philly Shipyard builds for the US Maritime Administration.

The goal of the new project is to field an operational capability for space-to-space and space-to-ground power beaming by 2030, according to the Defense Innovation Unit call to industry.

Why can’t the world’s most powerful military secure the Strait against a country that has no navy?

Few details were provided, but the potential move comes amid tightening security ties between Tokyo and Hanoi.

Breaking Defense previews some of the big news that could come at the Farnborough International Airshow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the country is currently producing 10 million drones per year and envisions this number rising to 20 million annually with the help of partners.

Spiraling security risks are expected to push defense to the forefront of Britain’s Farnborough Airshow next week.

Before the twentieth century gave armies antibiotics, the leading killer of American soldiers in wartime was neither enemy fire nor shrapnel. Two-thirds of the roughly 620,000 deaths in the U.S. Civil War came from diseases like typhoid and dysentery. Spread through contaminated water and crowded camps, they were eventually controlled through inoculation and field sanitation rather than the antibiotics that would not arrive until the following generation. Later in World War I, American forces lost more men to disease than to combat: 63,000 to 51,000.By 1940, military medicine had largely closed that gap. Vaccines, sterile surgical technique, sulfa drugs, and The post The Blood Bank and the Logistics of Wartime Medicine appeared first on War on the Rocks.

It’s 2028, and the Fujian carrier strike group has just left Yulin, China, for an unknown destination. The U.S. Navy’s “Hedge Strategy” has let commanders disperse unmanned systems across regional choke points as forward-deployed scouts. But days before contact with Fujian, an unmanned undersea vehicle in the Banda Sea transmits an error code and must head back to Yokosuka for repairs — a 3,000-mile, 15-day trip. A second platform, an unmanned surface vehicle, is overdue for a routine oil filter change in its propulsion system. Planners route it to Singapore, but the specialized technicians need visas to enter the country, The post Broken Drone, Far from Home: The Case for Overseas Autonomous System Sustainment appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club (Vintage International, 2014)The noise, the noise, the unrelenting noise of the world: How is any writer with an interest in the long view supposed to escape it, if only for a couple hours to work, let alone maintain their sanity in the remainders of a day? It’s an old dilemma, for certain, but little digital town criers in our pockets bring instant, constant news about slaughter and ruin in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and beyond — grim notices against the background of those chronicling the state of domestic American politics. Perhaps one could forgive The post How Revolutions Break Their Believers appeared first on War on the Rocks.

Two defense tech companies sued the U.S. government, alleging they were unfairly excluded from the Navy's Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel program.

Both companies claim that their proposals did satisfy Navy requirements for the new MUSV marketplace.

Russian recruits arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine survive an estimated 20 to 30 minutes before they are killed or wounded, the CIA director said.

The partnership will grow Canada’s fleet of ACSVs from 360 to 550.

“There’s a wide array of things that we have stopped spending money on so that we could pay for the bills that are associated with Epic Fury,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach told Breaking Defense. “That’s why you need a supplemental for this year.”

The CMMC Phase II pause “shouldn’t be a shocker to anybody,” according to Katie Arrington, thought of as the creator of CMMC. But, she said, at the end of the day the Pentagon is likely to come back around to where it is now, realizing “that there really is no other way to get compliance.”

“Being non-controversial is not a bad thing,” said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, noting that the low turnout at the SASC hearing was a “compliment” to CSO nominee Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess.

The Royal Air Force plans to develop a new electronic warfare drone dubbed Storm Chrome, along with a long-range, one-way attack drone called Storm Fire, according to Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth.

While Ottawa previously confirmed its first order for 16 Lockheed Martin F-35s, it has spent the last year reviewing its future fighter jet fleet options.

Swedish defense firm Saab has secured an 8.7 billion kronor ($900 million) contract to supply combat systems and sensors for the German Navy’s MEKO ships.

The shipyard will focus on both defense and commercial vessels, the company announced today.

[Sponsored] As operating environments grow more complex, Link 16 provides instantaneous, mission-wide connectivity to ensure no aircraft flies alone.

The meetings come weeks after industrial rivalries forced Paris and Berlin to scrap the landmark Future Combat Air System (FCAS) fighter jet program.

The potential deal comes few days after Saudi Arabia and Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi traded fire, ending a four-year truce.