How Ukraine Won the First Great Robot War; Germany’s Space Awakening

INNOVATION

How Ukraine won the first great robot war

In the spring and summer of 2026, the story about Russia's war in Ukraine changed. The defenders are combining air and ground drones, autonomy, and swarming to re-capture territory with robots while risking fewer humans—increasing casualties for Russia while decreasing them for their own forces. Some four and a half years after confidently launching his invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has dwindling military options.

Northrop Says Upgrades to F-16 EW, Targeting Are Moving Forward

Northrop Grumman is deep into testing two upgrades for the F-16 as the Air Force looks to keep the fourth-generation fighter ready for the future fight, company officials told reporters this week.

The future of defense innovation

A conversation with Arun Seraphin, director of NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Institute.

AI

Cosine COO: AI belongs in the bunker, not the cloud

In this conversation with Yang Li, co-founder and COO of Cosine, we discuss what sovereign AI actually means in practice. While the term has become increasingly common, Li argues that it comes down to three things: control, certainty, and resilience. Rather than relying on cloud-based AI services, Cosine builds foundation models that can run entirely inside a customer’s own infrastructure, including fully air-gapped environments where systems have no connection to the public internet.

Before the Next Mythos Moment: The Case for an AI Threat Fusion Center

Earlier this spring, Claude’s developers found the cyber potential of Anthropic’s model, Mythos 5, hazardous enough to pump the brakes on model release, creating the Project Glasswing collaboration to give cyber defenders the upper hand through controlled access to the model. Despite these efforts, the U.S. government stepped in on June 12, 2026, and forced Anthropic to take down Mythos and its safeguarded form, Fable 5 — an action the company disputed, calling the trigger a narrow, nonuniversal jailbreak.

How a former Marine is rewriting the future of battlefield AI

One stubborn former Marine is changing how the Pentagon moves data to farflung troops—a change intended to enable them to use advanced AI tools, and one that just might reshape how lightweight models are developed.

AI can now power every stage of a cyberattack

Researchers determined AI has been used to identify security flaws, generate commands, and carry out parts of intrusions.

Pentagon recruiting new tech talent for AI implementation

“War Force” of young two-year recruits will get access to “policymaking and national-scale impact,” according to the announcement.

TECHNOLOGY

Saronic’s Louisiana shipyard helps drive a new wave of defense technology

Saronic Technologies is at the center of a major shift in naval warfare, a move toward autonomous vessels, artificial intelligence and faster defense manufacturing, The New York Times reports.

That shift gained attention after a June rescue mission near the Strait of Hormuz, when a Saronic-built Corsair unmanned vessel helped recover two stranded military aviators after their helicopter was downed. Navy officials said the mission demonstrated how autonomous systems can reduce risk and save lives.

What the Air Force’s New Software Approach with CCAs Means

The Air Force’s “software sold separately” plan to buy critical autonomy software decoupled from the physical air vehicle for its nascent Collaborative Combat Aircraft fleet could help the drones evolve quickly, foster competition, and avoid vendor lock-in, experts and service officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

POLICY

U.S. Army Official Names Anduril As Potential Hypersonic Supplier

A top U.S. Army official named Anduril as a potential hypersonic weapons supplier on July 14 while explaining an emerging requirement for a high/low mix of exquisite and low-cost long-range missiles.

Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army’s program acquisition executive for Fires, named Anduril along with Castelion and Ursa Major as potential suppliers.

Trump will address a defense technology gathering as the Iran war has reduced US weapon stocks

President Donald Trump is headlining a defense summit at the U.S. Army War College on Wednesday, planning to tout major investments in battlefield technology when the war in Iran has reduced the U.S. supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot and THAAD interceptors.

The gathering in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is organized by Republican Sen. David McCormick. It has also featured Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Army Secretary Dan Driscoll; CIA Director John Ratcliffe; and Mike Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

Is the Pledge to spend 5% on Defense a NATO Suicide Pact?

Economically it is fair to ask how long the Americans, set on their current fiscal path, will be able to support their current defense spending and economy.

SPACE

Defense spending lifts Europe’s space economy

European government space spending jumped 12% to 13.5 billion euros ($15.4 billion) in 2025, according to a July 13 European Space Agency report, bucking a 3% global decline on the back of rising national defense budgets.

EUROPE

Germany’s space awakening

The country is putting unprecedented funding and attention behind the adversarial threat high above earth

Europe’s fresh focus on deep precision strike

Nato has allocated $50bn for deep strike weapons over the next ten years, but what projects will this money support?

Why Europe is suddenly betting big on drones

Europe has spent years rebuilding its military in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, investment is increasingly converging around one technology that is seen as central to the continent’s future security: drones.

A flurry of announcements over the past two weeks shows just how quickly that shift is accelerating. NATO unveiled a new drone initiative, the U.K. earmarked billions of pounds for drones and counter-drone systems, Germany moved to procure 50,000 drones for Ukraine, and defense tech startup Helsing secured an $18 billion valuation.

STARTUPS

Valarian Raises $50M Series A

Well, gosh darn. Our friends across the pond really are having quite the month. This morning, UK-based Valarian—which is building “the sovereign