Know What's Happening in Defense
Know What's Happening in Defense
U.S. IDFC boosts reinsurance guarantees for Hormuz shipping to $40 billion
The U.S. International Development Finance Corp has doubled its reinsurance guarantees for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to $40 billion, adding major insurers such as AIG and Berkshire Hathaway. The step is intended to reinforce maritime security amid escalating regional tensions.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Kraken Robotics acquires Colvya Group for $615M
The Eurofighter Typhoon and Russia's Su‑35 remain the premier fourth‑generation multirole fighters in 2026. Over 600 Typhoons are in service with NATO and Gulf states, while roughly 80‑100 Su‑35s operate for Russia and export customers. The Typhoon’s latest Captor‑E AESA radar and NATO Link 16 integration boost networked situational awareness, whereas the Su‑35 relies on a powerful Irbis‑E radar and thrust‑vectoring for raw agility. Operational records show Typhoons frequently intercept Russian aircraft in Europe, while Su‑35s have seen combat over Ukraine.
Former President Donald Trump asserted that the United States will not pursue a ceasefire with Iran, insisting on unconditional surrender while emphasizing the U.S. military’s abundant ammunition and troop levels. He suggested that China and Japan could play a role...
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s 2026 annual threat report places foreign Islamist terror groups at the top of U.S. security concerns, spotlighting Hezbollah and Iranian‑backed militias as persistent threats to American and allied interests. While Israel’s recent...
The FBI and CISA released a joint public service announcement warning that Russian intelligence‑linked hackers are conducting a global phishing campaign against commercial messaging apps. The attackers impersonate Signal support staff to coax verification codes, compromising accounts of current and...
AI has become a decisive factor in cyber conflict, especially across the Asia‑Pacific region. Deep‑fake and generative AI have driven social‑engineering incidents up 53% year‑over‑year and fraud claims up 233%. By 2025, AI‑driven threats are projected to affect 56% of...
Government contractors are shifting from post‑RFP hustle to disciplined pre‑RFP marketing, embedding capture, business development, and proposal teams months before a draft solicitation appears. By monitoring agency signals such as RFIs, industry days, and policy trends, firms craft win themes...
The Government Accountability Office released a report reviewing the Department of Defense’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program, calling it fundamentally sound but in need of adjustments. GAO highlighted gaps in external factor analysis, such as the limited pool of...
The surge of generative AI has made realistic deepfakes and synthetic media commonplace, prompting a market shift toward foolproof digital identity verification. Emerging defenses combine hardware‑enforced trust, cryptographic watermarks and continuous behavioral biometrics to prove content provenance. Regulatory pressure, such...
The Pentagon filed a declaration labeling Anthropic’s employment of foreign nationals, especially Chinese citizens, as a national‑security risk under China’s National Intelligence Law. The agency argues this risk exceeds prior concerns about domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, and it contrasts...
if iran retains one-third of its reported 10,000 per month production it would produce more drones per day than it is currently firing.
The U.S. Army has taken delivery of its first H‑60 Black Hawk equipped with the DARPA‑funded ALIAS optionally piloted system. The retrofit kit adds fly‑by‑wire controls and an autonomy suite that can manage takeoff, flight and landing, while still allowing...
Phillips Payson O’Brien’s new book *War and Power* argues that wars are won or lost far beyond sheer firepower, highlighting the 2022 misreading of Russia’s chances in Ukraine. He critiques battle‑centric, realist analyses and proposes a “full‑spectrum power” framework that folds economic...
The Army National Guard is launching "Disasterville," a traveling virtual‑reality program that brings three ten‑minute disaster simulations—earthquake, flash flood and wildfire—to high school gymnasiums across the United States this spring. Participants work in teams of five, using VR headsets and...
Hadrian opened a 2.2‑million‑square‑foot ‘Factory of the Future’ in Cherokee, Alabama, funded by $900 million Navy OBBBA money and $1.5 billion private capital. The facility will mass‑produce components for Virginia‑class attack and Columbia‑class ballistic‑missile submarines, creating up to 1,000 high‑paying jobs. By...
The U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division conducted a live‑fire drill at Fort Campbell showcasing drones as the initial combat element rather than mere support tools. Multiple UAV platforms, from the MQ‑1C Gray Eagle to small reconnaissance drones, operated alongside Special...
Pentagon officials have drafted detailed plans to deploy U.S. ground forces into Iran, including two Marine units of roughly 2,200 troops each. The first unit is slated to arrive from Japan early next week, with a second sailing from California...
This is the equivalent of AK 47, but for drones. The world is not prepared for this yet, as we have seen it with the Gulf states. If you're using anti-aircraft missiles to shoot these things down, you're going to be in...
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a short‑term general license allowing the purchase of Russian crude already on board vessels, effective March 12 through April 11. The waiver follows a similar 30‑day exemption for India and aims to dampen market turbulence caused...
The Special Competitive Studies Project announced the National Security Commission on Robotics for Advanced Manufacturing, co‑chaired by SCSP President Ylli Bajraktari, Sen. Ted Budd and Sen. Elissa Slotkin. The commission will craft a unified strategy to scale next‑generation robotics and...
On March 18 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published its 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, describing a security environment where major powers, transnational actors, and rapid technological change intersect. China remains the primary strategic competitor, while Russia, Iran...
During the Iran‑Israel escalation, the UAE deployed a government‑run emergency alert system that pushed multilingual warnings to every mobile SIM and imposed steep fines for sharing unverified footage, keeping misinformation low. In contrast, India’s media landscape flooded viewers with outdated,...
Ursa Major announced that its Draper liquid‑fueled rocket engine completed a successful flight on the Air Force Affordable Rapid Missile Demonstrator on Jan. 27, 2026. The sub‑orbital test reached supersonic speeds, providing the first in‑flight validation of propellant stability and throttling performance....
Trivy, a widely used open‑source vulnerability scanner, suffered a second supply‑chain breach when attackers force‑pushed 75 of 76 tags in the official aquasecurity/trivy‑action repository to deliver a malicious payload. The code runs inside GitHub Actions runners, harvesting environment variables, cloud...
The University of Texas at El Paso’s Aerospace Center secured a $2 million congressional grant to expand its unmanned‑air‑system (UAS) capabilities. The funding will upgrade the Tornillo and Fabens test sites with enhanced power, computing, networking, radar, and beyond‑visual‑line‑of‑sight (BVLOS) operations....
Pennsylvania Army National Guard soldiers competed in Lithuania’s Best Infantry Squad Competition for the first time, finishing second among foreign teams. The eight‑person squad faced 10 Lithuanian squads and units from Germany, Estonia, Latvia, the Netherlands, and two active‑component U.S....
The "LCS doesn't have to work in the minefield" argument never held water. For one, you don't know where the minefield begins. The enemy doesn't send you a map. Look at USS Tripoli and USS Princeton. Neither believed it to be...
The United States is confronting a strategic deadlock as President Trump pushes an Iran war while key institutions and allies push back. The resignation of NCTC Director Joe Kent, who called the conflict fabricated, underscores internal intelligence dissent. Former presidents...
A new phishing campaign embeds counterfeit “trusted sender” banners directly into email bodies, tricking recipients into believing messages are verified by Apple Mail. Apple’s mail client does not generate such labels, so the banners are pure HTML graphics that appear...
The FBI seized four domains that Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security used to host stolen data, linking the operation to the state‑run “Handala” group. Handala leveraged Microsoft Intune’s wipe function to destroy data on more than 200,000 Stryker devices,...
The U.S. Army’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) made its first combat debut during the opening hours of the war on Iran, demonstrating a longer range than the legacy ATACMS and the ability to double payloads on HIMARS and MLRS launchers....
President Donald Trump told MS Now that the United States could cease its Iran‑focused military campaign immediately and still keep Tehran from rebuilding its war‑fighting capacity for a decade. He added that a prolonged presence would make Iran’s reconstruction impossible. The...
Finnish shipbuilder Uudenkaupungin Työvene secured a contract from Germany’s BAAINBw to design and build a Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) personnel transfer vessel for the German Navy. The 60‑person capacity craft will operate from Neustadt in Holstein, ferrying crew...
South Korea’s Republic of Korea Air Force successfully completed the maiden flight of its first Embraer C‑390 Millennium, marking the aircraft’s inaugural operational test. The flight follows a public tender that made South Korea the first Asian customer for the...
India’s National Investigation Agency detained six Ukrainian nationals and a U.S. citizen for illegally entering Mizoram and allegedly liaising with Myanmar ethnic armed organizations. The agency claims the group sought to train insurgents and funnel European‑sourced weapons, including drones, to...
The Trump administration presented a self‑defence argument at the United Nations to justify its bombing campaign against Iran, a justification many member states deem retroactive and legally tenuous. The episode also explores a proposed UN‑led diplomatic intervention in the Strait...
I have spent a good part of my career just getting people to believe this was actually happening. Now we are here. With 15 drones, you can lose roughly 1/4 of the B-52 force as it sits idle on the...
Iran's Shahed deployment and targeting are improving, thanks to tactics like launching swarms of drones with varying flight paths. These strategies are rapidly exhausting missile defenses in the Persian Gulf. #iranwar #shahed #geopolitics https://t.co/QUFZ0xOxqT
Iran launched a series of missile and drone attacks on Qatar’s energy infrastructure, disabling two LNG trains and a gas‑to‑liquids plant. The strikes knocked out roughly 17% of Qatar’s LNG export capacity, eliminating about 12.8 million tonnes per year for three...
Headlines that the US is thinking about taking Kharg island are pushing up Brent (lhs) and causing stocks to tank (rhs). Taking Kharg doesn't reopen the Strait and could turn into a fiasco. Better to embargo Iranian oil and force...
🚨 UPDATE THE U.S. IS PREPARING TO DEPLOY GROUND FORCES IN IRAN. People are now expecting the war to go on for months. This is why markets are dumping. https://t.co/63v1BaTPgn
The Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane has unveiled a Drone Killer Cartridge (DKC) that turns standard‑issue rifles and machine guns into kinetic counter‑UAS tools. By reusing existing cartridge cases, primers and propellant, the round creates a shotgun‑style spread of sub‑projectiles,...
Five-byline alert: 🚨 “.. the Iranians have real leverage with this, and there’s not an obvious fix for it,” an intelligence official said of efforts to reopen the strait. @CNN https://t.co/F0HsBMF0Ha https://t.co/23PCXm7d3r
Here comes another Big One - on track to be as big as any of the Big Three SCS artificial island bases. https://t.co/3JJiM1TcAx
Ukraine’s red team, equipped with home‑grown Magura V7 naval drones, won all five combat scenarios in a NATO‑led drill off Portugal. The exercise simulated attacks on ports, convoys and a frigate, demonstrating the drones’ ability to conduct ISR, mine‑countermeasure and...
One of my #RSAC presentation is a sponsored session ... and yes, this is the one that sold out :-) Because it is about the deep secrets of how we use agents for D&R. We should probably make a...
"Ukraine’s air defense is not just high-end systems. It is machine-guns, pickup trucks, acoustic and other sensors, and shared data. Distributed defense is the lesson." https://t.co/6z5VwFDMMl
The Royal Navy’s HMS Cutlass supported French forces in boarding the Russian‑linked tanker MV Deyna in the western Mediterranean on March 20, 2026. The vessel, sailing under a false Mozambican flag, was suspected of evading UK and EU sanctions as part of Russia’s shadow‑fleet...
Trump’s way of war promises “war without entanglement.” But it means strikes, re-strikes—and potentially boots on the ground. The Iran war is exposing the limits, risking the very forever wars Trump ran against. My latest essay for @business (gift link):...
Re-upping this because apparently there were multiple waves of more than a dozen drones over one of our bomber bases last week. 😬
Palantir Technologies and shipyard software firm Keel have secured a $448 million contract to support the U.S. Navy’s Shipbuilding Operating System (ShipOS), an AI‑driven initiative funded up to $4.448 billion. ShipOS aims to modernize the Maritime Industrial Base by integrating data across...
