The announcement came during a press conference today, wrapping up the minister’s four-day visit to Sweden. During a joint presser, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson confirmed that negotiations are advancing on a deal to amend the existing Gripen agreement to add in additional jets, although both men stressed no deal has been reached. 

Gen. Marcelo Kanitz Damasceno, the Brazilian air chief, told Breaking Defense on the sideline of the event that the need for extra jets was born from a serious look at Brazil’s air power.

“Our staff studies signalized for us a [requirement] of between 50 and 60 fighter aircrafts, something like that, to maintain the sovereignty of our country. So we started from 36 [Gripen] to 56 [Gripen] or a little bit more than than 60 … It’s a number that you can do well with,” Damasceno said.

After Saab beat out the Boeing F/A-18 and Dassault Rafale in 2014, Brazil  ordered a total of 36 Gripen fighters: 28 single-seat Gripen E models and eight two-seat Gripen F variants. Eleven aircraft have been delivered to date.

Final assembly of the single-seat Gripen E is carried out at Embraer’s facility in São Paulo, which remains the only Gripen production line outside Sweden. The first fully Brazilian-assembled Gripen E was rolled out there in March 2026.

The Air Chief stressed that the contract signed in 2014 on the 36 jets gave an option for increasing by 25 percent. Now Stockholm and Brasilia are figuring out how to step up to 56 Gripens. 

“So we started months ago the discussion with Saab and in the Sweden how to deal with, how can you use this 25 percent in this contract,” he said.

The announcement comes just two days after Saab rolled out the first Gripen F two-seat fighter jet for the Brazilian Air Force during a ceremony at its facilities in Linköping, south of the Swedish capital.

The Gripen F is essentially the same as the Gripen E but with an additional seat. Jonson said that all E-version aircraft for Brazil will probably be built locally.

“That would be my expectation. This is, of course, a negotiation process taking place in the business to government agreement between Saab and Brazil, but what there is since last fall, there is a production site for the Gripen system in Brazil. So I think it’s natural that they use that one,” the Swedish defense minister told Breaking Defense.

The additional Gripen Fs that Brazil ordered could also be built in Brazil, he said, “which is good for Sweden, because we have our hands full right now,” as the past ten months have marked a record period for the Gripen’s global footprint.

Last week Stockholm and Kyiv announced Ukraine’s plan to acquire up to 20 new Gripen E/F jets, with Stockholm also donating 16 older C/D models. (The contract for the new jets is not yet signed). 

Thailand has prevíosly ordered four E/Fs, and Colombia has signed for 17 aircraft last year,  with deliveries starting in 2026. Canada is also expected to announce if they will acquire a batch of Gripen in addition to American F-35’s. 

These developments strengthen the Gripen’s footprint worldwide and support Sweden’s own transition to the more advanced E-variant. The Swedish Air Force received its first JAS 39 Gripen E last year – the lead aircraft of a 60-jet order – and deliveries are expected until 2030.

The surge of interest in Gripen should be no surprise, Jonson said, given the state of the world. 

“It comes at a time when there’s a lot of countries right now investing into the defense capabilities, and having the Gripen system as a new fighter, and as a fighter that can also use an AI agent, causes a lot of interest around the Gripen system, in combination with its world-leading electronic warfare capabilities, and its low life cycle costs,” he said.

“The [larger the] user club we have for the Gripen system, the better it is,” Jonson said. 

“I’m currently assigned there to build out a [Joint Task Force Defense of Critical Infrastructure] framework and command and control footprint, because the most important thing, besides understanding the technology, the people, the processes, is who’s in control, who’s executing, what’s the common rail amongst all the authorizations that we have between CISA, FBI, Coast Guard, Department of War writ large,” Col. Adolph Rodriguez, director of Defense Critical Infrastructure at the DCDC, said here at the TechNet Cyber conference Wednesday.

DCDC, formerly the Joint Force Headquarters-DoD Information Network, was elevated to a sub-unified command under US Cyber Command in May 2025.

“How do we continue to operate before, during, and after the attack,” Rodriguez said, articulating one of the problems they’re looking at.

He explained the team is working to develop what he termed “digital green zones,” similar to the physical spaces set up in Iraq and Afghanistan, that will examine what exactly needs to be secured and what data leaders need to look for to ensure they know what good and bad data is.

Defense of critical infrastructure has become a key priority in recent years given the importance of those systems not only to everyday civilian life — from power to water — but also to military installations.

Chinese hackers dubbed Volt Typhoon have been found lurking in these systems in recent years, which intelligence and cyber officials say is to map networks in order to cause disruption, stymie and deter possible US response to a Beijing feint against Taiwan.

What has particularly alarmed US officials about this, is the paradigm shift of Chinese threats moving from espionage and intellectual property theft to holding critical infrastructure at risk.

A key way Rodriguez and his team plan to protect infrastructure is by applying existing and defined roles between civil, federal and defense teams, similar to how Northern Command operates with civil authorities over homeland defense.

For instance, during a natural disaster or terrorist attack, there is no question regarding authorities or command and control lines between local, state and federal partners. But if there was a cyber attack, those distinctions are not yet there.

“Why don’t we build a cyber campaign plan that’s enduring that we can utilize those NORTHCOM authorities with Cyber Command’s authorities, build out the sectors very similar to FEMA so this way we don’t have to change any of the infrastructure and now execute that muscle memory of training, assessments, and then identify where the key infrastructure is,” he said.

In fact, multiple experts told Breaking Defense that this deployment could lay the foundation for how the Navy develops its concept of operations (CONOPS) for integrating unmanned into the rest of the fleet, at a time when the Navy is still struggling to articulate how and when it will make autonomous vessels a core part of its arsenal.  

“It is certainly a significant development,” said Bradley Martin, a retired Navy captain who is now a senior policy researcher at RAND. “Up to now, it’s all been a matter of testing, and the actual use in operational deployment is a major step. I think that what will happen as a result of this is, we won’t necessarily see immediately some big change in the way the fleet operates, but it will tell the fleet a lot about how to use this type of capability.”

The Seahawk vessel is one of Leidos’ unmanned vessels. An upgraded design of the firm’s Sea Hunter autonomous vessel, the Seahawk supports anti-submarine warfare and maritime domain awareness, and stems from a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency initiative. 

The Navy previously deployed four unmanned ships — including a Seahawk and a Sea Hunter — to the Western Pacific in 2023. But the announced upcoming deployment with the Theodore Roosevelt shows the Navy wants unmanned systems to supplement primary forces as the Navy develops new tailored force packages for specific mission sets and geographies, according to Bryan Clark, a retired submarine officer and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. 

“This is a regularly scheduled deployment by a full carrier strike group that shows MUSVs have progressed from science project to become part of the operational fleet,” Clark said. 

While the Navy officially announced the deployment with the MUSV at the Sea Air Space exposition in April, the service did not respond to questions from Breaking Defense about when exactly the carrier strike group will get underway, how the deployment would guide the development of unmanned CONOPS, when the Navy plans to release an unmanned strategy, and what specific things the Navy wants to test while at sea.

But the analysts largely agreed with a key point: Whatever is learned from this deployment will help the service set its approach to both the concept of operations (CONOPS) for unmanned vessels, and the acquisition strategy for procuring them. 

“This is a really important, initial early step in terms of developing those CONOPS. The Navy isn’t waiting around to develop a bunch of prototypes and just sort of leave them stateside,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “They’re putting them out and integrating them with the crewed vessels immediately and allowing them to experiment and consider different ways of how they can work together.”

Developing CONOPS 

In February, the Navy’s top officer, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, unveiled his “Fighting Instructions” framework. There, he laid out plans to utilize a “hedge force strategy” that seeks to capitalize on unmanned systems and create a range of tailored options that fall outside the traditional carrier strike group model where an aircraft carrier, a destroyer, and several other assets go out to sea together. 

This coincides with the rest of the fleet facing increased strain amid extended deployments like the aircraft carrier Gerald R Ford’s 326-day period at sea — where it was one of three carrier strike groups operating in the Middle East concurrently for the first time since 2003.

“One of the challenges that they’re trying to use the uncrewed systems for…is really to help with just sort of the shrinking force structure more broadly, and the fact that the fleet has been shrinking, continues to shrink, and can’t meet the current demand, and is being operated at such a high tempo that they’re going to face challenges meeting all of their requirements going forward,” Pettyjohn said.

Caudle’s “Fighting Instructions” issues some key tasks for the Navy to develop. Specifically, it orders the Navy to detail how fleet commanders and the joint force will integrate unmanned capabilities, known as robotic autonomous systems (RAS), into “service decisions like strategic laydown, dispersal, and global force management.” No model is in place yet for RAS capabilities, according to the guidance. 

As a result, Caudle said in February he is facing an “unmanned dilemma” about how to organize RAS capabilities into the fleet. At the time, he said he was not ready to release an unmanned strategy as he and the rest of the Navy work together to figure out the command structure for employing unmanned systems fleetwide. 

When asked about an unmanned strategy at the Sea Air Space Exposition in April, Caudle pointed to the Seahawk’s upcoming deployment with the Theodore Roosevelt. He also said the Navy is eying establishing a Warfighting Development Center (WDC) for RAS like the Navy already has for areas like aviation, and surface and mine warfighting.

“We need to move these capabilities from individual units into composite mission sets, including contested logistics,” Caudle told reporters in April. “Using USVs to move food and parts — replenishing underways without risking humans — is a major use case.”

Additionally, Caudle has previously floated setting up a RAS commander to oversee unmanned capabilities. Currently, RAS is now arranged by domain, like undersea, aviation and cyber, but a RAS commander could coordinate across the domains, according to Caudle. 

While Martin, the senior policy researcher at RAND, said a RAS commander could serve as an advocate for these systems, the Navy must remain cautious that it doesn’t silo unmanned capabilities too much. 

“It may be best to leave them with communities, so that all the communities have opportunity to work with these things and become familiar, as opposed to making yet another type commander where additional risk and additional coordination has to take place,” Martin said. 

Meanwhile, Pettyjohn said that the Navy likely has already established some CONOPS for unmanned, and will develop more through this upcoming deployment — although whether those lessons learned are baked into official doctrine and dispersed throughout the fleet more broadly remains a question, considering there are so few prototypes currently in the fleet. 

Regardless, Pettyjohn said the Navy is on the right track to develop the CONOPS and capabilities concurrently so that the service can identify different attributes that may be more or less important for future iterations. 

“All of this should be sort of a living document that isn’t going to remain static, because they’ll develop some way of doing it, and it’ll work in one environment against one threat picture,” Pettyjohn said. “And then others will learn or you’ll face a more capable adversary, and it won’t work as well there. So as technology changes, as adversaries adapt, and as we move along, these should continually be being updated and revised.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee want the Navy to verify to congressional defense committees that CONOPS for unmanned systems have already been developed ahead of accepting a USV, according to the chairman’s mark of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released in May. 

Likewise, the draft legislation includes a section that would require the secretary of the Navy to craft and execute a strategy for USV integration into the fleet and joint maritime operations. 

Acquisition Influence

The deployment could also factor into how the Navy chooses to move forward procuring new MUSVs, according to experts, as the service zeroes in on a new acquisition model it says aims to lay the foundation for obtaining other autonomous systems. 

In an attempt to procure MUSVs faster, the Navy announced in March a new MUSV marketplace where industry could submit proposals. The marketplace replaced the Navy’s Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program, in an effort to move past a prototype phase and instead, focus on production-ready, mission capable MUSV platforms already available.

This shift to the marketplace approach veered away from narrow requirements into performance-based requirements, ultimately allowing more options for the warfighter, according to Michael Robbins, president and CEO at the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International. 

“Allowing for a more flexible approach to design and acquisition and integration is smart, because what a medium USV is required in CENTCOM might look a lot different than it does in INDOPACOM, which might look a lot different than it does in NORTHCOM or SOUTHCOM,” said Robbins, who is also an officer in the Navy Reserve. 

The Navy announced in May that seven designs from the marketplace were selected to advance to the prototype testing phase, following the first iteration of what the service says is supposed to be a recurrent marketplace. Leidos, the Seahawk contractor, is one of the seven defense firms whose design was selected to advance. At-sea demonstrations are expected later this year, and the Navy said it plans to work alongside industry to have vessels available to lease or procure in fiscal year 2027. 

According to Clark, the Theodore Roosevelt deployment could inform how the Navy chooses to proceed with acquiring these new vessels, depending on what is learned during the carrier’s time at sea.

“I think the deployment could impact acquisition decisions, because the MUSV marketplace has an open-ended set of top-level requirements for some parameters like speed and endurance,” Clark said. 

“But the deployment may show that endurance is a major challenge for MUSVs because they could need to be refueled more often than the other CSG ships, which would require more visits by vulnerable oilers,” Clark said. “Or the deployment could show that the MUSV can get by with a slower speed because it can operate far from the carrier and its escorts.” 

Pettyjohn noted a big challenge the Navy and the other services are facing is determining how to acquire these systems, since their shelf life is significantly shorter than other, larger platforms. 

“The Navy’s acquisition strategy — and even fleet plan — has been in such flux that I dare say, I am not sure how it will work,” Pettyjohn said. “But one would hope that they will learn from this and be able to decide whether this prototype is the one they want to go forward with, or in all likelihood, if there’s some variation to this that they would want to make, and then hopefully be moving into production and buying an initial tranche of it.”

Overall, Martin said he believes the deployment will inform the Navy on what it ought to be purchasing — and how quickly. 

“I think how the deployment will be used is, if particularly useful things are identified in the process of deployment, that will affect what’s bought in the near term,” Martin said. “So there’s very much an effect on acquisition.”

The TR Deployment: What To Expect

With all that at stake, it’s not actually clear exactly what the Navy specifically wants to do with Seahawk on this deployment, though the service has previously said it wants MUSVs capable of multiple mission sets. 

Clark said that the Seahawk will likely conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations with the strike group, and perhaps electronic warfare missions. The MUSV sensor suite can provide many of the same ISR capabilities as a helicopter, according to Clark, but more persistently and at longer ranges, as well as with greater connectivity and communications bandwidth. 

Additionally, the Navy will want to understand how the Seahawk integrates into a traditional carrier strike group — and assess how it can mitigate the vessel’s shortfalls, Clark said. 

“For example, the Seahawk has very long endurance, so it could operate far from the carrier and provide a remote sensor platform,” Clark said. “But it isn’t as fast as the carrier, so the Navy needs to develop tactics that prevent it from being left behind if the carrier needs to make a faster transit.”

Martin said that the Navy will likely test how exactly to employ the Seahawk, especially given that the vessel can carry a wide variety of payloads. While he noted that the Navy is likely not at the point where it would have the Seahawk deliver kinetic payloads yet, the service will probably assess how it could usefully carry weapons like missiles during this deployment. 

Likewise, the Navy will be evaluating what types of command and control systems must be in place for it to function, as well as refueling and logistical challenges that can only be learned through working with an operational unit, Martin said. 

“They’ll want to know how easily and reliably communicated with [it is], they’ll want to know what is the appropriate stationing,” Martin said. “Is it best to have it in close? Is it best out over the horizon?”

Pettyjohn said the Navy will likely evaluate during this deployment how the Seahawk could fare administering countermine warfare missions, especially given recent operations in the Middle East where naval forces conducted mine clearance missions in the Strait of Hormuz. 

“That’s obviously a mission that the Navy has sort of neglected,” Pettyjohn said. “It typically looks to allies to fill, and has been looking to uncrewed assets. And given that this is something that could crop up in many areas of the world, it could be important if you could have, along with you, one of these smaller vessels that could be used to make sure that any sort of straits are clear, or do any emergent mine-sweeping, that would be really useful.”

Although Martin said that unmanned systems probably won’t accompany carrier strike groups on every subsequent deployment following this initial one, it will serve as a model for future ones. 

“I think ultimately we will see it being routine that unmanned systems deploy with carriers, with carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups and that type of thing,” he said. 

“It’s a new capability, and it’s the product of a fairly rapid change in technology and will impose requirements that we haven’t identified yet,” Martin said. “So things like this deployment will help a lot with figuring out those seams, those places where there are issues.”

As reconciliation funding plans move through Capitol Hill, Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., joins us for part two of his interview with Breaking Defense’s Valerie Insinna. Budd, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, shares a few ways Congress can help reassure industry planners looking to forecast well beyond this year’s midterm election season.

And in case you missed it, you can catch part one of Insinna’s interview with the senator, here.

“We are accelerating and changing the numbers. If we were talking together a few months back, before what’s happening in the Middle East, in fact, the numbers were not in the same. We more than doubled the number, considering the situation at the moment in the Middle East,” Thomas Colinet Managing Director at Thales Belgium told Breaking Defense in an interview last week.

He added that Thales is getting prepared “to support the Middle East in quantities, in mass production with cost-effective solution, that’s key for us to be really in a structure of make to stock,” he said pointing that now Thales Belgium is “in a process of making to stock to be ready when all the requests will come.”

During a media tour to Thales Belgium’s facilities in Herstal and Fort d’Evegnée where the company produces its 70 mm guided and unguided rockets, journalists saw the production lines that build the system, from chips and fuses to rocket head, eye and motor. A firing test of the guided rocket also took place during the tour. (Like other media outlets, Breaking Defense accepted travel and accommodation from the Thales for the trip.)

The 70 mm guided rocket is part of Skydefender integrated air and missiles defense platform, a concept similar to Steel Dome’s concept in Turkey and Iron Dome’s concept in Israel. Thales officials told Breaking Defense during the tour that the rocket’s price is about one-tenth that of a higher-end missile, which makes it suitable for counter drone missions.

Alain Quevrin, Thales vice president and country director of Belgium & Luxembourg, said they are “receiving” requests from Gulf states for the weapons, which he said could be fired for both ground-to-air and air-to-air counter-drone missions.

The 70 mm guided rocket follows a laser designator from the same platform it is launched from, whether a UAV or fighter jet or a ground vehicle, and it keeps track of the laser until it hits the target. Company officials told Breaking Defense that they are continuously upgrading the missile for precise targeting.

A “key point [is] the interest for having European, non-US solution,” in the Gulf, said Quevrin, who acknowledged that a willingness to produce locally will be vital to breaking into the lucrative regional market.

The company is open for technology transfer in future stages of cooperation, and “we are discussing with our local authorities in order to do that, which is more and more possible, so which is a good point for us.”

“In the future, for sure, we are understanding that this kind of requirement [technology transfer] will be on the table, and by definition, we are ready to open the discussion regarding these specific requirements, because the local production is really key for a lot of countries, so yes, it is,” he said adding that such localization efforts require “authorization education and training.”

Production of the weapons takes place at the historic Fort d’Evegnée, built to protect Belgium from German invasion in the nineteenth century. There, Breaking Defense saw more than 40 small rooms for production and assembly, with workers doing manual validation test on batches and sub-parts of the rocket. The fins are given particularly rigorous testing, the company said, as those are critical to making sure the rocket’s trajectory can be adjusted until landing on target.

Testing of the rocket takes place between minus 46 degrees Celsius and plus 66 degrees Celsius, in order to validate operational capability in all weather conditions including the hot weather of the Middle East.

The two engine makers were selected for drones the Air Force dubs Medium Thrust Class Autonomous Collaborative Platforms, the spokesperson told Breaking Defense. In a May press release announcing the award, GE said its contract would complete preliminary design review for a new powerplant the company dubs the GE426

“We’ve proven we can rapidly move from concept to engine demonstration with the GEK800” — a smaller, lower-thrust engine GE developed with Kratos for drone and cruise missile applications — “and our focus now is on applying that process to the GE426 to ensure it provides the performance, affordability, and readiness the warfighter needs,” Steve Russell, vice president and general manager of Edison Works at GE, said in the release.  

Asked about Rolls-Royce’s award, which has not been publicly announced, company executive Candice Bineyard in a statement to Breaking Defense today touted the firm’s “AE engine family” without specifying the powerplant in question. The AE 3007N engine, for example, is currently used on the Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray, which made its first flight in April. 

“Autonomous aircraft represent a fundamental shift in how the U.S. Air Force will project combat airpower. By leveraging our advanced AE engine family, we can move quickly to deliver the performance, electrical power, and reliability our warfighters need for operational advantage in contested environments,” said Bineyard, director of business development and future programs for defense at Rolls-Royce. 

The Air Force spokesperson said the contract for the GE426 was issued as a firm-fixed price deal using Other Transaction Authority under the service’s Propulsion Consortium Initiative 2.0 effort “to explore solutions beyond traditional manned aircraft standards.” The spokesperson did not immediately clarify whether Rolls-Royce’s contract is structured similarly, and did not disclose the dollar values of the awards for either vendor.

Drones are an initial focus for the engine contracts, though “other platforms with similar propulsion characteristics may benefit” from the GE and Rolls-Royce powerplants, the Air Force spokesperson said.

The Air Force has issued multiple contracts spanning a range of engine designs to expand its propulsion options for unmanned platforms, including drone wingmen dubbed Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Beyond drone applications, engines could be used to power other unmanned systems and weapons like cruise missiles.

The second round of the Air Force’s ongoing Collaborative Combat Aircraft program is evaluating a wide variety of designs, spanning from cheaper to more exquisite concepts. However, House authorizers recently noted that the Air Force and Navy in the future may need drones “with sufficient range, speed, and electrical power to potentially self-deploy from the continental United States and conduct varied missions for geographic combatant commanders.” Those types of requirements, should they come to pass, would likely entail more expensive, higher-performance designs. 

The Harrier’s retirement marks a significant milestone as the Marine Corps moves through its Tactical Aircraft Transition Plan, and fully adopts fifth-generation aircraft across the entire fleet. 

Today’s ceremony included a flyover featuring five Harriers. The ground attack jet has short takeoff and vertical landing capability. Despite the scheduled retirement, the aircraft have remained active even in their final weeks. 

The Marine Corps’ last Harriers are part of Marine Attack Squadron 223 and were last deployed with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), which just concluded a 10-month deployment on Monday.

During the deployment, the 22nd MEU supported operations in US Southern Command amid the Trump administration’s naval buildup there, leading up to Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s ouster in January. Marine Attack Squadron 223 returned to Cherry Point on May 20, and Marine and sailors assigned to the 22nd MEU started returning home on Monday, according to the service. 

The Marine Corps revealed in its 2026 Aviation Plan released in February that the service would conduct a final flight for the aircraft in June, and said that efforts are underway to preserve the aircraft’s legacy in museums across the US.  

“As the Harrier era concludes, its highly experienced aircrew and maintenance personnel are transitioning their skills to other platforms, primarily the F-35B, ensuring their expertise continues to benefit Marine Corps Aviation,” the Marine Corps’ aviation plan said. 

The AV-8A Harrier first entered the Marine Corps in 1971, while the upgraded AV-8B Harrier II joined the service in 1985. The aircraft were capable of deploying and operating from carriers, as well as other “seagoing platforms,” expeditionary airfields, and remote tactical landing sites, according to Naval Air Systems Command. 

In this final edition of our series looking at the past, present and future of manned-unmanned teaming, we review how American defense firms and military trainers are evolving their methods and procedures to accommodate a world where drones are increasingly incorporated into multi-domain operations.

Caitlin Lee of the RAND Corporation and JJ Gertler of the Teal Group join Breaking Defense Editor-in-Chief Aaron Mehta and Air Warfare Reporter Michael Marrow for a roundtable discussion on the recent history and possible future of closely partnering with drones in combat.

To learn more, check out the first, second, and third videos in our series.

 “We’re proud to team with Anduril to reduce network integration risk and accelerate fielding,” Luke Savoie, president and CEO of Elbit America, said in the Tuesday release. “Built in the U.S. with a fully domestic supply chain, SIGMA is a combat-proven system that provides the modernization and reliability the Army needs now.”

Anduril joins the US subsidiary of Israeli company Elbit along with OshKosh Defense for the team’s offering for the highly anticipated competition. According to the release, Anduril will provide its command, control, computers, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C5ISR) capabilities for Sigma and will integrate its artificial intelligence-driven Lattice software platform into the system.

“On Team SIGMA, we’re providing expertise in software, edge compute and autonomy to deliver a connected, software-defined mobile artillery solution that will integrate seamlessly into existing Army Command and Control and fire control architectures,” Michael Roder, managing director at Anduril, said in the release. 

While Anduril provides the C5ISR backbone for the vehicle, Elbit will provide the 155-mm, 52-caliber fully automated cannon and OshKosh will provide the 10×10 vehicle. Further, an Elbit spokesperson told Breaking Defense at the annual AUSA Global Force summit in March that the Sigma is fully manufactured in Charleston, South Carolina. 

In addition to the Elbit America team, the US subsidiary of Korean company Hanwha Defense will be submitting its K9 mobile howitzer for the competition; the US subsidiary of Italy’s Leonardo DRS and European land defense specialist KNDS will be offering their Caesar howitzer variant; and the US subsidiary of German company Rheinmetall is offering their howitzer as well. 

British BAE Systems through its American subsidiary, which currently produces the Army’s M109A7 Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) program, is also competing, a company spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense today.

The Army is aiming to award a contract for the new howitzers next month — a tight turnaround as it would come just 10 months after a request for information went out to industry in September. The competition as a whole was originally delayed by months to bring it in line with the Army Transformation Initiative. 

The exercise, in which the Army’s G-2 is partnering with the J-7’s Warfighter Laboratory Incentive Fund program, is the first time the military is testing manufacturer Urban Sky’s high-altitude balloon with Applied Intuition’s ATR software that controls and processes data from the small sensor. Andrew Evans, the director for the new Strategy & Transformation Office inside the G-2, said it’s been notoriously difficult to find sensors small enough to thrive on high-altitude platforms given the precarious nature of the stratosphere — which starts at about 60,000 ft. above the Earth’s surface and has harsh physical limitations caused by extreme weather and thinning air.

“We discovered along the way that the maturity of sensors to operate in the stratosphere was simply not there,” Evans said. “We think mostly because the systems that fly or operate at those altitudes are very light, typically because they’re contending with low air density, and so they don’t carry heavy payloads.” 

He explained that the payloads that the Army has been investing in up until this point have been much heavier and require much more power, causing them to be ineffective in the stratosphere. As a result, he said the force needs something lighter and that can operate in the “vast temperature swings” in that part of the atmosphere. 

“Wallabee is simply that. It’s pairing some advancements that are happening with stratospheric balloons with advancements happening in miniaturizing sensors that can operate the stratosphere,” Evans said. 

Further, Evans explained that the Army and the J-7 want to bolster capabilities in the stratosphere because the end goal is to combine ground, airborne, stratosphere and space-based sensors to create a “multi-layered, robust sensing ecosystem.”

“What we seek as intel professionals is to create as many sensors from as many different altitudes and sensing domains of ground, air and space as possible because we believe that creates some important dilemmas for adversaries,” Evans said. “If you only do things from the ground or only from space, you’re giving your adversaries a lot of opportunities to counter your capabilities because they can then focus on countering exactly what you’re doing.” 

Specifically, he said, the multi-layered approach allows the force to provide early entry forces with the tools they need to find without relying on uncontested communications or exquisite space-based sensing systems. 

The results from testing Wallabee will help inform future experimentations, Evans said, adding that it will be a “complementary” exercise to a large balloon swarm exercise that is slated for later this year. Originally, the swarm exercise was to take place in the Indo-Pacific theater, however, Evans told Breaking Defense at the annual AAAA conference earlier this year that it would be taking place some place else, but did not share where.

Nonetheless, Evans said he’s hopeful that Wallabee will provide important lessons on such capabilities, especially as the Army and greater Defense Department focus on experimenting before heavily investing in a product or program. 

“It allows you to learn early, especially if you’re going to learn some things that are things you don’t want to repeat; it allows you to learn that before you make enormous investments, and then learn that lesson after it’s too late,” Evans said. 

“We’re not yet ready to declare, you know, mission success here. What we are ready to declare is that we know we need to do this. We must do this. It’s a domain we must exploit,” he added. 

UPDATED 6/4/2026 at 1:42 ET to clarify that Applied Intuition makes the ATR software for the sensor used in Project Wallabee.

WASHINGTON — In recent weeks, a number of allies and partners have been told their expected weapons deliveries from the United States are being slowed down as the US prioritizes its own coffers, sending shockwaves through defense communities in Europe and Asia that have come to rely on US weapons.

And while analysts tell Breaking Defense there has yet to be any sense of a major shift away from buying American weapons, they acknowledge that the decision to kick allies back down the queue, especially when those countries have already put money down, fits into a broader pattern of concerns around American arm sales that could lead countries to look for possible alternatives.

“What we’re going to see is the inevitable tension between the administration’s stated desire to have our allies buy American and buy more … and likewise the need to put ourselves first to replenish stockpiles,” Tom Karako, a missile defense expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told Breaking Defense.

While questions about US reliability over the past year have cropped up on an array of topics from NATO to Ukraine, there was less concern about Foreign Military Sales (FMS), especially as the Trump administration pushed forward large numbers of FMS cases and cast arms sales as an economic boon for American workers.

According to figures gathered by TD Cowen analyst Roman Schweizer, FMS cases have been approved by the State Department at a record pace this year. Of those, 29 deals ($47 billion) are for the Middle East and Africa; 25 deals ($28.6 billion) for Europe; 25 deals ($19.9 billion) for Asia; and four deals ($6.4 billion) in the Americas. While FMS announcements do not include exact dollar figures or quantities for what a final sale may look like, they still serve as a barometer of interest in American weapons around the globe.

But 2026 is shaping up to be a potentially transformative year for FMS. 

In early February, President Donald Trump inked an executive order calling for national production interests to be taken into greater account when the US sells foreign nations weapons, creating a new list of platforms to push on the market, and prioritizing arms sales for countries who invest more in their own defense spending. The administration has yet to unfurl those changes, but they have already begun to make some abroad uneasy — particularly the language about prioritizing some countries over others, in lieu of the largely “first in, first out” FMS operation.

Then came Operation Epic Fury, which saw the US burning through key munitions at high rates over Iran.

How many weapons? In a recent CSIS report, the think tank estimated that the US launched more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles, and warned it could take until the 2030-2031 timeframe to return to the pre-war inventory. The organization estimated the US expended 1,060 to 1,430 Patriot rounds, and may not be able to hit its pre-war inventory until mid-2029. Similar trends followed for an array of munitions including the SM-3, SM-6 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors.

While the administration is pursuing plans to ramp up the production of 14 “critical munitions” over the coming years, building that capacity will take time, and is unlikely to help in the short term. And all of those weapons are of interest to allies and partners, many of whom already have orders in.

The impacts are seemingly being felt around the globe, with reports that Washington has been quietly notifying key allies and partners that their weapon shipments might be delayed due to the war:

• Taiwan: On May 21, Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao told senators there was a “pause” on weapon deliveries to Taiwan “in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury … but then the Foreign Military Sales will continue when the administration deems necessary.”
• Japan: FT reported that the US has warned Japan that there could be serious delays in the delivery of 400 Tomahawk missiles since the Pentagon is prioritizing rebuilding weapons stockpiles.
• UK and Poland: FT reported in May that the US also warned these two countries about possible delivery delays. 
• Norway: On May 1, Breaking Defense reported that Norway was “informed that delays may occur, but it is emphasized that no decision has been made,” according to a government spokesperson.
• Estonia and Lithuania: Reuters reported in April that the ministries of Estonia and Lithuania have said that the US has informed their countries of possible ​delays because of the Iran war. 
• Switzerland: Washington decided to reshuffle Switzerland’s Patriot deliveries last year to support urgently needed supplies to Ukraine, with Breaking Defense reporting that Swiss delays could run up to five years. But that window is in doubt due to growing demand for the platform since the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran. While Switzerland is deliberating over whether to cancel a long-delayed Patriot order, last week it announced the need for a “potential additional system” that is “preferably” produced in Europe. “This may be either a European system or a non-European system that is manufactured in Europe,” a government statement said.

When asked about reports of possible FMS delays due to ongoing operations in the Middle East, the State Department told Breaking Defense on May 28, “As a general matter, we don’t comment on the specifics of potential or pending arms transfers.” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell did not directly respond to questions about the delay notifications or the process leading up to the notifications.

‘Musical Chairs’

One industry source plugged into the changing FMS landscape said that while industry is closely following the “rhetoric” around concerns from allies and partners, for now, FMS sales numbers remain high and the US continues to be the “provider of choice.”

“Yes, there is a broad concern out there about the reliability of the US,” the industry source told Breaking Defense. “I will tell you that [US] companies are moving very quickly to be able to invest, deliver, and do the [research and development] necessary to maintain the leading edge that we have enjoyed for many years.”

But the FMS reforms, combined with telling capitals that they may need to wait on planned weapon procurements, is “all probably going to contribute to uncertainty about the reliability of FMS deliveries,” Karako said, though he added that “I can’t really bring myself to say it’s wrong … We’ve gotten into this pickle, and we kind of do need to prioritize America’s arsenal first, replenishing the arsenal first.”

Elias Yousif, a Stimson Center fellow and deputy director for Conventional Defense, told Breaking Defense that, “we’re only just now starting to see the drivers that may reshape those trends, and a lot of the pressures that may lead even long-standing allies and partners to question whether or not it’s wise to continue to depend on the United States for essential defense articles and services.”

Michael Carpenter, a senior fellow for transatlantic affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Breaking Defense he believes the perception of US dependability has dropped, and that lack of confidence is slowly seeping into the FMS arena.

“The bottom line is the US is becoming less dependable as a supplier, and so, as part of it, countries are calculating that if the US launches another war that comes out of left field in a year’s time, you know, will that mean that whatever system or capability they procured today is suddenly delayed by another year, two years, five years,” Carpenter said.

Another wrinkle emerged earlier this month when the Trump administration approved $8.6 billion in “emergency” arm sales to Israel, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Those potential deals include Patriot interceptors, Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems and the Integrated Battle Command System.

While Yousif said that maneuver could speed up the FMS process by up to a month, Karako said it is not clear if the Trump administration is also preparing to shake up the production queues and possibly place Qatar’s $4.01 billion order that included hundreds of Patriot interceptors ahead of other countries waiting in line. 

“Where’s that [Qatar order] going to come from? We don’t know,” Karako said. “Do we start letting them get the next PAC-3 off the line? Or, do we take them out of the US inventory, which we can’t afford to do?

“Is this going to be a game of musical chairs? Who’s going to get moved to the front of the line and who’s going to lose their place in line that they’ve been waiting for?” he added. “[This is] going to have some potential to further rankle some of our allied relationships.”

It may take some time to see if allies and partners look at alternatives, and possibly cheaper but lower-end options to US systems, Karako said, though he pointed to Denmark’s late-2025 decision to buy the French-Italian SAMP/T weapon systems over Raytheon’s rival Patriot platform.

“Why in the world would you go to French? The answer is not because of Greenland, but because the Danes knew that they were at the back of a very long line, a line which has gotten much, much longer in the past five months,” he added. 

Yousif also pointed towards the same example out of Denmark, noting the timing — it came shortly after Trump revised his threats to invade Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — along with the slower pace and long lines for some US weapons.

“The United States both wants to have its cake and eat it too,” Yousif said. “It wants allies and partners to shoulder a greater degree of the international security burdens, to carry more weight in providing for their own security, but then also to have them buy American defense articles and services.”

“[But] the delays are certainly a problem, and that’s been cited by a lot of countries as to why they’ve chosen other fit systems,” he added.

Carpenter further cited Greenland as a pivotal turning point for some European allies and partners who are now slowly weighing their options to buy from other countries, while maintaining a sense of realism that, for instance, those who are tied into the F-35 program are pretty locked in for the future.

“I hear this all the time: We’re not going to just go cold turkey on the United States, but yes, we’re seriously considering alternatives to US equipment wherever and whenever we can,” Carpenter added.

For now, though, the industry source said he anticipates that the demand for US weapons will remain high.

“If you also talk to our companies, they will tell you that when they talk to the individual capitals, that there’s still a desire to work with US companies to develop systems that allow countries to provide for their own national security,” the industry source added. 

There has been a growing chorus in recent years calling for an independent cyber force to remedy readiness shortfalls with the underlying cyber personnel in the military and inconsistencies across each of those services. Currently, each of the military services — all with their own personnel polices, troop rotations, and pay scales — are responsible for providing personnel for a set number of teams to US Cyber Command, which then employs those forces in operations for the other geographic combatant commands.

That report was published today by the Commission on US Cyber Force Generation — launched in September by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in partnership with the Cyber Solarium Commission 2.0 (CSC 2.0) project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The commission is made up of several recently retired two- and three-star cyber commanders, former top Pentagon cyber officials, and mid-level cyber personnel.

The report operates under the hypothetical situation where a directive for a Cyber Force has been given, and provides a roadmap for what it could look like. The goal, according to FDD senior fellow Mark Montgomery, is to avoid the mistakes made when standing up the Space Force in 2019.

“When that go order comes, we have to be better prepared than we were for Space Force,” said Montgomery, who was a commissioner for the report. “You need to be ready to go. This report is going to be an important part of that ligature of how you get ready to go and how you don’t dork this up because this is going to be hard, and there will be antibodies to it, even when the president says do it, there’ll be antibodies to how to do it and so we’ve got to lay out the best possible course.”

The initial $10 billion to $11 billion budget recommendation would realign existing money Congress has already allocated to the military across the services to the Cyber Force, said Joshua Stiefel, vice president for government relations at software company Second Front.

“That would be an easy thing that a Cyber Force could take on to then be doled out to Cyber Command, et cetera. That’s for later. But that money exists in the budget today,” Stiefel, a former professional staff member at the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters. “By unifying that, by consolidating and then centralizing it, our proposition is you’re going to get a lot better return on your investment.”

The prospect of a Cyber Force is still dubious. There was some optimism of its creation at the beginning of the second Trump administration. Efforts in the annual defense policy bill have failed or been watered down in years past.

However, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, is planning to introduce an amendment to the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act to create a Cyber Force, Defense One reported.

That proposal, and others that could be introduced in the House, must survive multiple rounds of negotiations and a presidential signature before becoming law.

What A Cyber Force Could Look Like

In terms of where the Cyber Force would exist within DoD, the commission studied two alignments outlining pros and cons of each, without offering an opinion: one within the Department of the Army — akin to the Marine Corps under the Department of the Navy and the Space Force under the Department of the Air Force — and one as its own military department called the Department of the Cyber Force, which would then require its own service chief and secretary.

Core focus areas for the new Cyber Force would be offensive and defensive cyber operations. The report recommends leaving efforts related to defending the DoD Information Network to the services, which is currently CYBERCOM’s number one mission area. Given the DoDIN is a federated system in which each service owns slices of to perform its missions, the commissioners believed the individual services would be best postured to take ownership of its maintenance and defense.    

The proposed Cyber Force would take between 12 and 18 months to reach initial operating capacity, through a phased approach, the report states. As for the size of the Cyber Force, the report estimated a total of 33,000 troops, comprising 20,000 active duty, 3,500 to 5,000 part-time National Guardsmen, and roughly 5,000 to 6,000 civilian and contractor personnel.

A Cyber Force will look different than the current services do in terms of makeup and culture given the highly unique and technical nature of the work. For example, the report recommends its uniformed workforce consist only of commissioned officers and warrant officers — highly technical experts — with no enlisted cadre.

Stiefel drew parallels to other areas of great technical expertise, both in the military and the private sector. For example, the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment has personnel that are a mix of commissioned officers and warrant officers at the highest level of their discipline.

“What you’re going to see there is technical experts and managers who are also able to operate,” he said of the proposed Cyber Force makeup. “We believe that this is a mechanism which addresses that and especially for a force that’s so small it really has to be able to punch above its weight.”

Montgomery noted there will likely be a different mix of civilian and military personnel at operational units. While most services have almost entirely uniformed personnel serving in operational units, he said he “could imagine a world where it’s 50/50” military and civilian, similar to the National Security Agency.

The force will also require different echelons than traditional services, opting for task forces rather than squadrons and battalions, former Army Cyber Command commander Ed Cardon said.

“Having been the initial commander of Task Force Ares, which at the time was a top secret offensive cyber task force against ISIS, you need a lot of flexibility in organizational structure. So you see the widespread use of task forces. Now you’re going to have to have some sort of organizing principle, but the way that they’re presented does not have to be a 40 person team. It might be a three person team,” Cardon, told reporters, organized for the mission at hand with the requisite expertise.

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The “voluntary framework” in the executive order essentially asks that companies developing “covered frontier models” — as defined by the NSA —  give government agencies and select “trusted partners” in the private sector early access to their models for 30 days prior to publication. The EO does not detail how the NSA will define “covered frontier models,” although it does require the NSA to consult with a wide range of other agencies, from Commerce to Homeland Security to the Treasury.

While most of the system the executive order set up is indeed voluntary, there’s no opting-out of the NSA oversight. Instead, the document directs the NSA to “develop and maintain a classified benchmarking process to assess the advanced cyber capabilities of AI models” — that is, to assess whether or not any given AI could be a dangerously powerful tool for hackers. The AI developers themselves may or may not be informed of those assessments, “as appropriate.”

As Abundance Institute CEO Christopher Koopman warned in a post on X, “Being labeled a ‘covered frontier model’ isn’t voluntary at all.

“The NSA makes that call through a classified benchmark you can’t see or contest,” Koopman wrote. “Only the second step, when you hand over access, is the part you opt into. You can decline the program. You can’t decline the label.”

The executive order strives to strike a balance between two competing imperatives: It aims to shore up cybersecurity against AI-powered hacking, without imposing burdensome oversight that might slow down American AI developers.

RELATED: Top Pentagon tech officials optimistic Mythos-style AI tools will improve cyber defense

The cybersecurity threat is that the latest generative-AI models, most famously Claude Mythos, can discover thousands of previously unknown vulnerabilities in widely used software, revealing easy targets for attackers faster than defenders can fix them. After discovering Mythos’s unintended potential as a hacking tool, developer Anthropic voluntarily delayed publication of Claude Mythos to share a preview version with 150 key players in the cyber defense world, hoping a grand collaboration could patch the holes before they became known to foreign adversaries and cyber criminals.

The 30-day voluntary preview period announced today is much less than the 90 days envisioned by an earlier version of the executive order, which President Donald Trump publicly rejected just hours ahead of a planned signing ceremony last month. “[I] didn’t like certain aspects of it,” Trump told reporters at the time. “We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s gonna get in the way of that lead.”

White House AI advisor David Sacks, who reportedly led the charge against the original language, declared victory in a post on on X.com today: “The change in the EO from a 90 day to 30 day period is a game changer because it allows our AI labs to comply with the voluntary framework without delaying new model releases.”

“The threat now is a different spot. These new AI capabilities [are] lowering the barrier of entry and exposing more of our attack service,” David Markowitz, deputy chief information officer and chief data and analytics officer for the Army, said at the TechNet Cyber conference here today. “We really need to better understand our unified network, rapidly understand where those attacks may be coming in … and be able to ingest the threat and act faster than any adversary.”

In 2021, the Army sought to modernize its network, developing what it termed the unified network — a singular network for all of the service. Previously, the service siloed portions of its IT architecture between the enterprise level, used primarily at static locations leveraging common office functions, and the tactical or expeditionary space for battlefield communications and data.

With all data under now under a single architecture, Markowitz noted the service must better understand the ins and outs of the network, especially in the face of a growing threat of emerging AI tools that are making it easier for attackers to exploit holes.

“The ability to see a threat very rapidly and make a change and say, ‘That’s got to go off right now, it’s got to be patched, we’re going to do something very different because of threats in our knickers,’” he said. “We have not had that type of challenge. It is before us, and we need to be able to adapt rapidly, so that we can move faster than any adversary.”

The hardest barrier to these changes is likely cultural, he explained. It involves getting personnel the right training and changing the bureaucracy into more of an operational mindset as opposed to a compliance or checklist based posture.

Breaking Defense discussed how cyber defense is evolving to protect critical systems with Leidos’ Paul Welch, Senior Vice President, Business Area Lead, Defense Agencies, and Josh Salmanson, Vice President, Defensive Cyber Practice.

Breaking Defense: Describe the threat scenarios necessitating the need for defensive cyber techniques, especially those that are more proactive than reactive.

Welch: Let’s start with the 800-pound gorilla: AI. The use of AI by threat actors – both criminal and state sponsored – is increasing the risk across cyberspace in general. Specifically for the Department of War, as data becomes increasingly important to the department’s operations, the importance of that data availability and integrity also increases, in some cases exponentially. When that data is not available or perhaps cannot be trusted, the risk to operations rises dramatically.

Couple this increasing reliance and demand for data with the complexity of modern infrastructure and combat systems, along with the growing threat of AI-enabled adversaries exploiting vulnerabilities with those systems, and the need for a more proactive approach to cyber defense that is focused on that mission integrity becomes apparent.

Salmanson: It really starts at the beginning of the life cycle. We need to build systems that are more resilient by design. Too often, critical systems remain fragile because mission demands are continuous, leaving little time to address the technical debt that accumulates over time.

That fragility creates downstream risk. When a new vulnerability emerges, organizations may rush to patch systems at accelerated tempos, sometimes without fully testing the patch. In complex environments, those patches can unintentionally disrupt other mission-critical functions, creating operational instability.

The broader intention is to move much faster while also building more secure and resilient architectures from the start. Modern development, automation and security engineering practices are intended to help organization keep pace with increasingly AI-enabled threats. The things that we’re seeing right now, especially with the emergence of Mythos-class models and some other capabilities, suggest that operational tempos for defensive cyber activities may need to increase substantially.

What agencies and industry are seeing is these advanced models can identify vulnerabilities and exploit paths at speeds and scales that were previously difficult to achieve. In many cases, they are rapidly surfacing weaknesses that organizations did not realize existed. As a result, defenders will likely be forced to patch things faster. That’s going to put a tremendous strain on the operational and engineering teams. The challenge now is how to figure out how to respond to that increased burden without introducing instability into already complex environments.

How can we impose costs on adversaries and their cyber offense activities so that they’re slowed down?

Salmanson: In this context there are a lot of different ways defensive cyber operations can impose costs. Primarily, deception is a fantastic way to go. It’s part of every other military domain. The U.S. military has used deception in warfare forever and yet we haven’t really applied it in cyber.

It’s critical, because it’s the one thing that slows down the adversary in the absence of any real perimeter anymore. Identity is the new perimeter, and there are many, many more identities than people that use the systems now. Organizations must manage system accounts, automated services, AI activities, API integrations and cross-cloud connections. All those identities expand the attack surface and blur the boundaries of what is truly “inside” the environment.

As a result, it has become significantly harder for agencies and enterprises to distinguish legitimate activity from adversarial behavior. In many cases, the most effective way to identify an intruder is to introduce carefully designed deceptive elements into the environment – decoy credentials, false data, synthetic services or other lures that appear operationally valuable to an attacker.

If you’re using deception, they have to get in for you to deceive them. Is that not a bit of a failure?

Welch: They have to gain access to the part of the enterprise you want them to enter. There are many mechanisms and tradecraft techniques adversaries use to do that. You can channel and direct where an adversary goes by making a target appear attractive, interesting, and more accessible to them.

But where they’re actually going or potentially going is ultimately somewhere that is not useful to them. You’re imposing cost because the information they’re accessing is not real. They’re wasting their time and they’re exposing their own tactics, techniques and procedures because you’re observing them the entire time.

Salmanson: A lot of times when an adversary gets caught in a deceptive lure, they’re no longer on the target network that they were looking for anyway. They’ve been moved off into a very safe space where their tools, tactics and procedures can be observed. The adversaries think they’re still in the real environment, yet they’re in a hall of mirrors that’s totally under our control. If they attempt to get back into the real environment, we know how they got in the first time, because we can go back and track all of that forensically. Cyber deception does help and it does impose a tremendous amount of cost when it’s done right.

We talk about the enterprise as one monolithic thing, but obviously it’s not. What are the challenges of cyber defense when there are multiple enterprise networks?

Welch: Multiple infrastructures and multiple technologies within an infrastructure that are all interrelated and communicating [all have] seams and present vulnerabilities in those seams. You have multiple hosts and compute environments that also introduce vulnerabilities because of the seams and multiple applications that have multiple interactions.

More importantly, or equally as important, you have 40-plus defended areas under 40-plus purviews in terms of defensive cybersecurity providers across the entire department. The ability to gain a singular appreciation and a singular picture of situational awareness over all of the activity within the domain is virtually impossible.

[It’s important to] understand what is occurring within the Air Force portion of the enterprise versus the Navy portion of the enterprise when there may be activity that’s related across those domains that defenders need to be able to correlate. Then defenders must have a coordinated ability to respond to that activity. Even if just reacting to the adversary, coordinating security actions is important, when defensive operations shift to a more proactive approach, that coordination becomes critical. This need to enhance the ability to coordinate across the department is a priority of leadership and drives much of the innovation we bring to cyber operations.

You mentioned seams. What’s a seam in this world that we’re talking about right now? Why are they vulnerable?

Welch: Any time you have a warfighting force operating next to another warfighting force there is a potential gap in those forces’ operational areas. If you know where there is a seam between those two forces, then you have an operational vulnerability. How is it that you make sure that you’re coordinating the two? Closing that gap is all about command and control, having shared situational awareness of the activities and the lines of operation, and having a shared understanding of commanders’ intent and execution.

In what other ways is AI changing the cyber equation on both sides?

Salmanson: The biggest problem that defenders have today is that the volume and velocity and variety of attacks have changed dramatically and it gets worse every year. It’s an absolute hockey stick right now from the exponential explosion of attacks. It’s hard for systems to keep up.

The challenge is this: the environments that almost all of us have to defend are based on older architectures that have been sustained for two, three generations now. The industry keeps making incremental progress, which isn’t enough to face an exponential attack cadence. Organizations must change their approach to meet the level of threat. We are often making decisions based solely on cost, not on operational need.

My belief is that organizations and industries have to change the core hardware that runs enterprise software so defenders can keep up with the type of attacks that they’re seeing today and be able to respond much quicker. When the adversaries are driving Ferraris and the defenders are still driving a Ford Fiesta from 1982, it is clear the defenders are going to have some problems.

The industry is starting to make some very subtle changes, but unless you’re on the biggest platforms, you’re not getting the benefit of the exponentially faster hardware today. The difference between a CPU and a GPU is about a thousand times faster. If you’re going to fight, you might as well fight with the same advantage that your adversary has.

The spate of new orders, amounting to the largest international contracts package in the company’s recent history, sit under the European Union’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program and were awarded by Romania’s Directorate General for Armaments on May 29, according to a statement.

“To fulfil the orders, Rheinmetall will significantly expand its existing capacities in Romania, which have been in place for many years, and will also ensure technology transfer,” it noted, adding that it is “set to invest several hundred million euros” in the south-eastern European nation. Deliveries are slated to run from 2028 to 2030.

The list of new equipment covers 298 Lynx vehicles, most of which will be armored personnel carriers, accompanied by other reconnaissance, command post and medical variants; an undisclosed number of Skyranger air defense systems; as well as medium-caliber ammunition for air defense and armored personnel carriers. Rounding off the package are two offshore patrol and two diver support vessels.

Romania is due to become the second Lynx operator on NATO’s eastern flank after Hungary’s 2020 order of 218 vehicles valued at more than €2 billion.

Announcement of the Romanian mega order as a whole comes after Bucharest said in September that it would benefit from a SAFE allocation of €16.68 billion, noting at the time that the funding would go toward a series of “eligible projects” including ground-based air defense systems, air surveillance radars, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, combat and support ships, missiles and drones.

Behind Poland, Romania is the second largest beneficiary of the €150 billion SAFE scheme, which offers EU member states loans to bolster defense spending and finance high profile acquisitions.

“Our posture extends beyond our own digital networks into yours, our defense industrial base,” Department of Defense Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davie said at the TechNet Cyber conference here today. “A compromise at a small supplier can jeopardize a warfighter making a real time decision, and I don’t think that’s acceptable for any one of us in this room. That should make us all very uncomfortable, that that small of a compromise can impact a war fighter out at the edge. Let’s put a greater focus on our foundational cybersecurity.”

She noted that the security of the defense industrial base, the contractors and suppliers that provide the equipment for the department is warfighter security as well because any compromise to those networks means the capabilities at the edge are affected. As a result, she expressed a desire to move beyond compliance.

“Compliance does not equal security. It did not when I was in industry, and it does not from my seat where I am today. We must pursue a relentless focus on operational resilience, which is a byproduct, a dynamic fit for purpose cybersecurity posture,” she said.

In fact, the department has been looking to move away from a compliance focus for years, unveiling in 2019 the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), a framework mandating companies that do business with the Pentagon must achieve a base level of cybersecurity. The program has undergone several changes since being announced.

Davies told a small group of reporters last week that she will be talking a bit more about CMMC “at a later time.”

Overall, she told the TechNet audience today that the department is taking a paradigm shift in cybersecurity by transforming its cybersecurity program into a “unified, holistic, and risk-driven function,” with a bias for action.

She also announced there are changes coming to the office of the CIO in the coming months “driven by a singular, unyielding focus operationalizing our programs to better serve the warfighters.” She did not, however, offer specifics on what those changes will be.

This announcement comes as Israel has approved its largest-ever defense budget, and Israeli defense giants have announced record backlogs of orders.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said in the statement that the new export figures show “there is a clear and unmistakable thread connecting the IDF’s battlefield achievements across all fronts, the extraordinary capabilities of Israel’s defense industries, and the success of Israeli defense exports around the world.” 

Over half the export deals — 53 percent — were what Israel calls “mega-deals,” valued at over $100 million each.

“[M]issile, rocket, and air defense systems continued to lead in 2025, accounting for over a quarter (29%) of total deal volume,” according to the ministry. In contrast, missile, rocket and air defense systems made up 48 percent of deals in 2024 and 36 percent in 2023. 

The ministry said that deals for observation and optronics systems rose to 22 percent in 2025, up from 6 percent the previous year. Meanwhile, drones, previously a major export for Israel, made up just 4 percent of the country’s exports — a slight increase from 1 percent in 2024.

Radar and electronic warfare systems made up 11 percent exports in 2025, similar to the prior year’s 10 percent. Among other categories the ministry noted were “manned aircraft and avionics (11%), C4I and communication systems (7%), weapon stations and launchers (6%), drones and UAVs (4%), satellites and space systems (3%), vehicles and APCs (2%), intelligence, information and cyber systems (2%), maritime systems and platforms (2%), and ammunition and armaments (1%).”

As to where Israel was exporting its systems, in 2025 36 percent went to Europe and 32 percent went to Asia and the Pacific region, the numbers show. This is a stark difference from 2024 where Europe accounted for more than half of the exports at 54 percent. Meanwhile, 15 percent went to the Middle East and 13 percent went to North America.

The MoD noted that Israel’s defense industries have been operating “round-the-clock production for the IDF while simultaneously fulfilling contracts for foreign clients.” 

Israel has been fighting a multi-front war since the Hamas attack on the country on Oct. 7, 2023, and more recently has been fighting alongside the US in Operation Epic Fury. The conflicts have seen the first use of several systems, including the Arrow 3 and Barak naval system, and also the deployment of new systems such as laser air defenses. 

Part of the success in 2025’s government sales, according to the ministry, can be credited to the ministry’s strategy and reforms, like “the opening of new markets, the expansion of strategic partnerships with a range of countries, and significant easing of export licensing policies.”

Israel’s Ministry of Defense Director General Amir Baram agreed, crediting the jump in exports to Israel’s unique defense industry ecosystem. 

“It is also the result of a deep reform carried out by the Ministry over the past year to reduce regulation and open new markets, which led to landmark deals. Today, our force buildup budget relies heavily on these partnerships, yet we cannot stop there,” Baram said in today’s statement. 

He further mentioned the record numbers could be due to the country’s investment in research and development as well as in expanding munitions production. 

“This is the essential step for ensuring independence in critical munitions and interceptors, maintaining technological superiority, and generating Israel’s next surprises,” he added.

Katz said that the exports show confidence in Israel’s defense establishment. 

“These achievements are built on the IDF’s capabilities and those of our broader security forces – in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen,” adding that the exports were a “mirror” of Israel’s “strength, ingenuity, and the ability to think differently.”

The head of the ministry’s International Defense Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT), Yair Kulas, pointed to the global increase in demand for defense systems and how this has resulted in more global interest in Israel’s defense industry. “SIBAT and the Israel Ministry of Defense are leading a consistent and deliberate effort to expand Israel’s defense cooperation with countries around the world, to make the capabilities of the industry and the IDF accessible globally,” Kulas said. 

As with the other Israeli officials, he pointed to Israel’s development of effective systems and the combination of the defense industry’s work in supplying the IDF and also expanding global exports.

Government-to-government deals have been a key factor in the defense export increase as well, with 2025 seeing a record $10 billion.

“The historic record in government-to-government (GTG) deals — approximately $10 billion — is not only an economic figure; it reflects the deepening of strategic partnerships and the growing international trust that the Ministry has built with defense ministries around the world,” Kulas said in today’s statement.

This week on the Break Out, Breaking Defense Editor-in-chief Aaron Mehta sat down with Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies to discuss a new report estimating when the US may be able to replace certain munitions expended during Operation Epic Fury. The two then explore how that forecast could influence considerations among Chinese military leaders.

“The G-TEAD in general, we’re fighting against a cultural problem right, an identity. What does acquisition look like in the eyes of our warfighters, which is really important at the tactical edge,” Col. Christopher Hill said. “It’s really an understanding of what acquisition officers and operational commanders do. How are we a combat multiplier? And how we can take a system that is historically slow, and how can we weaponize that system to be flexible and responsive for the warfighter?” 

The establishment of the G-TEAD was part of the Army’s overarching goal of continuous transformation, Hill said. G-TEAD was born to get capabilities with a technology readiness level (TRL) of seven or above into the hands of the warfighters as quickly as possible, specifically within 180 days or less from when the directorate publishes white papers, Hill said. (There are nine total tech readiness levels, with seven marking when a prototype can successfully demo in an operational environment. Level nine is when a system is fully proven through successful mission operations.)

To date, the directorate has awarded two other transaction agreements (OTAs) for counter-drone systems — the Merops counter drone system and one made by Mountain Horse Solutions. The Merops was delivered to warfighters in that 180-day timeframe, while the Mountain Horse system is still waiting to be deployed, but is on schedule to be delivered within the goal timeframe. Additionally, an OTA for ground autonomy is set to be announced in the coming days, Hill said, adding that it will be delivered in that timeframe as well. 

The American-made Merops system has been used in Ukraine for over two years, Hill said. On Sept. 14, shortly after a Russian incursion into Poland, senior US service leaders alerted the G-TEAD that the Ukrainians were using the Merops — a capability that has also been used during Operation Epic Fury. Immediately following the incursion, Hill said the G-TEAD sent soldiers into Ukraine to assess the system, made by American company Perennial Autonomy, and then decided to purchase the system then and there. Less than 180 days later, the company was on contract with the Army and the tech was in the hands of US soldiers defending the Eastern Flank.

“So from the time we understood what the problem set was, there was a contract written with the company the day we showed up in Europe. From the time we got there into the time it showed up as a program, I want to say it was 148 days,” Hill said. “That is atypical. That is not what happens within acquisition.”  

Related: As drones menace European airspace, US Army tests c-UAS systems in Germany

Hill explained that after the white papers are posted for a specific technology area, hundreds of companies respond and about 15 companies are then selected to take part in exercises called Accelerated Capability Events (ACEs). Around five winners are selected from the competitions and eventually one finalist wins the OTA. Hill said the other winners still “win agreements” so they can be put on contract at any time. 

“We don’t necessarily award, but we absolutely have five companies that are awardable, they’ve been competed, they never have to go through another competition with anyone else in the government, anyone can go to that company,” he said. 

All of the ACEs so far have taken place in US Army Europe and Africa’s theater, but in either November or December, the first one will take place in US Army Pacific theater, Hill said. 

In terms of how the G-TEAD prioritizes the technology it’s looking for, Hill said it comes directly from the commanding generals of the Army Service Component Commands (ASCCs), but the G-TEAD also has somewhat of a say. Hill said his team looks at the larger Army capability gaps through the service’s Forge database, which is a “data environment facilitating the synchronization and integration of modernization processes enabling Army modernization enterprise collaboration and a common operation picture of progress,” according to the Army. 

“We want to make sure that we’re just not answering his problems, but we’re answering the problems of the greater Army, because our goal is always to transition to answer a greater Army program, while at the same time supporting that specific ASCC,” Hill said. 

In addition to a change of culture within the service, Hill said two factors have “changed dramatically” to allow the G-TEAD to move as fast as it has: authorities and access. 

“ASCCs have always had requirements, what they’ve never had is acquisition authority, and they’ve never had access to RDT&E [research, development, test and evaluation], and we bring both,” Hill said. “Without those two would not have resulted in much, but putting us at the top of the edge and giving us that is really what’s resulting in us being us.” 

In the current landscape of evolving threats, hybrid warfare, and rapid technological change, simulation enables multinational forces to rehearse joint operations, test force structures, and sharpen decision-making in realistic, data-driven settings. It strengthens interoperability by aligning tactics, communications, and command structures before deployment, turning insight into action faster and ensuring forces are prepared to anticipate and outpace emerging challenges.

A Unified, Multinational Simulation Environment

Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Center for Experimentation and Simulation (ACES) offers a single, integrated modeling and simulation (M&S) platform that unifies assets, data, and scenarios so NATO allies can plan, rehearse, and assess multinational operations with unprecedented fidelity, speed, and interoperability.

The ACES open architecture system allows any platform across air, land, sea, cyber, or space to  “plug and play” within the virtual arena. The platform supports dynamic federation, which means nations can contribute live or synthetic models in real time, creating a shared virtual battlespace, and can do so through integration with their existing simulation capabilities or with newly acquired tools.

Joint exercise planning and preparation are streamlined with scenario authoring tools that let multinational staff cocreate campaign level exercises in a common workspace. ACES’ rapid rerun capability means minor adjustments to force composition or rules of engagement can be evaluated within minutes, dramatically shortening the planning to execution cycle.

Enhancing Readiness & Situational Awareness

The platform excels at “what if” analyses, allowing emerging technologies such as hypersonic weapons, autonomous swarms, and directed energy systems to be inserted virtually alongside legacy platforms. This provides NATO decisionmakers with quantifiable force level impacts and enables lifecycle cost modeling that links performance data to logistics and sustainment considerations.

Commanders benefit from a real-time digital twin of the battlespace, overlaying live sensor data with simulated adversary actions. Interactive decision trees allow rapid assessment of alternative courses of action without committing physical assets. And, automated after-action reviews, deliver performance dashboards that create verifiable readiness metrics across the alliance.

Enabling the Collective Edge

ACES takes live, virtual and constructive training and delivers it in a single, integrated platform that enables commanders to understand force organization, plan for contested logistics and much more. Imagine you are a commander planning a multinational exercise that will field air, land and sea assets. Your troops are training on a ground range, your pilots are flying the scenario in a simulator, and you need to understand how each element will interact against a defined threat.  With ACES, you can connect every asset, run, pause and rerun the same scenario, and evaluate the joint performance, seeing how everything works together and bringing troops home safely after every mission. 

By delivering a shared sandbox, ACES shortens the feedback loop between concept, prototype, and fielding, ensuring NATO stays ahead of peer adversaries. The common M&S language reinforces alliance doctrines, reduces misinterpretation, and builds trust among partners. Our approach to ACES protects sovereign data while enabling coalition-wide insight, delivering the edge for collective defense. 

ACES can accelerate joint training, improve capability assessment, and deliver the next level of operational awareness for commanders and forces throughout the alliance by knitting together the assets, data and expertise of every member nation into a shared virtual battlefield that tests concepts and prepares forces. Lockheed Martin stands ready to partner with NATO and its member states to operationalize ACES, ensuring that the alliance’s collective edge remains sharp, resilient, and adaptable for the challenges of tomorrow.

About the Author Raashi Quattlebaum – Vice President, Land & Maritime Solutions, Lockheed Martin. With more than two decades of experience across aerospace and defense, Raashi currently leads key projects across test, training, and simulation, driving innovation and growth in these critical areas.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense said that the French government have informed Jerusalem “of its decision to bar Israel’s official participation” in the event, which takes place June 15-18 outside of Paris. 

Per the IMOD, the move serves as “a ban on government representatives attending the exhibition; a ban on opening an Israeli national pavilion; and a restriction limiting Israeli defense industries to displaying air defense products only, with offensive systems explicitly excluded.” 

The ministry accused France of applying this policy “selectively and discriminatorily.” It said this is a violation of norms governing international defense exhibitions.

“This is a disgraceful decision, one that reeks of political and commercial calculation, and regrettably, it comes as no surprise,” the IMOD continued. “It fits a deeply troubling pattern in French conduct in recent years — a pattern that has consistently placed France on the wrong side of history.” 

That last point is a reference to the ongoing issues Israeli has found with French-based defense conferences that traces back to the 2024 edition of Eurosatory, when France made a more sweeping decision to ban Israeli companies entirely from the show in the wake of the war in Gaza. A French court reversed the decision days before the exhibition. 

The 2024 ban was a surprise, but set in motion future bans in France. At the Paris Air Show Israeli companies were allowed to set up their booths, only to have them placed behind a black barricade right at the start of the event. The organizers had also attempted to have Israeli companies remove offensive weapons from the show. France had appeared to end bans on Israeli companies in November 2025, in the wake of the Gaza ceasefire, but apparently that situation changed. 

An inquiry by Breaking Defense to the French Embassy in Israel regarding the 2026 Eurosatory ban did not receive a comment by press time. 

Jerusalem also indicated there may be an ulterior motive behind trying to bar Israeli firms: France is “hiding behind a pretense of political justification to exclude Israeli offensive defense systems from an international forum — systems that have proven far superior to their French counterparts,” the IMOD wrote. 

Despite the bans and barricades, Israeli companies have sought to attend the shows in past years and will do so again in 2026. The reason is simple: Israeli companies have seen increasing sales in Europe in recent years. For instance, in 2024 of Israel’s $14.7 billion in defense exports, 54 percent were for European customers.

Most notably, Israeli defense giants Elbit Systems and Rafael Advance Defense Systems confirmed to Breaking Defense they will attend the show, although Elbit said it was more focused on the clear-in ILA Air Show in Berlin, which starts next week. Rafael has a webpage devoted to Eurosatory 2026, where it highlights lasers, counter-UAS systems and precision strike capabilities. 

IAI, the third of Israel’s major firms, is also focused on ILA where is it highlighting close cooperation between Germany and Israel. The company confirmed to Breaking Defense’s that it would be attending Eurosatory. 

However, smaller companies seem to be caught in limbo a bit, because they often exhibit with the ministry’s International Defense Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT) which has led delegations of them to other events. For instance, in mid-May SIBAT led a delegation of 32 Israeli companies to the second Finnish-Israeli Defense Industry Seminar in Helsinki. They also led 11 companies to SOF Week in Florida. In October 2025 the ministry did the same at ADEX in Seoul. Thirty Israeli companies were expected to attend Eurosatory. 

Without the ability to set up a national pavilion, those smaller firms may be out of luck, as procuring individual booth space is both difficult two weeks out from a conference and likely prohibitively expensive for these companies.

UPDATED 6/4/2026 at 11:45 a.m. ET: This story has been updated to include IAI’s confirmation that it will be attending Eurosatory.

The following companies will complete at-sea testing starting next month: 

• Leidos
• Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII)
• Sea Machines
• Saronic Technologies
• Galliano Marine Services
• PacMar Technologies
• Birdon

Companies who successfully complete the at-sea testing, which is expected to wrap up in October, will receive $15 million and qualify for follow-on production, the Navy said in a news release on Friday. 

Leidos has several MUSV designs, including the Seahawk that is scheduled to accompany the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt on its upcoming deployment.

“Leidos brings more than a decade of investment and operational experience in maritime autonomy, including Seahawk, which joined the Navy’s operational fleet in April,” Conrad Chun, Leidos Defense communications vice president, said in a statement to Breaking Defense. “The effort aligns with the Navy’s priority of rapidly fielding this critical capability.”

Meanwhile, HII has its Romulus family of USVs, powered by the company’s AI-driven control suite known as Odyssey, which the company credits as a “key differentiator of our solution.”

“Demonstrated across programs supporting the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, and allied partners, Odyssey enables intuitive command and control of autonomous platforms and swarms across domains, enhancing fleet lethality, survivability, and operational effectiveness,” Andy Green, executive vice president of HII and president of HII’s Mission Technologies division, said in a statement today.

Sea Machines previously announced in February that its STEAMRACER MUSV design was competing in the Navy’s Modular Attack Surface Craft (MASC) program that preceded the MUSV marketplace. Saronic announced Friday that its Marauder MUSV was kicking off on-water trials. 

PacMar and Birdon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Breaking Defense. Galliano Marine Services could not be reached by Breaking Defense.

The Navy confirmed to Breaking Defense on May 22 that seven MUSV marketplace submissions had been selected to advance to the prototype evaluation phase. USNI News first reported that seven designs were chosen. 

The Navy revealed the marketplace as part of a new acquisition model designed to replace MASC, and provide a blueprint for obtaining other autonomous systems, Rebecca Gassler, the portfolio acquisition executive (PAE) for robotic and autonomous systems (RAS), told reporters in March. 

Gassler didn’t disclose then the mission set these vessels will fulfill, but said there’s several operational needs they could complete, supporting tailored force packages detailed in Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle’s Fighting Instructions guidance, released in February.

Designs submitted were required to carry at least two 40-ft shipping containers, and travel 2,500 nautical miles at 25 knots in sea state 4 conditions while outfitted with a 25-metric-ton load on the payload deck, the solicitation document for the marketplace said.

Marketplace funding originated from President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that passed in July 2025, and included roughly $2.1 billion for MUSVs.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include comment from Leidos.

“We have already completed key ground tests this year and are uniquely positioned with Apex to rapidly accelerate and scale affordable production to defend the homeland,” Ryan Tintner, vice president and general manager for Northrop’s space superiority systems division, said in news release.

The company is self-funding the planned demonstration under the Space Force’s novel prize competition first reported by Breaking Defense last September. The service in April announced that it had granted 20 contracts — collectively totaling a potential $3.2 billion — to 12 firms for the SBI program.

According to Northrop, its demonstration is “building on the $1 billion company-led investment in missile-defense technology,” and “[w]ith successful ground-test demonstrations completed this year, the company is on track to deliver on-orbit capability in 2027.”

Startup Apex Space, headquartered in Los Angeles, was founded in 2022 to build commoditized satellite busses primarily designed for providers of large constellations of low Earth orbit satellites.

“Apex was founded specifically to support proliferated constellations like Golden Dome,” Ian Cinnamon, CEO and co-founder, said in the Northrop release. “This partnership will enable operational, constellation-scale space-based missile defense and allow us to rapidly support an urgent need.”

Apex previously announced its own demonstration of a self-funded SBI called Project Shadow, using one of its busses as the mothership and an interceptor vehicle, by the end of 2026.

The company could not be reached by press time for comment as to whether that demonstration will still take place in the wake of the new partnership with Northrop.

Inspections began last week, the spokesperson confirmed to Breaking Defense today. It’s not clear how long it will take for the entire fleet to be inspected and resume normal operations.  

The Air Force announced May 19 it was grounding the fleet of training jets “[o]ut of an abundance of caution” after a T-38 crashed in Mississippi on May 12. Both pilots safely ejected.

The cause of the Mississippi mishap has not been disclosed. When the aircraft was subsequently grounded, the Air Force said T-38s would have to be individually inspected and receive any necessary corrective maintenance before they could resume flying.

An “operational pause” for the Talon fleet was formally lifted May 29 after that inspection process was finalized. “Collaborative engineering and maintenance teams across the joint force have finalized the inspection procedures to be accomplished to ensure a safe and thorough return to flight,” the Air Force said in a press release. 

Affected aircrews have been instructed to maximize simulator training in the meantime. T-38 builder Northrop Grumman referred comment to the Air Force.

The T-38 entered service in 1961 and remains a critical tool for Air Force pilot training, which young aviators use to learn the ropes before moving on to platforms like fighter jets and bombers. Given its age, the T-38 has become increasingly difficult to maintain. 

The Air Force plans to replace the legacy Talon with the new T-7 Red Hawk built by Boeing. The Red Hawk’s more modern design, officials say, can better prepare pilots for next-generation aircraft. The Air Force last month approved the T-7 for production, and expects the jet will be ready to fly new pilots in 2028.

Even if it takes the company as long as a year to get back into orbit due to the damage to the pad, the Space Force’s current plans don’t envision manifesting the rocket under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 program until 2028 at the earliest.

“For NSSL, there’s time to get [New Glenn] back on track,” said one industry representative.

In addition, the Space Force always can fall back on SpaceX to carry its payloads if it becomes necessary down the road to reschedule launches planned for New Glenn.

“The most immediate setbacks are to Amazon’s deployment of its LEO [low Earth orbit] constellation and testing of the lunar lander for NASA. NSSL will be okay because it can still rely on the [SpaceX] Falcon 9 workhorse,” said Todd Harrison, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Indeed, in a show of support, the Space Force did not backtrack on its award to Blue Origin of an NSSL Lane 1 task order for launch of a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which was made just hours before the accident.

“The U.S. Space Force (USSF) and NRO remain committed partners with Blue Origin and will work with them on the New Glenn vehicle anomaly experienced during its integrated vehicle hot fire test yesterday evening,” the service said in its May 29 announcement.

The NSSL program’s Lane 1 contracts small-to-medium launch services for its less risky and/or complex missions such as those going to LEO. The Space Force in July 2024 tapped Blue Origin, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA) for its pool of potential providers of Lane 1 missions through June 2029.

The NRO mission is the first to be tasked to New Glenn under that pool contract. The satellite is slated to lift off to LEO sometime between late 2027 and early 2028.

“The National Security Space Launch program will continue working closely with our Blue Origin partners to help identify the root cause and implement corrective actions,” Col. Eric Zarybnisky, acting Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said in the service’s release.

Meanwhile, Blue Origin has yet to be certified for launches under NSSL Lane 2, which covers high-value, must-go payloads and/or those headed to orbits that are more difficult to achieve. The company has completed three of the four successful missions required under its tailored accreditation plan for the Space Force. NSSL Lane 1 providers, by contrast, do not need to be certified.

“At this time, the full impact of the integrated launch vehicle hot fire test anomaly on Blue Origin’s NSSL certification process is unknown,” a spokesperson for Space Systems Command (SSC) told Breaking Defense.

SSC’s System Delta 80, which manages the NSSL program, “remains committed to working alongside Blue Origin to identify the root cause, implement corrective actions, and address any second and third order effects resulting from the anomaly,” the spokesperson said.

However, the spokesperson stressed that the accident “does not eliminate Blue Origin from the NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 certification process. Our NSSL Certification team continues to partner closely with Blue Origin on both certification flights and the extensive engineering insight required to independently validate the New Glenn Launch System.”

The service in April 2025 contracted Blue Origin, SpaceX and ULA for the NSSL Lane 2 pool, with 54 total missions expected to be tasked between fiscal year 2025 and 2029. The service generally awards individual task orders two years prior to a planned mission, thus the contract funds launches through FY31.

At the time of the award, the Space Force envisioned New Glenn undertaking only seven launches, with the first not expected to lift off until sometime in FY28.

This story was updated 06/02/26 at 1:25 pm to include a statement from Space Systems Command.

“Norway’s action has created more than just a bilateral contract dispute. It raises a deeply troubling question about whether international agreement and strategic partnership can still be trusted at all,” Nordin said during a plenary session at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore.

Reports emerged in early May that Oslo was reneging on a defense exports approval for the NSM.

“Norwegian authorities have concluded to revoke certain export licenses related to specific technologies. This change is due to Norway’s stricter controls of certain technologies,” a spokesperson for Norway’s ministry of foreign affairs told Breaking Defense at the time.

Nordin during the Shangri La Dialogue also slammed the “conspicuously muted” international response to the decision, saying that it was an indication that some powerful countries and their allies were above scrutiny. 

“The silence of many surrounding Norway’s unilateral decision was particularly revealing. No serious concern was raised about the integrity of contracts or accountability,” Nordin said.  

He later told reporters on the sidelines of the dialogue that he had conveyed his disappointment over the canceled sale during a meeting with Norwegian Defense Minister Tore O. Sandvik.

Nordin also broached on the topic of compensation and a refund of the money already paid to manufacturer Kongsberg for the missiles during the meeting, which according to Malaysia’s official news agency Bernama amounted to more than 500 million Malaysian ringgit ($126.1 million), or 95 percent of the contract value. 

When asked about the potential for compensation, Sandvik told Singapore’s Channel NewsAsia that any refund and compensation was a matter between Malaysia and Kongsberg.

Sandvik further said he apologized for the cancellation of the sale during the meeting with Nordin, but defended the decision by saying that it was made due to new laws regarding the transfer of sensitive military equipment. 

What should not be lost in the shuffle, though, is the need to redeploy theater nuclear forces to the Western Pacific.

North Korea routinely threatens to turn American, South Korean, and Japanese cities into a “sea of fire.” China continued to build up its nuclear arsenal, including precision missiles designed for low-yield nuclear attacks in East Asia. Yet Washington has, since the end of the Cold War, not deployed an offsetting regional nuclear deterrent.

While the US maintains ballistic missile submarine patrols in the Pacific, these stealthy platforms are generally loaded with less discriminate high-yield weapons meant to be held in reserve as a secure second-strike capability. These systems were designed primarily to deter an attack on the American homeland, not an attack on US and allied forces overseas. Allies and adversaries alike know this.

Our allies—particularly South Korea and Japan—have become increasingly concerned about the credibility of America’s commitment to their defense, in part due to North Korea’s and China’s nuclear breakout. Indeed, these concerns are so acute that many South Koreans are again thinking of establishing their own nuclear weapons program.

Some 70 percent of the South Korean population believes their country needs an indigenous nuclear deterrent, and senior government officials have even echoed this sentiment. No less than a sitting South Korean president, albeit one who would soon be removed from office, suggested that his country will have to either build its own deterrent or request the redeployment of US nuclear weapons to the peninsula.

Similar attitudes are growing in Japan. In November 2025, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi refused to reaffirm her country’s commitment to not possess, produce, or allow nuclear weapons to enter Japanese territory. Other influential voices in Tokyo have explicitly recommended a reassessment of the prohibition of nuclear weapons on Japanese territory. They go so far as to recommend that Washington should consider bringing nuclear weapons into Japan under certain circumstances and that Japanese delivery systems might one day carry US-controlled nuclear weapons.

The nuclear dam in East Asia has not yet broken. But something needs to change — or else it likely will in the years ahead. By reintroducing US theater nuclear forces to East Asia—first in South Korea, and then more gradually in Japan — Washington can reassure its anxious allies, while also bolstering its own national security interests. 

For South Korea, the NATO model would apply. Seoul would agree to host B61 gravity bombs on its territory, under US custody. A follow-on move would be to bring Seoul into a nuclear-sharing arrangement, in which the US certifies the Korean F-35A fleet to carry US-controlled gravity bombs in crisis or wartime. The US could — if it proves feasible — pull modified W80 warheads out of the reserve stockpile for Tomahawk cruise missiles. In a perfect conception, the long-term goal would be for the US and South Korea to operate road-mobile launchers armed with nuclear-capable Long-Range Hypersonic Weapons; however, such a capability is not actively under development for now, and would likely require a greater political push inside South Korea.

Given the unique political circumstances surrounding nuclear weapons in Tokyo, the process of incorporating Japan into the mix would be slower. The US would first station B61 gravity bombs on Guam and gradually have Japanese crews operate dual-capable aircraft from Anderson Air Force Base. Next, Japanese and American crews would operate the nuclear-capable Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon from Guam. And, should political conditions become amenable in the long run, nuclear-capable delivery systems could even operate on Japanese territory.

These changes are necessary to not only inhibit friendly nuclear proliferation but also to deter adversaries whose growing nuclear capabilities might embolden them to run greater risks.

The current paucity of US nuclear options in East Asia could give China the idea that its neighborhood is safe for conventional war-making. This is a real concern now that China boasts the largest navy and concentration of missiles in the world, as well as the fastest-growing fleet of fifth-generation aircraft.

If Washington lacks forward-deployed, low-yield nuclear weapons, Beijing may feel confident that it can press its conventional advantages without drawing a US nuclear response. It might calculate that the burden of escalation falls squarely on Washington, and that a US president would ultimately refrain from responding with a high-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile. All this might increase China’s willingness to roll the dice and initiate a conventional fight in the first place.

And should Beijing find itself stymied by Washington in a protracted conventional slugfest, Beijing might turn to its diverse menu of theater nuclear options to break the stalemate and coerce Washington into backing down. Beijing may perceive a gap in America’s comparatively bare menu of theater options, and this gap may incentivize Beijing to escalate its way out of a failing conventional war.

While the United States could respond to such a theater nuclear attack with a submarine-launched ballistic missile, this strategic option is far less credible than a more discriminate low-yield option based within East Asia. If Washington were to employ nuclear forces generated from the continental US, it is more likely that China or North Korea would feel justified in attacking the American homeland in retaliation. And this prospect might self-deter a US president from responding in the first place with nuclear weapons.

But if Washington were to employ a forward-deployed option instead, China might refrain from going up the proverbial escalation ladder and tacitly agree to return the fighting to the conventional level — maybe even terminate the conflict altogether. In this sense, broadening the range of US theater options would reinforce deterrence by shifting the burden of escalation back to China.

While some might contend that stationing US theater forces in the Pacific would provoke China and dash hopes of managing escalation in a conflict, China crossed that threshold long ago.

It is Beijing that illegally built artificial islands in the critical sea lanes of the South China Sea for military purposes. It is Beijing that routinely encroaches on the airspace and territorial waters of America’s closest Asian allies. It is Beijing that makes no bones about blockading and subjugating Taiwan in the name of “national rejuvenation.” And it is Beijing that has deployed several hundred nuclear-capable delivery systems that can hold allies hostage across the Western Pacific. Reintroducing theater forces would therefore help stabilize a region already destabilized by China.

It has been said that the US uses nuclear weapons every day to deter adversaries and reassure allies. Critics may dismiss this statement as cliché, but like most clichés it holds a fundamental truth. The US needs to begin “using” nuclear weapons to stabilize the deteriorating military balance in the Western Pacific. And to do that, it needs to begin deploying nuclear weapons within the region.

The time to start is now.

Kyle Balzer is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Robert Peters is the Senior Research Fellow for Strategic Deterrence and the Assistant Director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation.

Of Israel’s three defense giants, Elbit is the only one that is a public company, while Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems are state-owned, so Elbit’s financials can often give a sense of how Israel’s defense industry is doing.

“Our strategic positioning reflects our evolution into a fully integrated end-to-end defense provider across land, sea and air. With demand rising well above historical levels, we continue to focus on order execution,” Elbit’s President and CEO Bezhalel Machlis said. He added that the company was scaling production capacity and increasing use of robotics and AI in automation. 

The company said that backlog growth in this quarter was “driven mainly by Israel and Asia, with approximately 71% of the backlog attributable to orders outside Israel. About 49% of the backlog is expected to be performed during the remainder of 2026 and in 2027.” In general the company’s revenues come from a mix of sectors, including C4I, cyber, ISTAR, electronic warfare, ammunition, unmanned aerial systems and lasers.

The company has recently also announced the acquisition of Blue White Robotics by Elbit’s subsidiary Fuse and also a $350 million deal for upgrades on Main Battle Tanks for an unnamed customer.

A big part of that backlog is of course from Israel itself, which has planned record defense spending in the wake of the war in Gaza, as well as the more recent military effort against Iran. But Israel’s defense exports have reached record levels in recent years, as countries around the globe rush to upgrade their militaries and acquire munitions and new technology.

Along those lines, on May 26 Elbit announced a $1.4 billion deal with an unnamed European customer for “extensive military modernization programs” to be performed over a five year period. While the company avoided sharing any real details about the customer or the program, an announcement said it includes “a variety of uncrewed autonomous solutions, advanced networked land electronic warfare (EW), precision-guided munitions (artillery and air-to-ground), coupled with electro-optical designating and reconnaissance systems, all networked by software-defined radios (SDR).”

The company says that this will enable the customer to field an advanced and modern army — appearing to point to a customer in a country in central or eastern Europe which needs more modernization than other Western militaries.

Machlis noted that “our proven experience working with numerous armed forces worldwide, together with our strong in‑house development capabilities and leading‑edge technological expertise, continue to drive growing demand for our solutions and position us as a trusted partner for long‑term military modernization programs.”

The new deal for Elbit follows an increasing footprint in several European countries. In late April, Elbit announced the opening of a new facility in Chitila, Romania that focuses on unmanned aerial systems. Elbit said at the time that this was a “milestone in the company’s ongoing expansion across Europe.”

On April 6, the company also announced a $750 million deal through Israel’s Ministry of Defense to supply the Hellenic Ministry of National Defense with its Precise and Universal Launching System (PULS), an artillery system. And in August 2025 Elbit announced a similarly large $1.63 billion contract for an unnamed European customer. Israeli media reported that the customer was Serbia.