The dual missions represent “the first bilateral” US-Japan cooperative space effort “focused on national security,” US Space Systems Command (SSC) said in an Aug. 14 statement. The first of the two sensors was launched in February 2025.

The Space Force sensors, designed and built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, will keep watch on the heavens above the Indo-Pacific region, according to the SSC release.

The Japanese satellite, Quasi-Zenith Satellite-7 (QZS-7), was successfully launched on an H-3 launch vehicle from Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC) in Japan on Aug. 10, according to the SSC release.

Built by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, it is the seventh and last bird in the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) constellation stationed in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO). The constellation, which serves as Japan’s version of GPS, is operated by the Japanese space agency JAXA and provides position, navigation and timing coordinates for both civilian and military uses.

The Pentagon initiated the bilateral effort to host the US sensors as payloads on the sixth and seventh QZSS birds in 2019. The deal was part of a package of agreements aimed at improving cooperation with Japan on space situational awareness.

The US Space Force first provided funding for the program in fiscal 2021, with the expectation that QZS-6 would fly in calendar 2023 and QZS-7 would fly the following year.

The two sensors will feed space monitoring data to the US Space Surveillance Network (SSN), which is made up of ground-based radar and telescopes on Earth and in space. The SSN is operated by the 18th Space Defense Squadron, headquartered at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The contract follows a February framework agreement with the Pentagon that laid the groundwork for the finalized deal. RTX said today the production increase will occur over a “multiyear period,” but did not detail a specific timeline for the ramp up.  

“We are making significant investments in our workforce, technology, supply chain and facilities to dramatically boost production capacity and meet surging demand,” Raytheon President Phil Jasper said in a statement. 

Over the past year, Pentagon leaders have leveraged multiyear contracts for critical munitions as an incentive to get defense primes to make larger investments in their production facilities and supply chain.

“The Department called upon industry to expand munitions production, and RTX has answered that call,” Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, said in a statement. “This Tomahawk award increases our ability to equip the Joint Force, ensuring our Warfighters never face a fair fight.”

RTX has “invested heavily” to boost production of the Tomahawk and other critical munitions, and has delivered three times more Tomahawks in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year, it said in a news release. 

Beyond the Tomahawk, Raytheon has also inked framework agreements to increase production of the AMRAAM air-to-air missile, Standard Missile-6 and Standard Missile-3 IIA, while accelerating production of the Standard Missile-3 IB.  

During a July 23 earnings call, RTX CEO Chris Calio said that the company has had “very, very productive and constructive conversations” with the Pentagon about turning those framework agreements into definitive contracts. 

Breaking Defense discussed what true autonomy is, how it can be applied to aircraft and how it offers significant capability upgrades to operators with Craig Woolston, vice president and general manager, research and advanced design at Northrop Grumman, who also provided details on the self-funded Talon Blue collaborative combat aircraft.

Breaking Defense: What does true autonomy mean in a defense aviation context, and why is it important for warfighters?

Woolston: True autonomy is more than remotely piloted systems or basic automation. Fully autonomous aircraft have systems that perceive, decide, and act within the context of its mission objectives and operational environment, without continuous human input. The distinction matters. With full autonomy, warfighters gain force multiplication and operational flexibility. They offload some of the tasks to autonomy and go on to others that require human attention.

While autonomy can mean small drones, it also can be something the size of a 737 that executes complex tasks, adapts to dynamic threats, and collaborates seamlessly with crewed assets to create a more resilient and effective combat force. We’ve already done this with Triton and Global Hawk. Now we’re doing it with Talon Blue.

Autonomy requires moving from direct vehicle control to mission management. Operators no longer have to manage the aircraft’s every move; instead, they specify mission goals and constraints, and the autonomous system handles the tactical execution and adaptations in real time, anticipating the next pilot skill and mission need. This is vital when the aircraft is beyond visual line of sight or in contested environments where continuous control is impractical or impossible. It allows operators to focus on higher-level decision making and coordination across multiple platforms rather than single-vehicle piloting.

What are the toughest engineering problems in making autonomous aircraft operate alongside crewed aircraft under human direction, especially in complex or contested airspace?

Integrating autonomous platforms with existing crewed assets requires creating solutions for real-time collaborative decision making, robust sense-and-avoid capabilities, and secure, resilient communications in contested electromagnetic environments, on top of integrations with the various existing aircraft platforms.

Ensuring autonomous systems can interpret and respond to unpredictable actions and threats while maintaining safe separation from their crewed counterparts calls for advances in AI predictability, trustworthiness, and verification in real-world operations.

Northrop Grumman points to seven decades of autonomy work and more than half a million autonomous flight hours. How does that operational experience shape the autonomy capabilities you’re developing now for contested airspace and future collaborative combat aircraft?

Our experience means that we can put flight and mission autonomy systems into new aircraft and be mission ready immediately. We don’t have to figure out how to fly autonomously.

Not only do we have seven decades of experience and technology advancement, but we’ve also created an autonomy testbed ecosystem that allows us, and all of our partners, to safely test and advance autonomy skills. As the leader in advanced autonomy and global surveillance and strike, we are committed to delivering the most advanced CCA solution for the US government and allies. Our uncrewed aircraft are already operating in collaborative environments with crewed aircraft and improving military commanders’ ability to expand reach and access.

Our extensive autonomous flight hours have generated invaluable data on system reliability and operational integration. This foundation enables us to build autonomy architectures that are based on real-world data and are resilient to complex contingencies and adversarial conditions.

What is the latest with your autonomy testbed ecosystem, Talon IQ, and how is it maturing open-architecture systems?

The Talon IQ testbed ecosystem creates an optionally autonomous mode of the Model 437 aircraft allowing developers of autonomy software and hardware to perform key risk reduction and demonstrate system-integration processes. Talon IQ is designed to integrate, evaluate, and advance multiple autonomy stacks and mission systems concurrently. It supports rapid experimentation, algorithm refinement, and system interoperability across diverse scenarios, accelerating the maturation and transition of autonomy capabilities into operational platforms.

Northrop Grumman’s own Prism Mission Autonomy software has already commanded the same Model 437 airframe, establishing Talon IQ as a flight‑proven platform. Talon IQ’s plug-and-play design substantiates our rapid adoption of customer requirements for open architectures and pace of innovation required to bring new autonomous mission capabilities to market.

Recent achievements include hours of physical AI plugging directly into the Model 437 aircraft and executing mission-critical behaviors. These tests were performed with both the Prism autonomy software stack and in-flight hot-swaps to partner autonomy solutions showcasing scalable, mission-ready capabilities at reduced risk. The platform’s mission autonomy imparts a level of operational flexibility never before possible.

Why is open architecture important to the future of mission autonomy, particularly as the Air Force and broader defense community look for software that can work across different CCA platforms?

Open architecture enables agility and interoperability – critical attributes in a joint, multi-vendor ecosystem. It allows diverse autonomy software components to be integrated, updated, and reused across different collaborative combat aircraft platforms, reducing development risk and timelines. This approach supports innovation, facilitates technology insertion, and ensures consistent mission performance regardless of the underlying hardware or platform manufacturer.

Prism was selected as one of the autonomy software solutions for the Air Force’s CCA marketplace. What does the Talon IQ effort bring to the mission autonomy problem, and how does it help mature and prove out that software?

Prism embodies a sophisticated autonomy software suite focused on mission management, tactical reasoning, and real-time adaptation within contested environments. Talon IQ serves as a proving ground to rigorously test, validate, and enhance Prism’s capabilities across diverse mission scenarios and platforms. By enabling iterative development and operational-level exercises, Talon IQ ensures Prism matures beyond simulation to trusted, ready-for-deployment software.

Talon Blue is described as a self-funded, CCA-class demonstrator that starts from a fully autonomous approach rather than a remotely piloted one. Why did Northrop Grumman take that path, and what does Talon Blue allow you to prove?

Northrop Grumman is fast-tracking investment in the program to continuously evolve alongside US Air Force priorities, recently completing plug-and-play mission autonomy demonstrations with the Talon IQ testbed and fully autonomous taxi testing to ensure an accelerated path to operational capability.

We chose a fully autonomous foundation for Talon Blue to push the envelope beyond remotely piloted paradigms and to accelerate development of intrinsic autonomy capabilities for collaborative combat aircraft. Talon Blue will validate capabilities like independent mission execution, advanced sense and avoid, and human-autonomy teaming in realistic operational environments. It demonstrates how a truly autonomous aircraft can act as a trusted wingman and force multiplier in contested scenarios.

How do the capabilities within Talon IQ and Talon Blue work together in a portfolio?

The Project Talon Portfolio showcases our ability to quickly deliver mission-ready autonomy with streamlined manufacturing capabilities and innovative production processes. Together, Talon IQ, Talon Blue, and Prism form a holistic autonomy development portfolio.

Talon Blue provides the flight demonstration platform, Talon IQ offers the open-architecture ecosystem for testing and evolving autonomy software, and Prism delivers the mission-level autonomy software capabilities. This integrated approach accelerates technology maturation, validates system interoperability, and ultimately enables scalable integration of autonomy into future combat aviation platforms.

Looking ahead, what does the defense industrial base still need to solve to make autonomy scalable, trusted, and interoperable across platforms, missions, and services?

Key challenges remain in standardizing autonomy interfaces and data models, certifying AI-driven systems for safety and reliability, and developing resilient communications and cybersecurity architectures operable in contested environments. Additionally, building operator trust through transparent, explainable autonomy behaviors and seamless human-machine collaboration is essential. The industrial base will need to foster agile development cycles and cross-domain cooperation to deliver scalable, interoperable autonomy solutions across services and mission sets.

Final thoughts and takeaways?

Autonomy is not merely about removing the human pilot; it’s about augmenting warfighter capability with intelligent, adaptable, and trustworthy aircraft that operate collaboratively and effectively in complex, contested environments. Northrop Grumman’s portfolio demonstrates a matured, integrated approach to advancing mission autonomy that will empower future collaborative combat aircraft and provide decisive advantages on the modern battlefield.

The Project Talon Portfolio represents a leap in affordability, agility, and mission adaptability, delivered through state-of-the-art manufacturing innovations and a modular, scalable design philosophy. Its modular design exemplifies how efficient and adaptable manufacturing can meet the rapidly changing requirements of modern military operations, broadening appeal and effectiveness with domestic and international markets.

The takeaway seems clear: For the PLA, Iran has reinforced many of the ideas already driving China’s modernization around “intelligentized” and systems-oriented warfare. The conflict, PLA scholars are saying, shows China is already on the right track with developing a military capable of challenging other large militaries.  

Chinese military commentary since the opening of hostilities echoed a familiar theme: future advantage depends less on any single platform than on the speed, resilience and cost efficiency of the overall system connecting sensors, decision-makers, weapons, logistics and data. In an April 12 analysis, PLA Academy of Military Science (AMS) War Research Institute academics Tian Kaiyuan and Wang Jianfei described the conflict as a transition from “force-on-force confrontation” toward “systems competition.” Their discussion focused on distributed command, attacks on enabling nodes and the low-cost attrition of what they call “systems guerrilla warfare.” Rather than match an opponent platform for platform, they prioritize the disruption of the networks that allow advanced platforms to generate combat power.

In an April 13 PLA Daily article, Xu Fangming of the AMS War Research Institute argued that the US-Iran conflict accelerated a shift from “human-led linear killing” toward AI enabled, networked kill webs. Other AMS theorists have treated the Iran conflict as evidence supporting ideas they had advanced before the war: that intelligence networks built in advance, the integration of sensors, command systems, weapons and unmanned platforms, and the pressure that large numbers of relatively inexpensive weapons can defeat sophisticated defenses. They also highlight the vulnerabilities behind those advantages, noting that stale or deceptive data undermine AI-assisted targeting, attacks on critical nodes can disrupt otherwise capable forces and concentrated bases or command facilities can present lucrative targets. 

Artificial intelligence occupies the center of that network, but Chinese military analysts have not treated algorithms as substitutes for preparation. Kuang Lasheng, an AMS researcher, argues that years of human intelligence, technical collection, pattern-of-life mapping and prewar rehearsal supplied US AI systems with the data needed to accelerate targeting during the Iran campaign. His formulation places “pre-positioned intelligence preparation” at the foundation of military action and warns that even powerful algorithms produce little value when fed unreliable or outdated information. 

Military theorists at China’s National University of Defense Technology explicitly focused on the US use of the Maven Smart System in Iran to extend that argument to intelligence fusion, target prioritization, route planning, autonomous attacks and manned-unmanned teaming. Their account places AI throughout the whole kill web rather than inside a single decision point. Prewar studies from the PLA’s Rocket Force University of Engineering described a similar architecture that combines UAV video, signals intelligence, satellite imagery, open-source reporting and electronic-warfare data to generate plans and sensor-to-shooter actions. Much of this work predates the current war, giving the PLA a chance to see concepts already driving its modernization tested in the fires of actual combat.

The conflict has also sharpened Chinese attention to the economics of air and missile defense. 

Tian and Wang highlighted Iran’s use of inexpensive unmanned systems to consume far more costly interceptors. Chinese researchers had studied the same imbalance before the current campaign. A 2025 study modeled Isreal’s Iron Dome under increasingly dense rocket attacks, while a 2026 article by PLA researchers drew lessons from earlier US-Iran and Iran-Israel fighting and identified limited defensive coverage, weak battle-damage resilience, high production costs and interceptor shortages as key focus areas. The authors of that study also examined how US missile defenses could use AI to identify multiple incoming threats and launch interceptors from dispersed locations.

PLA Air Force-affiliated authors have described the Iran conflict as representing a new type of large-scale unmanned offensive-defensive attrition. Drawing on Iran alongside the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, they identified three main themes: distributed cross-domain operations, a mix of advanced systems and low-cost weapons and greater autonomous collaboration. A companion article also advocated pairing sophisticated systems with cheaper sensors and interceptors while distributing critical nodes across the defensive network. China’s defense industry had already advertised a similar approach through counter-UAV systems combining missiles, guns, electronic warfare, lasers and high-power microwave systems. The objective goes beyond destroying incoming weapons by improving the exchange ratio and preserving defensive capacity during prolonged saturation attacks.

Chinese analysts have also drawn a parallel lesson about survivability. Earlier PLA commentary and analysis criticized linear kill chains vulnerable to communications disruption or node destruction and instead proposed dynamic kill webs that can reroute information and continue operating after local losses. The Iran war has provided a practical example of that problem. Tian and Wang emphasize distributed command and backup decision nodes, while technical studies examined how local nodes can maintain command and control after losing contact with a central command post. The common objective centers on preserving the wider combat system when individual nodes fail.

That logic expands the target set far beyond aircraft, missiles or command posts. In an April 12 Guanming Daily article, Zhao Lei and Liu Ning of China’s National Defense University argued that modern conflict increasingly links the kill chain with the supply chain. They identified airfields, ports, warehouses, pipelines, power infrastructure and data centers as operationally significant targets whose loss can degrade the wider combat system. A second report in May 2026, from a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of State Security, applied a similar framework to “infrastructure warfare”, highlighting attacks on energy, transportation, financial and digital infrastructure. They paid particular attention to commercial cloud and data centers, arguing that AI’s growing role in intelligence collection, target identification and precision strike increasingly makes the infrastructure supporting those functions a physical target.

Broader commentary from China’s national security research community echoes these themes. In an April 2026 symposium in Modern International Relations, Tang Zhichao, director of the Political Research Office at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of West Asian and African Studies, highlighted standoff warfare centered on missiles and UAVs, asymmetric operations and large-scale military use of AI, while predicting greater interest in missiles, drones and A2/AD. Chen Wenxin, director of Ministry of State Security-linked think tank CICIR’s Institute of American Studies, focused on the cost imbalance between cheap drones and missiles and expensive Patriot and THAAD interceptors, while Chen Qinghong, deputy director of CICIR’s Institute of World Politics, emphasized ammunition stocks, defense-industrial capacity and the vulnerability of US forward bases. Though none speaks for formal PLA doctrine, their analyses show these questions circulating across China’s national-security community.

These publications do not prove that the PLA has formally converted Iran’s lessons into doctrine, force structure, or procurement decisions. Instead, they show Chinese researchers comparing combat experience against concepts already embedded in PLA modernization efforts, then using the results to identify weaknesses and development priorities.

For US planners, that pattern deserves attention. Chinese analysts do not need to conclude that every Iranian tactic succeeded before drawing value from the conflict. Failed strikes can expose sensor limitations, successful penetrations can reveal defensive seams, interceptor consumption can illuminate ammunition requirements and attacks on bases or logistics centers can test assumptions about system resilience. Each episode supplies data against problems the PLA already studies. 

The most consequential Chinese lesson from Iran may therefore come not from any single weapon or tactic, but from the interaction among intelligence preparation, AI-enabled decision speed, distributed unmanned systems, cost-imposing salvos and the networks that connect them. 

Chinese researchers approached the conflict with an established framework for how future high-end warfare could unfold. Their assessments of Iran have largely reinforced that approach, strengthening their case for continued investment in the capabilities that support faster, more distributed, resilient and cost-effective combat systems.

Tye Graham is a Senior Researcher with BluePath Labs and a retired US Army Foreign Area Officer.

“These exercises are not only costly […] but send a signal that is completely inappropriate and hostile,” Trump wrote, while also citing his “very good relationship” with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. 

He also linked the decision to Seoul’s reluctance to take military actions against Iran.

“While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’” Trump wrote.

Ulchi Freedom Shield, a large-scale, annual military exercise conducted by both South Korea and the US is slated to kick off today and run through Aug. 27. Trump said it is “too late” to cancel US participation, but he instructed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the entire exercise. 

In the past, the exercise has involved large-scale live-fire events, close air support and air interdiction missions involving thousands of training sorties, and special operations forces countering simulated weapons of mass destruction.

A Pentagon spokesperson declined to answer questions about what this exercise reduction means in practical terms, and referred all questions to the White House. A US Forces Korea webpage on the exercise displayed a “page not found” message Monday morning while lawmakers began weighing in on the announcement.

Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Sunday’s announcement “shortsighted and a mistake.”

“North and South Korea are still technically at war,” Kelly wrote in a social media post. “Our ability to help defend our ally against the North Koreans is because our forces are well trained and able to coordinate with the South Koreans.”

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said he is concerned about the post and it “suggests a disregard” for the relationship between the two countries.

“Decisions about joint exercises need to be made jointly — and not announced unilaterally by social media,” Kim wrote.

While Trump’s post was sudden given the timeline to start the joint exercise, it comes at a time of upheaval between the US and traditional allies across the globe, often over widespread reluctance to support the American war with Iran.

Seoul has been a focal point of such tensions, with the US reportedly considering a troop reduction on the peninsula. When the Trump administration released the new National Defense Strategy in January, it hinted at changes to the US-South Korea relationship.

“South Korea is capable of taking primary responsibility for deterring North Korea with critical but more limited U.S. support,” the document reads. “South Korea also has the will to do so, given that it faces a direct and clear threat from North Korea. This shift in the balance of responsibility is consistent with America’s interest in updating U.S. force posture on the Korean Peninsula.”

Meanwhile, additional exercise reductions could be on the horizon too as the administration and Pentagon leaders grapple with cost concerns and an increase needed for military assets in US Central Command. US Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Kevin Schneider, for example, warned late last month that the military was reevaluating its upcoming exercise schedule to help preserve “readiness” in the face of increased commitments around the globe, including the Middle East.

“We’re looking at … how we manage [readiness] against … all the other things that are going on around the world,” PACAF Commander Gen. Kevin Schneider said at the time.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of identifying, amongst commanders, where we’re going to take risk or how we manage the risks as we prioritize … [efforts] in the CENTCOM [Central Command] region right now, and what are those things that you know we are able to absorb as commanders elsewhere in the Air Force enterprise,” he added.

Now, President Donald Trump says it’s time for a fifth, in an effort to expand repair capacity for nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. 

Plans for the additional public shipyard were revealed in a new National Security Presidential Memorandum, along with several other key initiatives. The memorandum instructs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to submit a proposal within 120 days to bolster submarine and aircraft carrier readiness — harnessing both the private sector and an additional shipyard to achieve those results. 

The possibility of an additional public shipyard has been floated previously, as for years the Navy has struggled with maintenance delays. Chief of Naval Operations Daryl Caudle told reporters in April that the service was studying the creation of a new public shipyard, although he expressed reservations at the time about whether they could shore up the necessary workforce to man another yard — in addition to the price tag that would accompany such an endeavor. 

RELATED: Is a new Navy shipyard realistic, or just a ‘tall order’?

Two analysts told Breaking Defense that while the Navy certainly needs expanded capacity, especially if the service wants to meet the growth targets under its latest shipbuilding plan, establishing a new public shipyard would prove costly — and may not necessarily solve maintenance issues largely stemming from workforce shortages.

“If you go down this path, it’s expensive, and it would take a long time to do it. You’re talking about building new shipyards that would take at least a decade, maybe more,” said Eric Labs, a senior analyst for naval forces and weapons at the Congressional Budget Office. “And cost estimates for something like that have been varied over the map. But for nuclear-powered — meaning a shipyard cable doing maintenance on nuclear-powered ships — you’re probably talking about something in the $10 to $20 billion dollar-range in today’s dollars.” 

Even with the steep price tag, Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher at RAND and retired Navy captain, said he doesn’t expect any lawmakers would come out as “strictly opposed” to the endeavor. Rather, logistical hurdles are the more likely challenges to emerge. 

“It’s not really a political problem supporting ship maintenance and ship construction, it’s more like a practical problem of who you’re going to get to come do it,” Martin said. 

An Eye On The Pacific

Analysts said the exact price is dependent on several factors, including location. The Navy has previously operated multiple other shipyards — including Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Charleston Naval Shipyard, Mare Island Naval Shipyard, and Long Beach Naval Shipyard. All of those were shuttered as naval facilities in the 1990s, after Congress passed the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) in 1988. The Navy’s current four shipyards are in Virginia, Maine, Washington and Hawaii. 

It’s not clear whether the administration wants to build a completely new shipyard location, or wants to revive one of its previous shipyards or another former facility.  

“I think one of the first steps you have to do would be to identify where you’re going to put the shipyard, because by identifying where you’re going to put the shipyard, then you’ve got to figure out then how much it’s going to cost, and that is to some degree going to be site-dependent,” Labs said. 

While several of the former shipyards are on the East Coast, the administration appears to have its eye on the Pacific, according to the memo.

“The plan for the fifth yard shall address: sufficient drydock capacity to service the planned growth of the fast attack submarine fleet over the next two decades; locations proximate to the United States Pacific Fleet, including in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the United States territories; site options that include up to three new drydocks designed and built to hold the ranges of every current and projected class of submarine; innovative financing mechanisms such as public-private partnerships; and timelines and resourcing requirements,” the memo said. 

Congress also has to have a say in the matter. The administration must garner support from lawmakers to move forward with the initiative, which could receive funding incrementally, Labs said. 

“You certainly have to get the Congress and the administration in agreement that this is something that needs to happen, and therefore it needs to be funded,” Labs said. “It’s not something that has to be funded all in one year.”

Meanwhile, the Navy is in the process of revamping its current four public shipyards, and kicked off the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) program office in 2018. The more than 20-year effort seeks to upgrade the dry docks and the standard equipment. 

Navy officials previously told Breaking Defense in 2025 that once the SIOP program concludes, they expect a 10 percent improvement in aircraft carrier maintenance and a 15 percent improvement for submarine maintenance. While a submarine maintenance availability typically lasts 25 to 36 months, improvements stemming from the SIOP program would whittle roughly three months off that timeline, officials previously said. 

Efforts to install a new public shipyard could be folded into the SIOP program, or could remain an independent project. However, the additional shipyard shouldn’t detract resources from the SIOP program, Labs said. 

“Any public shipyard is going to be additive on top of that, and you wouldn’t want to do it in such a way that the money competes with the SIOP efforts because the SIOP efforts are really essential,” Labs said. 

Martin also said the SIOP program could house efforts tied to the additional shipyard.

“It’s ongoing and potentially that could be expanded, but the really, really big issue with all of this is labor and getting people who can actually do all this work,” Martin said. “That’s not something that’s going to be done in a year or two. That’s a generation-long thing.” 

The Navy has struggled to keep workers at its shipyards, despite recent recruitment initiatives. For example, Brett Seidle, then the Navy’s acting acquisition executive, said last year that despite millions of applications and nearly 10,000 employees hired in fiscal year 2023, a large number depart, largely driven by compensation issues, Breaking Defense previously reported. 

“Those folks are coming, and then we’re attriting out way too quick,” Seidle told lawmakers on a Senate Armed Services Committee subcommittee in March 2025. “We probably are seeing 50 to 60 percent attrition in our first-year employees.”

‘Hard Push’ For New Yard

Early signs of the administration’s interest in another shipyard were publicly revealed in June, when Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said the administration was “pushing hard for an additional public shipyard” as it seeks to expand the fleet.

“If we’re going to spend a one-and-a-half trillion dollars, or have the types of direct foreign investment that’s coming in, we want to make sure that we have the ability to have enough public shipyards to do maintenance,” Vought said at the Washington Times’ IndoPac 2026 event in June. “You’re going to have contracts with companies that are doing maintenance [in private shipyards], and that’s all fine, and will continue, but … to do it at scale is something that is absolutely vital.”

At the time, Vought noted the decision in April to inactivate the Los Angeles-class attack submarine Boise, which hadn’t operated at sea in over a decade and encountered a host of maintenance delays. 

“We all agree that at that point it needed to occur, but that had come after 10, 15 years of bad management, and we need to fix that,” Vought said in June. 

Martin said the Boise’s situation likely factored into the administration’s desire to open another shipyard, but said the lack of a shipyard workforce contributed more to such delays than the absence of another facility. 

“The impulse to expand public shipyard capacity is a good one,” Martin said. “The idea that [that] is best done by opening another shipyard is a little bit more problematic.” 

Effective immediately, defense industry veteran Sam Mehta — who currently leads L3Harris’s space business — will step in as the company’s CEO, while Lewis Hay, its lead independent director, will become chairman of the board.

The leadership change unnerved some investors, as L3Harris shares fell a modest 3 percent on Monday morning, though analysts don’t expect the leadership shuffle to have a lasting impact.

L3Harris did not provide specifics on what led to Kubasik’s ouster, but said in a press release that the company “became aware” of conduct by Kubasik “that was not consistent” with its code of conduct. 

“This conduct was unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance,” the company said in a statement. “Following its investigation of these matters with the assistance of independent counsel, the Board determined that it would be in the best interests of the Company to enter into a separation agreement with Kubasik.”

Kubasik does not appear to have addressed the company’s move publicly and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kubasik joined L3 Technologies as its chief operating officer in 2015 after resigning from Lockheed Martin in 2012 when Kubasik — then Lockheed’s CEO-elect — was found to have had an improper relationship with a subordinate.

He became L3’s CEO in 2018, telling Defense News at the time that his goal was to transition the company from a merchant supplier that sold electronics and other mission systems to major defense firms to a “sixth prime” that interacted directly with the Pentagon.

When L3 Technologies merged with Harris Corporation in 2019 — becoming L3Harris — Kubasik became the new company’s chief operating officer before ascending to the CEO job in 2021. Under his leadership, L3Harris acquired solid rocket motor manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023.

The surprise change in leadership comes weeks after the company declared its second quarter earnings, where Kubasik and other executives announced plans to postpone the spin off of its missile solutions business from 2026 to 2027, citing “market conditions.” 

In its statement today, L3Harris reaffirmed its financial projections for 2026 and said it “remains committed to its previously announced $3 billion capital buildout to increase solid rocket motor production and strengthen its supply chain to address our nation’s urgent and critical needs.”

While investors will speculate over the reasons for Kubasik’s departure, L3Harris’s underlying businesses are unlikely to be impacted by the change in management, Robert Stallard, an analyst with Vertical Research Partners, wrote in a note this morning. 

“Whatever the reason for this surprise news, we think investors will no doubt conclude that the underlying business is not impacted by this management change. However, it has also not escaped investors’ attention that LHX has underperformed its US defense peers under Kubasik’s leadership,” he said, referring to L3Harris’s ticker symbol. “We have high regard for Sam Mehta, who in our experience has been an effective manager and a good communicator. He may be a catalyst for closing LHX’s performance gap.” 

Mehta, who replaces Kubasik as L3Harris’s chief executive, has had a long career in the defense industry among the top primes, including as president of advanced structures for RTX’s Collins Aerospace and president of defense systems for Lockheed’s Sikorsky helicopter unit. 

Mehta joined L3Harris in 2023 as the president of its communications unit, before being elevated earlier this year to the president of the space and mission systems and communications and spectrum dominance business units. 

“I am honored by the opportunity to serve as President and CEO of L3Harris,” Mehta said. “Today, L3Harris has a portfolio purpose-built for the future of warfare, and we are well-positioned to continue executing our focused growth strategy as The Trusted Disruptor.” 

Lauren Barnes, currently the president of the company’s spectrum superiority division, has been appointed the president of space and mission systems. Christopher Aebli, currently the president of mission critical communications, has been appointed president of communications and spectrum dominance.

The award packages, which include fixed-price contracts and Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements, are worth $12 million each and are being managed by Space Systems Command’s (SSC) Space-Based Sensing and Targeting Portfolio Acquisition Executive office, according to a Thursday release from SSC.

The five winners are Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems. With the exception of Amazon LEO, the companies are all under contracts for development of the Space Development Agency’s low Earth orbit Transport Layer for data relay.

“The primary objective of this effort is to validate integration methodologies and demonstrate that diverse commercial systems can seamlessly connect to and transport, data across the core SDN system,” the SSC announcement said. “By combining on-orbit testing of high-speed optical communications routing with rigorous physical, electrical, and data interface standards, the Space Force aims to build a repeatable, secure baseline which allows different commercial satellite offerings to contribute to the network.”

As first reported by Breaking Defense, the SDN is the Space Force’s emerging satellite network-of-networks designed to provide low-latency, high-speed connectivity between US military sensors and shooters ― in particular to support the Pentagon’s ambitious Golden Dome missile defense initiative. In may, the service announced it has awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build the SDN “backbone” communications constellation, formerly known as MILNET, in low Earth orbit to ferry data between other types of satellites.

In its announcement, SSC made clear these awards are designed as a two-step process.

The first step in the new effort will concentrate on “demonstrating both ground-to-space and space-to-space data transport” between systems provided by the various contractors, and interconnectivity with the SDN backbone. This sub-program is being undertaken via fixed-price contracts, with six-to-nine-month performance periods valued at $10 million each.

The second step, SSC said, “operationalizes these connections in orbit” via OTA agreements, each worth $2 million, that are designed to “seed the development and fielding of Space Exchange Point (SEP) satellites.”

The SEP birds are “specialized spacecraft [that] act as orbital routers, allowing disparate networks and government satellite systems to connect directly” to the SDN backbone, the release added. “This SEP initiative lays a path to field prototype payloads from the multi-year, multi-vendor, Enterprise Space Terminal (EST) program, which designed optical terminals utilizing a government-owned communications standard” that can be used across orbital regimes.

“The core objective of these combined investments is to ensure future communication payloads can integrate seamlessly with competing spacecraft buses, eliminating the need for costly, custom redesigns. By establishing and operationalizing these interface standards early, the Space Force is laying the foundation for a plug-and-play environment which lowers the barrier to entry for proven and innovative commercial baselines,” SSC said.

While the transit provided reassurance to some regional capitals, especially Taipei, it remains the only publicly declared transit the US Navy has initiated in the Taiwan Strait this year, and one of only three since the start of the second Trump administration. That marks a substantial decrease from prior years, which — at a time when Chinese military coercion has intensified — raises some serious concerns.

Our analysis of Taiwan Strait transits — which draws data from official statements of both the US government and foreign governments, news reports, US naval press reports, and existing databases, including the Taiwan Security Monitor — tracked 28 naval transits under the first Trump administration and 32 under the Biden administration.

In contrast, current rates project only 14 publicly reported transits for the entirety of Trump 2.0 — in what would amount to a 50 percent decline from Trump 1.0 and a 56 percent decline from the Biden administration.

If America’s presence in one of the world’s most contested waterways is quietly fading, the strategic ramifications could be serious.

Rarely out of the headlines, the Taiwan Strait has long been a site of sporadic flare-ups caused by competing territorial assertions. China has declared the Strait to be its territorial waters, but virtually no other country, including the United States, recognizes that claim as lawful or legitimate. Military transits through the Strait have become an important tool in preventing the normalization of Beijing’s illegitimate claims. In the Strait, these operations deliberately challenge unlawful assertions by sailing through unilaterally declared zones to contest unrecognized authority.

More importantly, transits project American military presence at a time when Chinese warships and aircraft have become routine fixtures around Taiwan. Since 2022, when then-US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, Chinese air and naval presence has become alarmingly commonplace, with incursions into Taiwanese airspace and the island’s surrounding waters happening on a near-daily basis. On any given day, roughly five or six warships surround Taiwan at all times. China’s “daily activity around the island, near weekly joint combat patrols, and response exercises conducted during periods of heightened political tensions,” the US Department of Defense’s 2025 China Military Report assessed, have all set successive yearly highs.

The severing of undersea cables and lately the unlawful stops and inspections of Taiwanese vessels are part of Beijing’s “salami-slicing” tactics aimed at draining the vigilance of Taiwan’s government. Still, Beijing has held off on launching an all-out invasion of the island for now. The prospect of US involvement — a perception partly sustained by routine naval presence — threatens to complicate China’s effort to achieve the “strategic decisive victory” that Chinese President Xi Jinping envisions.

Transits give the US Navy practical experience navigating the Strait and if there is a prolonged decline in Taiwan Strait transits, Washington loses that operating experience and could possibly embolden Beijing to pursue coercive, illegal and destabilizing military activities with greater confidence.

Of course, some analysts disagree with the importance of these transits. Taiwan Strait transits “are just one aspect of U.S. military presence,” former Pentagon official Drew Thompson argued, “so they should be judged qualitatively, not quantitatively.”

While true, naval transits play an outsized role in signaling non-recognition of unlawful Chinese maritime claims precisely because of their visibility and regular occurrence. Following a joint passage of US and Canadian warships through the Strait in October 2024, for instance, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs lauded the transit as demonstrating “concrete actions to safeguard Taiwan Strait peace,” noting it was “the fourth joint transit in under two years.” These transits are among the clearest ways for the US to express its commitment to navigational rights in both word and deed.

Some observers posit that the dip since the start of Trump 2.0 is the result of the US Navy engaging in “silent transits,” in which the Pentagon declines to publicize passages to dampen tensions with Beijing. China has in the past publicly denounced Taiwan Strait transits and urged Washington to stop creating “public hype.” Taken together with President Donald Trump’s expanding receptivity to greater diplomatic and economic cooperation with Beijing in his second term, this explanation certainly seems plausible: The transit of the USS Higgins and HMS Richmond in September 2025 was not publicly advertised but later confirmed through a Pentagon official. No press release was provided by the US Navy.

While these “silent transits” are preferable to no activity at all, publicly declared naval operations send a broader signal to allies and the international community. A sudden drop in them can degrade perceptions of American priorities and credibility in both friendly and hostile capitals.

It’s also not the time for long-running demonstrations of US presence, commitment and deterrence to be decreasing. It’s not as if China’s maritime coercion has been shrinking in a cycle of mutual de-escalation; to the contrary, it has been accelerating.

Fewer public transits are taking place under Trump 2.0, at a time when Chinese maritime forces have grown more bellicose. While undeclared transits may be filling this gap, there is a real risk that American allies and partners—let alone Beijing—could misinterpret the Trump administration’s strategy as a retreat on American commitments. Perceptions of that kind, once formed, can become difficult to reverse.

The Pentagon, therefore, should return to the standard tempo of publicly announced routine transits established across the last two administrations. 

Allen Zhang is a researcher in the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, where he contributes to the Center’s research on Taiwan and China policy. Charity Ihrman is a member of Heritage’s Young Leaders Program.

“Flight School Next delivers a critical improvement in our Initial Entry Rotary Wing Training model. Simply put, it delivers new military helicopter pilots with far better foundational skills,” Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, commanding general of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, said in an Army release published Thursday.

The announcement is the culmination of a months-long competition, which began with six helicopter manufacturers, some competing as prime contractors and some as subs, gunning to provide the service with curriculum and airframes for its future aviators. 

The Army announcement said the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract calls on M1 to “provide aircraft, maintenance, simulators, flight and academic instruction and related support services while enabling the Army to maintain oversight of training standards, safety requirements and operational outcomes.” The contract’s “period of performance” will last up to 26 years, with the first task order covering a three- to four-year period in “support” of the “contractor’s transition.”

The announcement did not say what aircraft M1 would provide, but an M1 spokesperson told Breaking Defense the company planned to use the R-66 made by Robinson Helicopter. A spokesperson for Robinson, which was a subcontractor to M1 for the competition, declined to comment for this report. A spokesperson for Fort Rucker, where helo training takes place, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Back in February M1 said in a statement that it also would be partnering with General Dynamics Information Technology, Quantum Helicopters and the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation for the competition in addition to Robinson. 

As it stands, Airbus provides its curriculum and its UH-72 Lakota for pilot training at Fort Rucker. While the Lakota is viewed as an advanced and trusted airframe, its heavy automation and high-tech avionics can become a crutch for new pilots who instructors argue should first learn to master the basics of flight on simple controls, Army officials have previously stated.

The Army ultimately wanted to shake up the way it trained its aviators and get back to those basics to avoid future accidents at a time when helicopter mishaps have worried lawmakers, Maj. Gen. Clair Gill, the program acquisition executive of Maneuver Air, told reporters last fall. As a result, the Army began looking for a “very simple aircraft,” he said. 

The Army has sought a slew of requirements for the training aircraft in its past solicitations, but the three most prominent are that the aircraft have a turbine single-engine, counterclockwise-rotating rotor system and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) certification. Though it doesn’t have a single-engine, the Lakota has a counterclockwise-rotating rotor and is IFR certified. 

The R-66 has a single engine and a counterclockwise-rotating rotor system, but was not IFR certified as of last fall. It’s unclear if the aircraft is now certified.

With Flight School Next, the Army is also looking to shake up the way it acquires the aircraft. The new program will be run on a contractor-owned, contractor-operated (COCO) model, which allows M1 to own and run the program instead of the government. 

“Every formation we have today is underpowered. Every single one of them, and more power requirements are coming,” Brig. Gen. Troy Denomy, program acquisition executive for maneuver, told an audience here at the GVSETS conference’s keynote address Thursday. 

“New counter-UAS [unmanned aerial systems] are going to show up. Next [Generation C2] is going to show up. There are other programs that we have to be mindful of coming in. So, how do we solve our power problem across our formations? And it’s not by buying more generators,” he continued. 

Legacy vehicles in the Army’s current fleet, like the M1A2 Abrams, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and those in the tactical wheeled family, were not built to generate the power needed to charge and run the current systems the Army is increasingly relying on — not only drone and counter-drone systems, but also increasingly complex command posts. 

“When I talk to brigade commanders, sitting brigade commanders, their number one problem is how do they have and how do they plan for recharge cycles to keep their UASs in the air, and they don’t have enough ability to do it organically,” Denomy said. “So they’re having to meter how many UASs they can actually put in the air, not because of what the mission dictates, but because of how much power they have available.” 

Though generators supply extra power to troops, the equipment is noisy and easy for adversaries to spot, Alex Miller, the Army’s chief technology officer, explained during the keynote with Denomy. 

“Generators are loud. They create a lot of visual signature. They create a lot of thermal signature, and we have to get past that,” Miller said. 

Simply acquiring more battery packs is also not a solution, Denomy said, as they put more burden on the soldier. 

“Solutions that [are] presented to me [are] like, ‘Well, just give them another battery.’ You walk with five batteries in your pack for eight hours, and tell me how your feet feel,” Denomy said. “And you got to fight when you get there, right? So just adding batteries is not the solution.” 

Though Denomy didn’t provide specific capabilities that could enhance power on legacy vehicles, he did mention that there are some new technologies that “are really encouraging with fuel cells.”

Denomy also pointed to the fact that some of the new vehicles, like the XM30, set to replace the Bradleys, and the M1E3 Abrams, set to replace the M1A2s, provide more exportable power. The heavy variants of the service’s Infantry Squad Vehicle are also being designed to generate more exportable power, as Breaking Defense previously reported. Similar technology outfitted on legacy vehicles would be ideal, Denomy said. 

Further, the Army has been fielding some “next-gen” power management solutions, Miller said, though he didn’t get into the specifics. Miller said that, in addition to finding alternatives to batteries and generators, the Army is also looking to find alternatives for liquid fuel. 

“We have got to change the fact that liquid fuel is still the most power dense, efficient way to move energy across the battlefield. We’ve got to change that,” Miller said. “Those are the types of things that we need your help, that I truly believe that only this crowd — because you’ve been doing it for literally since World War II — can help us solve those problems. So, please dig into those things.” 

“Both agreements will strengthen production of the series of critical ship-fired surface-to-air interceptors that underpin the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and form the backbone of U.S. sea-based missile defense at home and abroad,” DoD said.

The Pentagon’s announcement was short on details, and spokespeople for the department did not immediately respond to Breaking Defense’s request for additional information. But in its own announcement, Boeing described the arrangements as “seven-year framework agreements” in which the company would “boost output of avionics and ejector assemblies for the SM-3 Block IB and Block IIA variants to enable increased production of the interceptors that form the backbone of U.S. sea-based missile defense at home and abroad.”

Boeing said it would provide critical components to primary contractor Raytheon, a subsidiary of RTX. RTX acknowledged the framework agreement in a post on X and said it is “advancing the framework agreements RTX signed earlier this year.” In February, RTX inked another framework agreement with the Pentagon designed to boost production of both SM-3 variants as well as Tomahawk, AMRAAM and SM-6 missiles.

While today’s framework deals are not contracts, they are intended to provide the two companies with added assurance as the government gets congressional approval to ink multi-year production deals and hammers out the terms.

“This gives us a clear demand signal to build and deliver SM‑3 interceptors at the levels needed to counter threats,” Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems, said in the company’s announcement. “The SM‑3 is an essential part of the layered air and missile defense architecture that protects the U.S. and its allies worldwide.”

In recent months, the Pentagon has been announcing a flurry of similar framework deals for weapons it deems critical including PAC-3 and THAAD interceptors, and the Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). Those deals come at a time of increasing scrutiny over dwindling stockpile numbers as the Iran conflict drags on.

While key Pentagon leaders have refuted such claims, they are clamoring for ways to boost weapon production numbers as quickly as possible.

“These agreements ensure our Warfighters get the munitions they need to win,” Michael Duffey, under secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, said of today’s SM-3 announcement. “We are stabilizing our supply chains, expanding munitions production and putting our entire defense industrial base on a wartime footing.”

The new National Security Presidential Memorandum urges the expansion of the so-called “Finland model” currently employed to build the Coast Guard’s Arctic Security Cutters where initial vessels are built in Finland by foreign yards and subsequent vessels are constructed domestically. The memo says that as long as foreign shipbuilders agree to some stringent conditions on-shoring future work to the US, they would be allowed to build up to two ships in three different ship classes at their parent docks, which would then be transferred to the US.

These ship classes include surface combatants with “sufficient inherent capabilities to perform anti‑submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort duties,” as well as those that meet “the requirements for Consolidated Cargo Replenishment at Sea (CONSOL) Tankers and — separately — Roll-On, Roll-Off Vessels,” according to the memo.

Prior to Thursday’s directive, the Trump administration had already been pushing Congress to sign off on the Navy hiring foreign shipyards to build four vessels in the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, and also had been requesting reconciliation funds go toward studying — and potentially procuring — an initial vessel from overseas. Congress has pushed back though, and each chamber has imposed their own restrictions in their respective versions of the NDAA. 

But should the White House overcome barriers on Capitol Hill seeking to curb employing foreign yards, the path towards integrating foreign-built ships into the US is hardly cut and dry. Designing, integrating and maintaining foreign ships as part of the US Navy’s fleet would be effectively unprecedented — meaning the hurdles associated may be numerous, according to analysts who talked to Breaking Defense. 

“The main difficulties would be first off, we just never really have done that with … a combat-type ship,” said Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher at RAND and retired Navy captain. “Another is that the standards would be different, and the US would have to make a decision that some things just aren’t as important.” 

Those hurdles, analysts said, can be put into two pots: technical and political. And it’s not clear which would be easier to overcome. 

At stake may well be the force makeup of America’s future navy. 

Technical Challenges: Learning To Speak The Same Language

The challenges on the technical side are myriad, in part because annual defense appropriations measures have historically barred constructing US Navy ships abroad. 

According to Martin, getting the design right for a foreign-built warship early on would prove paramount. Specifically, he said that the ship must be engineered from the get-go to accommodate the weapons systems if the US wants to avoid problems on the backend, in the event the ship were built overseas and then outfitted with weapons systems in the US.

“The US Navy has some survivability requirements and some requirements for redundancy and so forth that most foreign ships don’t satisfy, so they have to be modified from the beginning,” Martin said. “Another is that the types of combat systems and so forth that go into the ship — the ships are not engineered with those necessarily in mind. So putting two things together would be very difficult.”

“The best outcome would be: Buy a ship and build it from the keel up, with the ability to integrate these systems,” Martin added. “If we don’t do that, we try to do it with a back-fit — that’s not going to work out real well, all kinds of delays.” 

Comms gear with allied navies has previously presented challenges — although there are options to mitigate such barriers and compatibility issues in combat systems would be more difficult to address, according to Bryan Clark, director of the Hudson Institute think tank’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology. 

While the US Navy already operates routinely with foreign ships in carrier strike group formations with NATO and Asian allies, these integrations typically aren’t “seamless” because the foreign ships aren’t outfitted with many of the communication networks on US ships, Clark said. 

Communication networks absent on NATO ships include Cooperative Engagement Capability that the US Navy utilizes to share missile defense targeting data. However, the US could outfit a foreign-built ship with “compatible” networks and datalinks, Clark said. 

“The more significant challenges will be commonality in combat systems,” Clark said. “Although Spanish, Korean, and Japanese ships use Aegis, it is a different version and configuration than on US ships. And other combat systems, such as for undersea warfare, are completely different. The US would also need to integrate the parts and logistics needed for the foreign ship’s hull, mechanical, and electrical systems into the US supply system.” 

US Navy ships are also required to undergo extensive post-delivery testing and certification to gauge things like how the ship would weather in a combat environment —  and a new playbook would have to be sorted out for any new, foreign vessel entering the fleet. 

For example, Clark said the bulk of the certification process for US ships stems from US technical standards for design and construction. 

“Since they would be built to different technical standards, the Navy will need to determine which standards to keep and which to revise,” he said.

Clark noted that this process hampered the Constellation-class frigate program, which was based on a design from Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri.

Wisconsin-based Fincantieri Marinette Marine secured an initial contract for the frigate in 2020. However, the Navy announced in December 2025 it would cut the program and only accept the two frigates already being built amid a series of cost overruns, delays and design changes. 

Eric Labs, a senior analyst for naval forces and weapons at the Congressional Budget Office, said that although he expects foreign ships to meet the same standards as US ships, including trials designed to test a ship’s shock hardness, ultimately the Navy, the administration and Congress would determine the degree of testing needed.

“We could certainly choose not to do that and accept whatever risks would be associated with the specifics of the case,” Labs said. 

Additionally, Labs said that maintaining foreign ships would prove expensive if the US only chose to purchase two or three of them, and ended up with essentially an “orphan class,” like the three Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers. 

But, Labs said, if the Navy purchased between 10 to 20 foreign ships, maintenance and training pipelines would function similarly to any other new class of ship introduced to the fleet. (Labs spoke to Breaking Defense prior to the release of the memo, which directs all ships after the first two to be built in the US.)

“It will need training equipment that is unique to the class and it will have a maintenance and spare parts program that will be unique to the class,” he said. “It would likely be a bit harder because there is less potential for overlap with existing US ship programs if the ship is sourced entirely to foreign suppliers but it is possible US suppliers could be brought, to some degree, into the process.” 

Even so, Labs said the Navy should invest “heavily in an upfront supply of spare parts that would be critical or merely important to maintain the class.” 

Separately, Labs said that a foreign vessel could be designed intentionally in a way that’s easier to maintain. 

“The Navy does not always invest as heavily in designing for maintainability as perhaps it should,” Labs said. “Some foreign ship designs and shipyards are better at that, so it would depend on who and what ship.”

However, Clark said foreign ships would likely encounter difficulties on the maintenance front once operating at the rate US Navy ships do. 

“The challenge will likely be wear and tear given the US Navy’s operating tempo,” Clark said. “Foreign ships are often built to commercial vessel technical standards because they only operate a small percentage of the time.”

In contrast, the Navy currently employs a 36-month Optimized Fleet Response Plan (OFRP) to accommodate maintenance, training and typically a seven-month-long deployment. Under this three-year cycle, ships could be at sea half the time, Clark said. 

Political Challenges: White House, Congress Clash Heats Up

Despite the Trump administration’s hardline efforts, there are lawmakers on both sides of the aisle staunchly opposed to hiring foreign shipbuilders to construct ships for the Navy —  even though some have acknowledged that the Navy needs more ships, faster. 

For example, the House’s version of the FY27 NDAA that passed in July includes a provision barring the construction of both warships and those that make up the combat logistics fleet in a foreign shipyard. 

In response, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a statement blasting the move, claiming that the prohibition is “inconsistent” with the administration’s legislative proposal for lawmakers to include in the NDAA to permit the Navy to contract construction of two surface combatant vessels and two non-combat auxiliary vessels overseas “for the purpose of driving significant and direct foreign investment into our domestic shipyards.” 

“This bill’s prohibition and lack of authorization of this requested authority is a direct decrement to the safety and security of the American people and our national economy for which this Administration is directly responsible, and impedes the Administration’s efforts to expand domestic shipbuilding competition and capacity,” OMB said in a statement in July. “In addition, it limits the flexibility of the United States in leveraging foreign shipyards that have specific advancements, strengths, and technology that serve a specific Department of War need.” 

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the NDAA that passed in June also restricts building warships abroad. However, the measure does approve the procurement of up to two auxiliary ships from foreign shipyards — provided they invest in the US maritime industrial base for production of additional vessels. (Senate Democrats have halted the legislation from advancing to the floor, citing reservations with defense spending and the ongoing conflict with Iran.) 

The Navy’s budget request also includes $1.85 billion in reconciliation funding to study using foreign yards to build US warships, and potentially foot the bill for an initial vessel built in Japan or South Korea, Breaking Defense previously reported. 

Prior to Thursday’s memo, Labs said that for foreign ships appropriated under the reconciliation process, Trump would simply issue a waiver of US Code 8679 that limits construction of vessels for the armed forces in foreign yards, justified on national security grounds. That was the same process used in the icebreaker deals with Finland. 

Members of Congress aren’t the only ones voicing opposition to the administration’s proposal. The Shipbuilders Council of America, a national trade association representing US shipyards, urged the administration to “reverse course and redirect this funding to qualified U.S. shipyards,” following the new memo. 

“While foreign investment into the U.S.-based shipyards and facilities is lauded to reach the Administration’s goals of revitalizing the shipyard industrial base, directing the DoW to build overseas only undercuts the federal Maritime Action Plan and generational investment into commercial and government shipbuilding,” the council’s president, Matthew Paxton, said in a statement Thursday. “Every hull built abroad is demand, jobs, and industrial capability diverted from American shipyards this Administration pledged to rebuild.”

Task Force Falcom Strike “will employ one-way attack drones consisting of unmanned systems from above, on, and below the sea operated by military support staff from the United States and regional partners,” CENTCOM said in a statement on Thursday. 

The announcement comes after months of regional conflict and traded fires between Iran and its allied militias on one side, and the US, Israel and Arab Gulf states on the other side. During this conflict, drones, including unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned surface vessels, took part in the fight — especially one-way attack drones, like Iran’s Shahed family of UAVs and the American version known as the Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System, or LUCAS.

“Integrating and deploying our new capabilities together will help us rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon,” said CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper.

In December 2025, CENTCOM launched Scorpion Strike, its first one-way attack squadron in the Middle East. Later, the command started officially inviting regional partners.

“As regional partners formally join, Task Force Falcon Strike will scale attack drone capabilities across the Middle East into a unified multi-domain, multinational deterrent,” CENTCOM said on Thursday. 

Falcon Strike will be led by personnel from US Special Operations Command Central and unidentified “regional partners.”  

Since the outbreak of the US-Iran war, CENTCOM used a number of unmanned platforms for the first time in combat. These include: LUCAS, which is the reverse engineered drone of Iran’s Shahed 136; GARC, a 16-foot unmanned surface vessel (USV); and Corsair USVs, which were used to attack Iran’s port of Bandar Abbas. 

The provisions — along with the establishment of a new component repair center in an effort to cut submarine repair delays — were included in a National Security Presidential Memorandum that the president signed today, the White House official said. 

Specifically, the memo orders for Ford-class aircraft carriers like the Doris Miller being built at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding to include the traditional steam-powered catapult systems and hydraulics for the ship’s elevators like those on the Nimitz-class carriers. The USS Ford, the first in its class, currently uses the new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as EMALS, to send off aircraft from the flight deck — a system that Trump has historically railed against. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported the changes to the aircraft carriers.

Trump signaled last year that he would sign an executive order instructing the Navy to move forward with such changes. 

“Seriously, I’m putting out an order. I’m going to sign an executive order. When we build aircraft carriers, it’s steam for the catapults and it’s hydraulic for the elevators. We’ll never have a problem,” Trump said aboard the aircraft carrier George Washington in October. 

General Atomics builds the EMALS system, and the firm claimed that failing to move forward with it on the Doris Miller “warrants careful reconsideration.” 

“With nearly 50% of production complete, changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks,” General Atomics said in a statement today.

“The decision will have broader implications for carrier readiness, national security, and U.S. technological superiority, potentially creating opportunities for adversaries to close the capability gap,” the firm added. “It also comes at a time when strengthening the U.S. supplier industrial base is a national priority, making workforce stability, production capacity, and the ability to sustain critical technologies more important than ever.”

Bryan Clark, director of the Hudson Institute think tank’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, said that the Navy employs electricity rather than steam for a host of functions on the Ford-class carriers like cooking, heating, and water purification, in addition to powering the catapults and arresting gear.

“These functions all used steam in previous carrier classes. Restoring steam lines to at least the catapults will require extensive redesign of the ship,” Clark told Breaking Defense. “Also, the Navy has not bought a steam catapult in more than 20 years, so it is unlikely the suppliers are able to build them without substantial up-front investment and time to establish the necessary production lines.”

The memorandum also calls on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to submit a report to Trump within the next 120 days a proposal to bolster submarine and aircraft carrier readiness, utilizing both the private sector and an additional public shipyard. 

“The plan for the fifth yard shall address: sufficient drydock capacity to service the planned growth of the fast attack submarine fleet over the next two decades; locations proximate to the United States Pacific Fleet, including in the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and the United States territories; site options that include up to three new drydocks designed and built to hold the ranges of every current and projected class of submarine; innovative financing mechanisms such as public-private partnerships; and timelines and resourcing requirements,” the memorandum said.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in June that the administration was “pushing hard for an additional public shipyard” to accommodate a growing fleet.

“If we’re going to spend a one-and-a-half trillion dollars, or have the types of direct foreign investment that’s coming in, we want to make sure that we have the ability to have enough public shipyards to do maintenance,” Vought said at the Washington Times’ IndoPac 2026 event in June. “You’re going to have contracts with companies that are doing maintenance [in private shipyards], and that’s all fine, and will continue, but … to do it at scale is something that is absolutely vital.”

Private shipyards also perform maintenance on military vessels, but the nation’s four public shipyards in Virginia, Maine, Washington, and Hawaii are the ones that typically complete maintenance overhauls and modernization efforts for the Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told reporters at the Sea Air Space Symposium in April that the Navy has been examining the possibility of a fifth public shipyard. However, Caudle said that adding another yard presents questions on whether there is a sufficient workforce to staff it, and what it would require to build that presence.  

“A new yard is expensive, and so is that infrastructure worth it if I can’t get the workforce there?” Caudle said.

The Navy referred Breaking Defense to the White House when asked for comment.

This is a breaking news story and may be updated. 

Concluding our coverage from the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, Breaking Defense Multimedia Director Daniel Woolfolk and Pentagon reporter Ashley Roque unpack leading developments from the final day of the conference.

While it may sound unusual for the land force to be involved in counter-space operations, Col. Joe Mroszczyk said it was part of the service’s expanding role in helping US Space Command (SPACECOM) achieve space superiority.

“It’s not foreign for the Army to shoot a ship at sea. Why should it be any different for the army to engage a satellite in space? It’s the same construct, and it’s a matter of our core competencies to maneuver on the land to be able to deliver effects across all domains,” Mroszczyk, director of Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s Transformation Integration Directorate – Space Superiority (TID-SS), told Breaking Defense in a wide-ranging interview on the margins of the annual Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMD) Symposium here.

Mroszcyck would not specify exactly what the Army would use to target satellites. However, he stressed that the Army would follow US national space policy that eschews the use of destructive kinetic anti-satellite attacks that would create long-lived space debris.

The TID-SS shop is responsible for overseeing “the design, development and modernization of space-enabled, missile defeat, and high-altitude architectures, as well as synchroniz[ing] combat concepts, scientific analysis and the acquisition of new technology,” according to an Army posting on Facebook.

Mroszcyck, who took up his post in July, explained that his office serves as a sort of middleman between Army operators and acquirers at the service’s new(ish) program executive office for Counter Command and Control. The goal, he said, is to ensure that operational requirements are routinely integrated into acquisition programs as development goes along.

“There are two real expansion areas … that we’re looking at,” he said. One is “counter-surveillance and reconnaissance” focusing on an adversary’s space-based capabilities and the other is “stratospheric warfare” just a few miles down.

The Army has been working to grow its footprint in the space domain for a couple of years. Last year for the first time it listed counterspace amongst its budget priorities starting in fiscal 2027. And in June the service finalized creation of its new Space Operations Branch.

Until recently, however, Army officials, like Space Force officials, have refrained from addressing direct satellite attack ― instead focusing in public on the service’s efforts to develop electronic warfare (EW) capabilities to jam adversary satellite communications (SATCOM) receivers and command and control nodes.

While those missions are still in the Army’s space job jar, at the same time, US Space Command is looking to all of the services to be able to target adversary satellites as part of the space superiority mission, Mroszcyck said.

“Generally, space superiority is a relative measure against the enemy. We want to have an advantage overall in both how we use space capabilities, but also how we can take away their use [of space],” he said. “That goal is changing the balance in our favor. So, the Army’s job is to do that from the land, and we are expanding that.”

Closing Adversary Eyes And Ears

Mroszcyck said the Army has set a high priority on developing capabilities to “actually prevent the collection” of targeting data on US forces and facilities by adversary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites.

“So, when we talk about ubiquitous sensing … and the the proliferation of low Earth orbit and other sensing capabilities out there from space, we want to be able to take away that advantage [for adversaries] and provide effects to protect our formations on the ground too. So, that’s a capability that we’re driving towards,” he said.

If all kinetic ASATs are ruled out ― something that isn’t quite clear under the current policy framework, given that the words “long-lived debris” are not precisely defined ― that leaves non-kinetic attacks as the only answer for directly affecting an on-orbit satellite (as opposed to the Army targeting the satellite constellation’s ground systems or communications links).

And indeed, Army Lt. Gen. Rick Zellmann, deputy SPACECOM head, told the SMD Symposium on Tuesday that he is particularly interested particular directed-energy weapons as one type of non-kinetic weapons due to their low “cost-per-shot.”

Directed-energy weapons use electromagnetic energy in different spectrum bands. These include high-energy lasers and high-power electromagnetic systems such as millimeter wave and microwave weapons.

As many ISR satellites use visible light cameras and/or infrared sensors to track terrestrial targets, one way to disrupt, disable or destroy their ability to collect imagery is through laser dazzling that would blind them. Synthetic aperture radar imaging, on the other hand, would be susceptible to high-power microwave weapons and to bombardment with high levels of radio frequency noise that would, in effect, deafen them.

Stratospheric Warfare: Balloons Of All Sizes

With regard to the TID-SS mission to conduct “stratospheric warfare,” Mroszcyk said the Army continues to experiment with both “lighter than air” high-altitude balloons and “heavier than air” fixed-wing platforms.

That said, he is bullish on balloons, explaining that they are closer to being ready for prime time — whereas large, fragile fixed-wing craft for high flying have “had some struggles.”

Mroszcyck said one of the attractions of high-altitude balloons is that they can do “everything that you would think of from space,” and thus serve as alternate capabilities when satellite services have been disrupted.

“We have validated requirements for multiple sizes of balloons,” he said, as well as some funding in the fiscal 2027 five-year budget plan “to start fielding” an initial capability with a “couple of units.”

Mroszcyck asserted that over the past five or six years, the Army has proven the value of high-altitude balloons through experimentation.

“It’s really a matter of trying to help educate the the rest of the formations and senior leaders onto the return on investment, so that we can add more to that as we go forward,” he said.

For his part, Mroszcyck said he is most excited about using balloons to launch drones carrying different sorts of payloads.

“We’ve done some experimentation with UAS [unmanned aerial systems] coming off of the balloon, and that helps us with multiple things. One of the big things that I’m trying to get them to use that for is returning the payload back to us,” he said.

“A lot of times when we launch these tactical balloons, they go and they follow the wind, and the payload goes with it. So if you’re trying to do that over the ocean in an exercise or experiment, we want to be able to get that back. It’s an investment!” Mroszcyck said.

On the other hand, he said, in a conflict the goal is to get a payload “further into the battlespace. … So, the balloon gets you 90 percent of the way, and keeps you up without having to burn energy to get up to altitude. And then the UAS can take advantage of the altitude and the duration from that altitude that you get.”

And in that scenario, Mroszcyck said, “I’m not worried about getting it back.”

Brig. Gen. Robert Mikesh, charged with offensive fires under the PAE, detailed the quadruple challenge today at the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium by pointing towards energetics and propulsion, targeting and seekers, the industrial base and “munitions breadth and depth.”

“Let’s start with this propulsion and energetics,” Mikesh told the audience. “The challenge there is straightforward: high cost, complex manufacturing, limited capacity, and in some areas, constrained resources. Propulsion is foundational to almost everything we do in the missile business.”

When it comes the targeting and seeker challenge, Mikesh said the service is betting that future conflicts will take place in “heavily contested electromagnetic environments” where GPS and networks will be challenged. That requires weapons that are “hardened,” he added.

“That means a multi-mode approach,” Mikesh told the audience. “It means reducing dependency on a single source of information, and it means bringing together data from multiple sensors and domains to move data rapidly, and give the soldier the confidence that that weapon will reach its intended target, even if an adversary is going to do everything possible to prevent that from happening.”

Moving to the industry challenge, Mikesh called on companies to stop proposing weapons that lock the government into a single solution, leaving soldiers unable to make modifications and upgrades. Instead, he reiterated, the Army needs “open architecture and multiple sources.”

Mikesh’s fourth capability gap, munitions breadth and depth, was a recurring theme during this week’s conference in Huntsville, especially at a time of reports of stockpile concerns due, in part, to ongoing military operations against Iran.

Calling it “one of the defining problems of modern warfare,” Mikesh emphasized the increasing need to have a more diverse portfolio of weapons for soldiers to choose from. 

“Not every target requires the most exquisite munition, and not every threat should be defeated with our most expensive interceptor,” he added. “We need a balanced mix of affordable mass and exquisite capability.” 

Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, who heads up Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), spoke with Breaking Defense about this very problem Wednesday.

From his vantage point, the future consists of a mix of high-end interceptors that can take down threats like maneuverable ballistic missiles, while soldiers use lower-cost, less capable interceptors for things like non-turbo Shahed drones.

“There’s a range of threats that are in between” those options too, Rafferty added, “from fixed-wing to rotary-wing to other unmanned systems to cruise missiles. And each one of those threats has an optimized effector, and the limiting factor is not having that full range of effectors from cheap and easily produced to very sophisticated and hard to make.”

The services have been asking for such “low cost” options through efforts like the Army’s low cost interceptor program, and industry has apparently been receptive here at the conference.

“My engagements this week with a lot of those producers is like, ‘They heard it loud and clear,’” the three-star general added. “I think we’re moving in the right direction for magazine depth.”

While the Breaking Defense reporting team wraps up its final reports from the expo, here are a few images from the show floor on its final day. And be sure to check out our extended coverage from the symposium here.

A christening ceremony for the vessel was attended by senior Polish officials, including President Karol Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Nawrocki noted that the launch of the Miecznik program in 2021 has been crucial for Poland’s domestic shipbuilding industry.

“With well-calibrated public finances and a strong Polish budget, we managed to create a project that sets a benchmark for the coming years and decades,” Nawrocki said. 

The Miecznik-class frigates are intended to replace the country’s obsolete Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates and will form the backbone of the Polish Navy’s surface strike forces. Their missions will include defending naval installations and safeguarding critical infrastructure, such as wind farms, communications lines and the Baltic Pipe, which carries natural gas from the North Sea to Poland. The vessels are also expected to perform maritime surveillance, anti-submarine warfare, air defense missions and support for amphibious operations.

After the launch, ORP Wicher proceeded to the outfitting and systems integration phase of its commissioning. The frigate is scheduled to be delivered to the Polish Navy in 2029. Work on the second frigate – ORP Burza – is ongoing; the process of construction and cutting of sheets began last year, and its launch is planned for September 2027. Construction of the third frigate – ORP Huragan – symbolically started in April, when the process of cutting sheets began. Program completion is scheduled for the end of 2031.

At the christening ceremony, President Nawrocki emphasized that the presence of the Russian Baltic Fleet and Russia’s militarized Kaliningrad exclave on Poland’s northern border requires constant vigilance. 

The “Polish Navy should use the best equipment in the world, and that is what we have before us today,” Nawrocki added.

The Miecznik program, valued at roughly $4 billion, represents “thousands of jobs, modern technologies, and major investments,” Prime Minister Tusk said at the ceremony.

“The Miecznik program is not only a significant technological leap, but above all, a real strengthening of Baltic security,” Tusk added. “The Miecznik frigates, alongside the future submarines of the Orka program, will constitute the main combat force of the Polish Navy and an important element in deterring a potential aggressor.” 

Warsaw’s defense strategy in recent years has prioritized political cooperation with, among others, Sweden, Finland, Norway and the Baltic states. Joint control of the Baltic Sea by NATO countries is key to Polish security plans.

The Miecznik program is the result of a partnership between Poland and the United Kingdom. Before the ceremony, Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka, a top official in the Polish Ministry of National Defense, met with UK Deputy Defense Minister Lord Vernon Coaker. The ministers discussed, among other things, cooperation between the military and the arms industry, according to the Polish government. 

The other two Miecznik-class frigates will be built at the PGZ Naval Shipyard in Gdynia. The ships are based on the Babcock International Arrowhead-140 design, which has been adapted to the requirements of the Polish Navy and equipped with a range of state-of-the-art weapon systems.

The Miecznik-class frigates have length of 455 feet, and a maximum displacement of up to 7,000 tons with full armament. Maximum speed is 28 knots (32 miles per hour), while the operational range is 8,000 nautical miles. The vessel is crewed by up to 120 officers and sailors with the possibility of embarking an additional 60 personnel, who could be special operations forces or helicopter crews. 

Planned armament will be 32 cells of Mk 41 Vertical Launch System with the CAMM family of missiles, including medium-range missiles developed jointly with the UK. The armament also includes 16 Kongsberg NSM anti-ship missiles, launchers for 324 mm ASW torpedoes, as well as Leonardo’s 76 mm Super Rapido Strales main gun and remote-controlled machine guns. 

Thales will equip the Miecznik-class frigates with the Tacticos combat management system, sonars, infrared sensor and radars, providing the warships with multiple functions for detection, identification, command and control and decision making. Frigates will rely on a complete Thales sonar suite. The frigates also contain a hangar that will accommodate two medium helicopters or one heavy helicopter.

“I can simply say that we are extremely excited about getting the M1E3 and the XM30 for soldiers,” Col. Todd Hertling, commander of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, nicknamed Iron Horse, told Breaking Defense in an interview Tuesday here at the GVSETS conference. “Iron Horse will be involved in the rolling out of the technology and the platforms, and we’re extremely excited about the lethality, survivability and mobility that these systems offer.” 

The M1E3 is set to replace the service’s aging M1A2 Abrams tank. As Breaking Defense reported earlier this year, the next-gen tank is significantly lighter than its predecessor, has a hybrid-electric engine that reduces fuel requirements by 50 percent and can knock out targets “at a quarter mile in about a tenth of a second,” former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said in January. 

It also has an unmanned turret, which Hertling called a “game changer” because it allows the tank to be manned by a crew of three soldiers instead of four. As a result, the crew should be able to operate “with a higher degree of effectiveness and efficiency,” Hertling said. 

As for the brains of the tank, it’s designed with an open systems architecture, which allows the tank to continuously receive updates and allows soldiers to plug-and-play with different kinds of software. 

“This essentially allows us to fight on a cloud and to [connect] all of our systems, regardless of platform type, and this of course allows us to fight with a higher degree of situational awareness and understanding for a transparent battlefield that we may not otherwise have been able to,” Hertling said. 

The M1E3 also has a 360-degree situational awareness system, “which really allows us to understand the enemy situation at distance, and then also to be more efficient and effective in destroying the enemy at distance as well,” Hertling said. 

An Army spokesperson told Breaking Defense today that General Dynamics-Land Systems (GDLS) will deliver an undisclosed number of prototypes to the Army by the the end of this calendar year. Another four protypes made by Roush, an American performance car company, are set to be delivered to the Iron Brigade later this year.

Regarding the XM30, which is set to replace the Bradley IFV, Hertling said his brigade is most excited about the “increased lethality” the unmanned turret will provide and the open systems architecture. He is likewise looking forward to the 360-degree situational awareness design the XM30 also brings to bear.

The Wolf vs the Lynx 

GDLS and American Rheinmetall are both scheduled to provide their XM30 prototypes to the Army this summer, as Breaking Defense previously reported. The Army could choose a winner late next spring after both the M1E3 and XM30 are operated by the Iron Horse brigade in a NTC rotation Brig. Gen. Troy Denomy, Program Acquisition Executive of Maneuver, told Breaking Defense. However, he added that the Army is keeping its options opens about how and when the down select will happen.

“We have a plan to carry two vendors as long as we possibly can. It becomes a question about resourcing the money, because you’re not paying necessarily double, but you’re kind of paying double,” Denomy said.

Denomy said his office is currently evaluating how long they can keep two vendors in the XM30 program. If there’s not a clear winner at the end of the NTC rotation, “then it may be worth not selecting at that point,” Denomy said.

“We’re absolutely trying to keep our options open as long as we can, but money matters,” he added.

GDLS is offering its Wolf variant and American Rheinmetall is offering its Lynx variant. The vehicles have many of the same features as they follow the same set of Army requirements, but both companies shared additional details this week after months of being tight-lipped about their offerings. 

Both XM30 models have a 50 mm cannon as opposed to the legacy Bradley’s 25 mm cannon. Both also have an open systems architecture, an unmanned turret, enhanced compute power, exportable power and hybrid-electric powertrains. They are also both outfitted with options to attach loitering munitions and missiles, and have high explosive airbursts — tactical ammo designed to detonate midair rather than upon impact. 

In terms of counter drone capabilities, the Wolf will be outfitted with AeroVironment’s (AV) Switchblade 300 loitering munition. The Lynx will be outfitted with Raytheon’s tube- or rail-launched Coyote drone. The Javelin missile can also be incorporated into the Lynx, Jim Schirmer, senior vice president of programs at American Rheinmetall, told Breaking Defense.

GDLS has about 15 other partners, including AV, SAPA and STC, Geoff Norman, director of US strategy and growth at GDLS told Breaking Defense. Meanwhile, Rheinmetall is partnering with Anduril, Textron, Allison Transmission, Raytheon and L3Harris. 

Norman said the company has delivered their first prototypes to their facility in Lima, Ohio for “government acceptance,” where one will eventually go to Aberdeen-Proving Ground (APG) in Maryland for testing and the other seven will go to the Iron Brigade in Texas around October. Schirmer said Rheinmetall is sending its vehicles to APG in about two weeks.

“So I think what we’re going to see with the [X]M30 when it gets fielded, is something that really elevates our combined arms formations to a new level. It gets [soldiers] capabilities that we can’t do with Bradley because Bradley has been great, but it’s at the end of its growth,” Norman said.  

Updated 8/13/2026 at 3:00 pm ET to clarify details surrounding the delivery of the M1E3 tanks.

Speaking at a virtual media briefing during his visit to Southeast Asia, Elbridge Colby also stressed that the US would like to see “middle powers,” such as Japan, continue efforts to indigenize their local defense industries and sharply warned against efforts by some countries to band together to exclude the US. 

Colby’s visit to the region began in the Philippines on Aug. 10 and will also take him to Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia.

At the outset of his tour, Colby said throughout the trip he “intend[s] to deliver a clear message that is at once both realistic and perhaps bracing but also reassuring: That America’s interests are more engaged than ever in the Indo-Pacific, and that we at the Department of War are concentrated on ensuring those interests are stoutly defended. This means a strong and growing U.S. investment in the region. But it is also coupled with a newfound but common sense expectation of much greater effort and contribution by our allies and partners. “

Today Colby also addressed the recent name change that saw the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) revert to its previous Pacific Command (PACOM) designator, stressing that it was not seeking to undermine the importance of the Indian Ocean and the South Asian countries. 

AUKUS: ‘No Better Ally’ Than Australia 

Colby, once skeptical of the Australia-UK-US partnership, said today he was “pleased with [its] progress.” The partnership will see Australia operating nuclear submarines delivered by the US as well as the development of a next-generation nuclear-powered sub for the US and the UK.

Colby previously led a review of the program, which unnerved allies at the time, but said today there’s a “very tight discussion and a very clear understanding between the Pentagon and the broader administration and the Australian government.”

“We all know this is a historic endeavor on the part of both countries, but particularly for Australia, and that requires a real sort of level of effort that we see the evidence for,” Colby said in response to an Australian reporter’s question about ongoing progress on US submarine production and AUKUS in general. 

On US submarine production, Colby said that the Pentagon remains “very focused on submarine production [and] submarine maintenance,” although he provided no further details on progress on that front. 

He also touched on progress on the rotational deployment of nuclear-powered submarines from the US and UK to Australia, which he said was “tremendously important” for both countries and regional security as a whole.

“I think one of the things that we’ve been impressed with our close ally — no better ally, Australia — is that Australia really sees things through the lens of collective defense and a strategy of deterrence by denial designed to sustain a balance of power in this key region,” adding that he saw an “alignment in thinking” between Australia and the US. 

A Warning To ‘Middle Powers’: Step Up, But Don’t Exclude US

While in Asia, Colby also pushed back on efforts by some “middle powers” such as Canada who are moving towards banding together with other similar countries to hedge against what they see as a faltering US presence in the region. 

He cautioned that these countries “risk wasting a lot of time, effort, resources, et cetera, if they embark on a futile and kind of foolhardy quest.” Instead he cited Japan, Poland and Finland as countries who are considered middle powers yet seek to increase spending and their engagement with the US when it comes to defense. 

And he stressed that the US is fine if countries moved away from buying US arms and opting for domestic products — as long as the purchases improved their deterrent or defensive capabilities. 

“We actually want middle powers as an empirical category to build up their strength. And we’re also encouraging them to indigenize a lot of their defense industry” Colby said, adding that he understood if these countries felt that buying American weapons was not the best option in some circumstances. 

“But let’s make sure it’s designed to strengthen deterrence and defense capabilities as rapidly, as efficiently as possible,” he said. “Don’t use — and there are some countries that are doing this — don’t use your defense industrial dollar as a kind of political or industrial economic strategy for your domestic context.”

Why PACOM, Why Now?

Colby also spoke on the importance of India and the Indian Ocean during the media call, and stressed that the recent renaming of INDOPACOM back to its previous name PACOM was not aimed at “denigrating” India or diminishing the importance of South Asia and the waters around it. 

“We really see India as a vital relationship where there’s a natural partnership,” he said, pointing out that several administration officials including Colby himself had visited India in recent months. 

“The change back to PACOM has multiple reasons, but I think what I would stress here is that the strategic focus of the United States military is really — and consistent with the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy — is on the first island chain,” he said.

The first island chain refers to the islands and island nations stretching from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula down to Peninsular Malaysia that includes the Kuril Islands, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Borneo.

“And so the Pacific element to that is really the focus, the Western Pacific area, obviously stretching into Southeast Asia here. Again, that’s the strategic logic,” he said.

“Building agents, and then agents with agents, is the direction that we want to go,” Maj. Gen. Robert Kinney, chief artificial intelligence officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, said during an AI panel at DIA’s DODIIS show on Wednesday. “We’re laying the foundation and the pipes, if you will, to get after building agents.”

The concept goes well beyond today’s chatbots, where a user asks a question and receives an answer. Kinney envisioned an AI agent that supports intelligence functions communicating with multiple other agents supporting operations, fires, logistics, communications and planning, creating an interconnected system able to help reason through complex mission problems.

The early challenges are figuring out the “tradecraft” piece, Kinney said: how to responsibly use agents to interact and control other agents, and how to deal with compliance, security and trust while those agents are being built.

Also still to be determined is how far the government should allow agents to operate without human intervention. Kinney suggested the answer will depend on the consequences of a decision. In potentially reversible mission areas, agencies could accept more risk and keep a human “on the loop,” while irreversible actions such as fires would require a human “in the loop.”

These are not theoretical concerns, as this discussion also comes against a newly urgent backdrop. In recent weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have disclosed cases in which they say AI agents escaped intended containment during security tests and took unauthorized actions to hack into other network systems, raising fresh questions about how much autonomy such systems should be given as their capabilities grow.

Kinney said the agency is on a 90-day sprint to build its first enterprise AI platform service.

Another deliverable is the Modular Component Platform (MCP), which Kinney said is a “more universal way to be able to access our data.” He added that ChatDIA, which is deployed on the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System (JWICS), is also being “retooled as a front end for MCP and agents.” 

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is taking a similarly methodical approach.

Michelle Aten, NGA’s chief artificial intelligence officer, said the agency is developing an agentic framework built around individual tasks identified by subject matter experts, while working across the IC to avoid multiple organizations wasting money building the same agents. The goal is to make trusted agents broadly available and discoverable, then continuously monitor them for “anomalous or aberrant” behavior.

NGA has also stood up an AI task force to “aggressively” determine whether its investments are actually producing results. Aten said the effort consists of conducting data calls and interviews across the agency to inventory AI capabilities and their supporting data flows, establish performance and effectiveness measures, and compare programs to reduce redundant spending.

At the FBI, chief artificial intelligence officer Katie Noyes said the bureau’s initial agentic approach is being organized around specific roles. A counterterrorism analyst, for example, could have an agent pulling together open-source and intelligence collections, identifying correlations and suggesting what questions to ask next. A cyber analyst could use a similar framework to examine indicators of compromise against the FBI’s network traffic.

As with DIA and NGA, the focus for the FBI is developing infrastructure, governance and trust, the officials said. That will determine which agents to build, what they can access, how their performance will be measured, and, critically, when a human must remain in control.

The companies said the acquisition, slated to close in September, is also meant to expand “customer access” to the Navy, US Special Operations Command, and other allied partners. It will integrate “complementary technology across air, surface, and undersea platforms.”

“BlackSea brings exceptional and strategically aligned maritime capability, but just as importantly, it brings a culture of mission focus and ingenuity that reflect the very roots of AEVEX,” Brian Raduenz, founder and executive chairman of AEVEX, said in a statement.

BlackSea builds the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft (GARC), a 16-foot small unmanned autonomous vessel that the Navy is experimenting with out of Naval Base Coronado. The Navy’s Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron 3, which the service launched in 2024, operates the system. 

AEVEX, based out of Solana Beach, Calif., builds a series of autonomous systems, including an unmanned surface vessel dubbed Mako that is designed for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, as well as kinetic operations, according to the firm.

The companies said that the deal includes $250 million in cash, and approximately $350 million in shares of Class A common stock of AEVEX. Likewise, BlackSea could also secure $50 million in performance‑based earnout consideration. 

“Joining AEVEX is a natural next step for BlackSea,” Bob Pudney, chief executive officer of BlackSea, said in a statement. “We’ve spent years building and deploying autonomous maritime systems in real‑world environments, from hybrid fleet operations to contested logistics, and AEVEX brings the scale, manufacturing depth, and autonomy ecosystem needed to accelerate everything we’ve built. Our mission stays the same; our ability to deliver it grows.”

Breaking Defense spoke with Mandy Satterwhite, Managing Director and Cyber Lead at Accenture Federal Services, to explore how operational cyber resilience and trustworthy AI are protecting warfighters and the national security enterprise under adversarial pressure.

Breaking Defense: AI promises to accelerate decision-making across the battlespace, but in high-consequence military operations, speed is useless without trust. What does “trustworthy AI” look like when every second counts on the frontline?

Satterwhite: Trust isn’t an abstract ethical debate — it’s a non-negotiable operational requirement. In the heat of battle, if an AI system relies on poisoned data, yields an unexplainable result, or silently fails behind the scenes, it doesn’t give you an advantage; it creates unacceptable operational risk.

To work for the warfighter, an AI system must be predictable, verifiable, explainable, and resilient under adversarial attack. When command-and-control systems synthesize options for a decision-maker, that leader must know with absolute certainty that those recommendations are built on authoritative, untampered data under our control.  If you can’t trace data provenance or explain how the conclusion was derived, you can’t act on it in combat because lives are at stake. 

You mentioned data provenance. How much of AI security is a supply chain problem, especially when defense leaders look to use commercial foundation models?

There are very real supply chain challenges to consider. When you take a commercial frontier model off the shelf and fine-tune it, you inherit the data and potential vulnerabilities with it. If the foundational model was compromised or trained on poisoned data, you’re importing that risk straight into your secure environment.

Another consideration that we’re talking with clients about: the larger (and expensive) frontier models often aren’t necessary for specialized military capabilities. Right-sizing the model for specific mission use cases and auditing the building blocks — from data sources to model weights — is essential. We’ve seen adversaries attempt to manipulate model weight files directly to skew outputs. If you don’t control and verify the digital supply chain from end to end, you are building on shaky ground.

Traditionally, cybersecurity compliance meant running a periodic penetration test or going through a pre-deployment checklist. Does that approach still work when applied to AI systems?

Frontier models like Mythos have completely collapsed the cyber-attack timeline. That means periodic testing is dead. Adversaries are constantly probing for vulnerabilities, from prompt jailbreaks designed to exfiltrate sensitive data to sophisticated weight manipulation. We can no longer secure our systems with just a quarterly pen test.

Cyber defense has to move to continuous, automated validation, similar to the concept of “fight fire with fire.” We need to embed AI-enabled red-teaming and vulnerability scanning directly into our continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) software pipelines. As we develop code, models, and agentic workflows, automated security tools continuously simulate real‑world attack scenarios, enabling us to validate the system harness, operational scaffolding, and model behavior simultaneously.

For the national security ecosystem, we build these pipelines with NIST’s Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) embedded directly into the build process. We check against strict security controls in real-time, ensuring systems are truly “secure by design” before they ever touch an operational boundary.

There’s a common perception in defense acquisition that adding layers of cybersecurity inherently slows down operations. How do you balance rigorous security with the need for speed?

The idea that security and speed are mutually exclusive is the biggest misconception in the industry. When security is treated as an afterthought or a final inspection at the end of a multi-year development cycle, yes, it halts progress and causes massive delays.

But when you bake security directly into the architecture from day one, security becomes an accelerator. By continuously validating posture while you build, you eliminate costly late-stage redesigns and accredit systems faster. Designing securely on the front end is what allows you to deploy and pivot at operational speed without fighting blind.

As these automated systems become more capable, how do you preserve human authority without throttling the speed advantage that AI provides?

Our philosophy is anchored in design for augmentation, rather than total automation. AI is built to expand human ingenuity, not replace warfighter judgment.

In sensitive warfighting environments, keeping a human decision-maker in the lead is paramount. That means engineering explicit architectural guardrails, OODA-loop feedback checkpoints, and hard kill switches directly into the system architecture. An AI model can rapidly process unstructured sensor data and surface three actionable courses of action, but a human operator must evaluate those verified choices at a deliberate checkpoint before execution. That structure buys down risk, protects mission integrity, and ensures command authority remains exactly where it belongs.

“We fight to win wars,” said Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of US Space Command, Wednesday at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala. “To win, we need credible, acknowledged, kinetic and non-kinetic fires. They are a key component of how we establish space superiority and restore credible deterrence.”

In our continuing coverage, Breaking Defense Multimedia Director Daniel Woolfolk and Space correspondent Theresa Hitchens are in Huntsville to break down key developments from day two of the symposium.

“All of the providers that are part of the competition are progressing exceptionally well, and Gate 1 just came to a closure. I have not seen the results of Gate 1, but as I have heard back from Space Systems Command (SSC), all providers look positive and will continue into Gate 2,” Gen. Michael Guetlein told the annual Army Space and Missile Defense conference here on Tuesday.

He explained that there are four “gates,” or “tests,” under SSC’s unusual prized-based SBI competition. As first reported by Breaking Defense, the arrangement requires industry competitors to self-fund prototype development and demonstrations of space-based weapons that can neutralize enemy missiles, in hopes of winning relatively small pots of prize money along the way.

“Gate 1 is to get the design in place and do component level testing. Gate 2 is to build a capability that can go into outer space. Gate 3 is to prove that that capability works in outer space. Gate 4 is to prove that the capability actually works as part of the broader Golden Dome architecture,” Guetlein said.

“And once they get through all those four gates, four tests, if you will, in a prize-based competition, then we will make a decision: is it affordable, is it scalable?” he said.

Guetlein stressed that his Golden Dome office has not “put in any operational requests for production capabilities” and will not do so until after the contenders “prove through the prize-based competition that those capabilities … are effective, but more importantly, that they’re scalable and affordable.”

“At that point, we will then make a decision if we are going to move into production or not,” he added.

The four-star general has previously emphasized the lawmakers that the US may not pursue massive SBI constellations if it’s not financially feasible. But as it stands, all totaled, the Defense Department has slated $3.2 billion for the SBI development effort, which includes 20 contracts doled out to the 12 competing firms announced by the Space Force in April. The demonstration competition covers three flavors of SBIs for hitting adversary ballistic and hypersonic missiles, both nuclear and conventional:

• boost-phase endo-atmospheric interceptors for hitting incoming missiles within the Earth’s atmosphere shortly after launch;
• exo-atmospheric interceptors, to knock them down a little later after they have left the atmosphere; and,
• mid-course interceptors, designed to strike when the adversary missiles are partially through their flight path.

Guetlein said that the reason the demo effort was able to move so rapidly to contract is because of novel thinking by SSC’s portfolio acquisition executive (PAE), who “built a prize-based competition that did not exist before, and is changing the way we get after that capability.” Col. Bryon McClain currently serves as acting PAE Space Combat Power, which is managing the SBI effort.

Guetlein would not comment on the schedule for various SBI tests, nor on whether they would include shooting down a live or simulated targets. He referred reporters’ questions to SSC, which did not respond to a inquiry from Breaking Defense by press time.

However, according to an Aug. 7 report by Bloomberg, the first interceptor flight tests will take place next year and will continue into 2028.

The Space Force has said it intends to demonstrate an “initial capability” for SBIs in 2028, although the blueprint for the prize program said that actual intercept demonstrations are not slated to take place until June 2029.

As the Breaking Defense team roams the expo floor to report the latest news, here are a few images from day two of the event. And be sure to check out all our coverage of the event here.

To help counter this crisis, TACOM is planning on holding more engagements with industry to help fix supply chain woes, Behn said, similar to the TIGER hackathon TACOM hosted last month. As Breaking Defense previously reported, the goal of that hackathon was to attempt to mend bottlenecks affecting subcomponents of the Abrams’ AGT1500 engine, nicknamed the Tiger, made by Honeywell Aerospace. (Despite its name, the event did not involve any hacking.) 

According to Behn, the event, which brought together high level officials, Honeywell and over 40 other vendors, was successful in its three goals: finding second sources for the engine’s subcomponents; finding companies to utilize complex advanced manufacturing; and finding companies to provide raw materials for subcomponents. 

With that, Behn said TACOM is “going to reap the benefits” from the exercise for not only the Tiger engine but other systems as well, noting that more exercises are to come. 

“That approach to thinking differently about solving a problem, not just saying, ‘Ugh, gosh, we’re having a really hard time getting parts from, you know, this supplier. That supplier says that there’s nobody else that they can find to do it,’” she said.

“Well let’s cast a wider net. Let’s use both the OEM’s [original equipment manufacturer] network and whatever we can bring in through a broader network to see if there’s a different way to attack this problem.” 

Behn declined to divulge specifics on what platforms are facing readiness issues, but said the problem spans “across the tactical wheel vehicle fleet and the tracked systems that we sustain,” adding that “we are looking at every lever we can pull to address those.” 

Apart from hackathon-like events, Behn said curating a “closer” relationship between TACOM and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) will also help the readiness crisis as the DLA manages about 80 percent of the repair parts for TACOM’s platforms. 

“Just more communication, more ensuring that we’re giving DLA a clear demand signal and sharing our data analytic tools that help us project and predict requirements, I think is an avenue,” Behn said. “More importantly, the communication, so that they’ve got clear visibility of our requirements. They know precisely where it is that we’d like greater investment, greater depth in the supply chain.” 

Further, Behn said she’s “optimistic” that the Army’s sprawling reworking of its acquisition offices will help fill readiness gaps. She said with the new structure, one of the “most exciting things” is that sustainment is a part of the discussion earlier on in the acquisition life cycle.

For example, she said, she’s in the room when decisions are being made surrounding the development and acquisition for the M1E3 Abrams tank and the replacement the XM30, two vehicles that have yet to fielded.

“So there’s an accountability and inclusion of all of those supporting entities from the beginning. But I’m just optimistic. I mean, time will tell whether all of the promises come forth as we hope that it will,” Behn said.

While he didn’t disclose which air defense unit had been selected, Rafferty said it came from the existing force structure given the tight timeline to have Golden Dome operational by mid-2028.

“Leading up to [2028], we’re going to do a lot of experimentation and test with this unit to make sure that we’re ready to fight with it when it’s delivered,” Rafferty added. “That’s [the] plan and program that we’re developing now as the material solution is coming into focus.”

In early 2025, President Donald Trump rolled out plans to build a sprawling, multilayered homeland air defense system. While the Pentagon has not publicly disclosed that missile defense architecture, officials have said it’s envisioned to include new and existing space- and land-based systems, along with command and control assets.

The Army already operates a variety of air defense systems, including Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), while also working on new systems, like the Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) Increment 2 and various directed-energy weapons.

Army National Guard battalions are already working in the homeland air defense arena, including the protection of the National Capital Region. 

“We do a lot of this mission already. [Golden Dome] is just an expansion in many ways,” the three-star general said. “We’re just continuing to improve our position and defend the homeland better. 

“We’ve got the right experience. We have the right, you know, institutional knowledge about how to build and sustain these sorts of programs and capabilities, and we just need to to figure out how to optimize our manning solution and our command and control approach,” he added.

The Pentagon’s work on Golden Dome comes at a time when there is a growing focus on air defense forces in the Middle East, which continue to guard US bases from incoming Iranian threats. 

While much focus has been given to questions about the dwindling stockpiles of munitions, including Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and THAAD interceptors, Rafferty also acknowledged how the conflict is stressing an already overworked air defense force. The service must balance operational demands, readiness and modernization plans. 

“You’ve got less time to train, and prepare and test,” he said. “And [we] are challenged to complete our modernization path because of the demand on the force.”

“Clearly, this places … a huge strain on soldier readiness and unit readiness,” Rafferty added.

To help mitigate the strain, he told Breaking Defense the service is pushing upgrades and new tech forward to deployed troops instead of waiting for them to return home.

The Army also already had plans to grow its Patriot force from 16 battalions to 18 battalions, and is continuing to revisit that number to account for global demand and Golden Dome plans as part of the service’s annual Total Army Analysis process.

“We’re always looking at what’s the right mix of… all of our warfighting functions to optimize the force of the future,” Rafferty said. “But I’m confident in our path to growing the Patriot force, and I know the demand will lead us to the right number.”