US Army Building Mission-Specific AI for Tracking, Targeting; Report Calls for Pentagon to Build a ‘Digital Golden Dome’

INNOVATION

Report Calls for Pentagon to Build a ‘Digital Golden Dome’

The Defense Department’s Golden Dome for America program is building a next-generation missile defense shield to protect the United States from a variety of aerial threats. The Pentagon needs a similar architecture to secure its software, a new report argues.

Many Pentagon weapon systems utilize coding languages such as C and C++ that are considered “memory-unsafe,” according to “The Call for a Digital Golden Dome,” published by Lionfish Tech Advisors in September.

INVESTMENT

Defense tech company opens St. Paul hub, joins statewide security ecosystem

New facility will focus on AI-enabled readiness and contested logistics

Defense tech M&A runs hot as government services firms work past the DOGE effect

Defense tech companies are still drawing intense buyer interest, while traditional government services firms are still working to get over the DOGE effect.

Nearly all surveyed UK defence companies expect to raise outside capital

A White & Case survey finds 97% of companies asked hope to raise significant external funding in the next year.

AI

US Army Is Building Mission-Specific AI for Tracking, Targeting

Sightline Intelligence and DEVCOM AvMC are combining military datasets with AI tools to build target-recognition models tailored to operational requirements.

TECHNOLOGY

Valinor Launches Military Facility Maintenance Platform

A software-defined facility management system called Terra that aims to bring predictive maintenance, smart sensors, and mold detection into the government’s hundreds of thousands of deteriorating buildings.

The sleeping dogs of U.S. defence manufacturing

Deep in the Florida Panhandle, there’s a munitions factory without a roof.

POLICY

Pentagon Competition Seeks to Build First New Domestic Base in 40 Years

The Defense Department recently launched an initiative to build a future base that will take into account both rapidly evolving technology as well as the troops that will use it.

The Next Great American Base initiative, announced in late September, is a project to build a “premier, world-class power projection platform from the ground up,” according to a department release.

SPACE

What Russian Satellite Stalking Means for the Space Force

Over a two-week period beginning in late September and culminating in mid-October, a Russian satellite maneuvered dangerously close to a commercial Finnish satellite currently providing intelligence to the Ukrainian military.

The apparent provocation has experts wondering why Russia made the move—testing new capabilities, collecting intelligence, or trying to intimidate the Finnish company—and what, if anything, the U.S. Space Force could or should do about these types of events in the future.

Saab’s New Platform Aims to Give Military Operators More Control Over Space

Saab’s cloud-based command-and-control platform fuses sensor data, delivers actionable insights, and coordinates military assets across space operations.

EUROPE

Cybersecurity is an essential part of EU defence

There is a common proverb that security always feels excessive, right up to the moment that it is the only thing that matters. Europe’s leaders should bear this in mind as the continent’s security environment is changing. The threat is no longer confined to tanks, missiles and aircraft crossing national borders. In addition to drone strikes, sabotage of critical infrastructure, cyber espionage, ransomware and attacks on digital systems are becoming part of a broader and increasingly complex security landscape.

Italians and defense: A relationship still to be built

A YouGov survey of more than 1,500 respondents portrays a country that trusts its Armed Forces but prefers to see them performing policing duties rather than serving on missions abroad. Opposition to military spending remains widespread, while age is the dividing line on issues such as the reintroduction of conscription. Against this backdrop, an ideologically charged public debate struggles to engage with the details, setting Italians apart from much of the rest of Europe. A conversation with Fabrizio Coticchia and Matteo Mazziotti di Celso

DRONES

Army wants counter-drone systems tested and fielded in 6 months

The Army will test drone defense systems in Morocco next spring that it plans to field within 180 days, including technology designed to detect drones that aren't transmitting signals.

French Tethered Power Solution Lets ANAFI UKR Drone Fly for Hours Instead of 38 Minutes

French company Elistair has developed a specialized cable-based power supply system for the Parrot ANAFI UKR drone.

AIR FORCE

Hegseth Directs Air Force to Establish Special Tactics Squadron

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has directed the Air Force to establish a new Special Tactics Squadron under the Florida Air National Guard, growing a small but elite group of special operators.

The Pentagon announced Hegseth’s order Oct. 21, releasing a brief Sept. 23 memo from Hegseth to Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, directing him to create the new squadron at Hurlburt Field “with an associated new organization at MacDill Air Force Base,” both in Florida.

Air Force needs 1,509 combat-ready jets by 2035, service tells Congress

Lt. Gen. David Tabor also confirmed reporting that the Air Force is considering a new build F-16, but said that decision wasn't "urgent."

MARINES

Marines fielding new tech for prolonged medical care on the battlefield

Mobile blood refrigeration, ultrasounds, and power generation will keep troops alive beyond the “golden hour.”

STRATEGY

Hammers and Nails: Military Innovation as a Strategic Dead End

It is the duty of the armed forces to prepare for the possibility of war. The question at stake, however, is how prevailing concepts of innovation obscure and displace strategic thinking. This paper argues that innovation has become an end-in-itself, supplanting the much harder challenge of defining a meaningful, justifiable and achievable strategy.

The argument advances in three steps.

First, discussion focuses on the origins and context behind the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Second, it shows how approaches to this RMA were upended by counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Finally, the article turns to the decade after the end of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and contextualise this against two challenges to Western military dominance: global competition and private sector innovation.