Defense news

• Army awaiting 100-plus Switchblade 600 attack drones

  13-10-2023 16:36 via breakingdefense.com
  
  Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said in the future the service’s LASSO drone program will see “entry points for other vendors, potentially, because there’s so much innovation in that space.”
  
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• As combat evolves, leaders seek not ‘super-athletes’ but ‘human weapon systems’

  22-01-2026 23:49 via defenseone.com
  FORT BENNING, Georgia–U.S. military leaders at the forefront of troops’ training, health, and readiness are shifting their focus from creating "super-athletes" to building and maintaining the ability to wield the weapons and systems of an ever-more-robotified battlefield.“We're moving away from this kind of antiquated idea of very visceral combat experiences” that turn on “the ability to run and ruck,” said Drew Hammond, a human-performance specialist who has
  
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• House passes $839B defense spending bill, teeing up Senate action

  22-01-2026 23:13 via breakingdefense.com
  The funding proposal includes $8.4 billion more than the Pentagon’s request, falling short of the more than $50 billion in additional funding asked for by the department in the months since it sent its budget proposal to the Hill.
  
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• DOE seeks batteries with four times the juice

  22-01-2026 22:03 via defenseone.com
  If lithium-ion batteries are “miraculous,” as one science writer called them, the Energy Department is looking to fund a quadruple miracle. The department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy office is giving six teams up to $15 million to produce prototypes of manufacturable next-generation energy storage within two years. “We want to develop a system, a battery system or an energy system, that has four times the energy density of lithium ion batteries th
  
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• Bombing Iran would shore up its regime

  22-01-2026 22:00 via defenseone.com
  President Donald Trump has escalated his threats to use military force amid Iran’s violent crackdowns on protests, which have killed as many as 20,000 Iranians. In recent days, he has called for regime change in the Islamic Republic and ordered the Abraham Lincoln carrier group to the Middle East, its arrival expected later this month.   But air strikes on Iran would undermine the very protestors Trump purports to defend. Worse, it would expose U.S. forces in
  
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• Russian hybrid warfare has become indistinguishable from politics

  22-01-2026 21:44 via defenseone.com
  “The new [U.S.] National Security Strategy does not list Russia as an enemy or a target. Nevertheless, the NATO Secretary General is preparing for war with us. How does that make sense?” Russian President Vladimir Putin said, two hours into his Dec. 19 press conference at the Kremlin. Your answer to that question depends on which of two parallel realities you inhabit: one where Russia is a potential strategic partner of the United States, or one where it is a threat. The co
  
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• Pentagon CTO offers industry free use of 400 patents from gov’t labs — for a start

  22-01-2026 21:42 via breakingdefense.com
  The first 400 patents are “the freebie, the door buster” to get industry excited about an in-progress, unprecedented database linking all 216 DoD labs, Emil Michael told reporters.
  
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• UMEX total deals reach $980 million, navies seek 3D-printed USVs

  22-01-2026 21:22 via breakingdefense.com
  This value of signed deals represents a 20 percent increase compared to the previous UMEX in 2024, a sign of “the evolving development and confidence in the UAE’s defense industry,” said Tawazun spokesperson Manea Abdulkarim Al Mansoori.
  
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• Barzan exec talks new business plan, unveils agreements and new platforms

  22-01-2026 20:36 via breakingdefense.com
  “We’re focused much more on what is made in Qatar, things that we’ve developed and produced here locally,” Barzan Chief Commercial Officer Omar Al Qadi told Breaking Defense.
  
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• New CAML request for prototype proposals coming in days: Army CTO

  22-01-2026 19:45 via breakingdefense.com
  After pushing back its timeline to add flexibility to the program, ther Army looks to award contracts later this year.
  
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• The US needs Europe in a Taiwan fight. Here’s why, and how to make it happen.

  22-01-2026 18:32 via breakingdefense.com
  Analysts are expecting a Taiwan conflict to begin as early as 2027. As that date draws near, the US needs to look to European nations for support.
  
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• Qatari 747 to fly as Trump’s Air Force One this summer

  22-01-2026 17:31 via breakingdefense.com
  The controversial aircraft donated by the Qatari government is set to transport the Commander-in-Chief after less than a year of modification work, according to the Air Force.
  
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• The D Brief: Trump backs down on Greenland; More troops prep for MN deployment; Army tank arrives early; Congress demands Golden Dome answers; And a bit more.

  22-01-2026 17:15 via defenseone.com
  Trump backs down from tariff war on Europe over Greenland. After a blustery and meandering speech in Switzerland Wednesday, President Trump said he will not impose an escalating barrage of tariffs on eight European nations on February 1, as he had vowed last Friday if America’s European allies opposed his effort to annex the Danish island of Greenland. Trump made multiple efforts to claim Greenland as U.S. territory in his Wednesday speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sw
  
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• Here’s what Hill appropriators want the Pentagon to buy with $839 billion in 2026

  22-01-2026 16:31 via breakingdefense.com
  This week on the Congressional Roundup: Dig into where lawmakers diverged from the Trump administration in the defense appropriations bill.
  
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• Trump’s Greenland threat has already hurt US security—but far worse may come

  22-01-2026 16:18 via defenseone.com
  President Trump’s threats about Greenland have already wounded American security. Annexation or a forced sale of the island would inflect grievous self-harm—far greater than his administration appears to grasp.There is, to begin with, no compelling strategic case for an American takeover of Greenland. Whatever the United States seeks there—overflight rights, basing rights, intelligence access, or mineral exploration—Denmark and Greenland have long been willing to provide.
  
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• BAE Systems lands $610 million contract for advanced Eurofighter radars

  22-01-2026 16:00 via breakingdefense.com
  The radar is expected to enter service at the end of the decade, said BAE, with the new contract coming after several years of development and testing.
  
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• 5 countries, 10 companies, €15M: PRECISE AI project aims to protect European infrastructure

  22-01-2026 15:21 via breakingdefense.com
  Funded by the EU’s European Defense Fund and led by Spanish-based multinational GMV, PRECISE will use AI to analyze satellite imagery and recreate 3D models of critical sites.
  
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• Beyond 2025: What defense leaders need to watch in 2026

  21-01-2026 23:34 via breakingdefense.com
  What’s in store for 2026? Breaking Defense reporters examine how the decisions, disruptions, and developments of 2025 could shape the year ahead.
  
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• Army unveils new tank—five years early

  21-01-2026 21:41 via defenseone.com
  DETROIT—Car enthusiasts milling around the floor at the Detroit auto show this week will get the first public glimpse of the Army’s new main battle tank, as the service prepares to roll out its M1A1 Abrams replacement five years ahead of its original timeline. Rather than wait to field the vehicles until every last sensor and radio is determined, the Army cut the tank’s development time way down by getting the physical vehicle built and allowing the bells and whistles to b
  
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• UAE signs $400M in local drone deals, US firms show off at UMEX

  21-01-2026 21:32 via breakingdefense.com
  Combined with the $240 million announced in deals for EDGE on day one, the local UAE champion has brought its contracted total from the show to roughly $635 million.    
  
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• Got an idea for reforming defense acquisition? The Pentagon’s all ears.

  21-01-2026 21:04 via defenseone.com
  HONOLULU—As the Defense Department works to overhaul its antiquated and clunky acquisition system, it wants to hear from you.“Bring us your most disruptive, most unconstrained ideas,” Mike Cadenazzi, assistant defense secretary for industrial base policy, said during a keynote speech at the Honolulu Defense Forum last week. “We need radically different outcomes in the defense industrial base. So we need radically different ideas on how to get there.”Lt. Gen. James G
  
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• France taps Loft Orbital to develop nation’s first ‘sovereign’ SAR satellite

  21-01-2026 20:45 via breakingdefense.com
  The program is aimed at providing “a critical technology for the armed forces and for France’s strategic autonomy,” according to Loft’s announcement today.
  
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• Defense Business Brief: Thales’ frigate pivot + 2026 lookahead with Leonardo DRS

  21-01-2026 20:07 via defenseone.com
  Anybody need a towed sonar array? Thales has been brainstorming how to repurpose some that were designed for the U.S. Navy, but the service canceled the frigate that was supposed to tow them. It’s a situation that could befall other defense companies as Pentagon leaders urge nimble acquisition and insist that suppliers take on more risk.Thales delivered two Compact Active Towed Array Systems to Fincantieri before the Constellation-class program was suddenly axed in November. The systems ar
  
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• Where’s all that Golden Dome money going? Lawmakers want to know

  21-01-2026 19:33 via defenseone.com
  Lawmakers are done asking how the Pentagon is spending $23 billion allocated for the Golden Dome missile-defense program. Now they’re writing their queries into law.In the annual defense appropriations bill on Tuesday, House and Senate appropriators wrote that while they “support the operational objectives of Golden Dome for national security,” but criticized the Defense Department’s “decision to date not to provide complete budgetary details and justification of th
  
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• Singapore cleared to buy four P-8A Poseidons for $2.3 billion

  21-01-2026 19:20 via breakingdefense.com
  Should the deal go through, the P-8As will replace five Fokker 50 maritime patrol aircraft currently operated by the Republic of Singapore Air Force.
  
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• The National Commission on the Future of the Navy: The time is now

  21-01-2026 18:20 via breakingdefense.com
  In this op-ed, leaders of the congressionally mandated commission lay out an ambitious plan to assess the Navy’s woes and recommend solutions.
  
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• The D Brief: Trump’s Greenland fixation undermines alliance; Cui bono?; Lawmakers set flat defense budget; How AI went DOD; And a bit more.

  21-01-2026 17:21 via defenseone.com
  U.S. President Donald Trump seems fixated on seizing Greenland, and propagated messages to that effect both before and after traveling to an annual economic summit in Europe on Tuesday. At 1 a.m. ET, he was posting cartoons on social media showing him planting a flag on the Danish island, which the illustration claimed was now American as of this year. The next morning, he was complaining to Europe about the U.S. stock market while repeatedly confusing the islands of Iceland and Greenland. 
  
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• Navy’s future fighter jet program revived in new funding bills

  20-01-2026 22:53 via defenseone.com
  Congressional appropriators have revived funding for the Navy’s F/A-XX program and lambasted the Defense Department for failing to award key development contracts for the service’s sixth-generation fighter jet.While the program was designated to get just $74 million by the National Defense Authorization Act signed into law last month, appropriators moved to give it another $897 million in a four-bill package, including the annual defense appropriations bill, on Tuesday. “T
  
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• The D Brief: Experts warn of war; Trump’s ‘state terror’; CNO’s upcoming instructions; China’s ‘full-stack’ defense-innovation cities; And a bit more.

  20-01-2026 17:36 via defenseone.com
  On Saturday, Trump announced an economic war of coercion against more than a half-dozen U.S. allies in Europe, declaring “a 10% Tariff on any and all goods sent to the United States of America” from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Finland. “On June 1st, 2026, the Tariff will be increased to 25%. This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland,” the president
  
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• Shutdown odds plummet after House and Senate strike bipartisan deal on 2026 funding bills

  20-01-2026 07:00 via defenseone.com
  Negotiators in both chambers of Congress have reached an agreement to fund every federal agency in fiscal 2026, with appropriators announcing a final deal on Tuesday, giving lawmakers 10 days to get the remaining bills to President Trump’s desk before a shutdown would occur.The Senate last week passed a second “minibus” package of spending bills, sending the measure to Trump to clear out half of the 12 annual must-pass appropriations bills. The House has already passed a t
  
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