Defense Tech and Acquisition News
The need to produce capabilities at speed and scale continues.
Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition.
The Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth to be the next Secretary of Defense.
Think Tanks highlight Ukraine’s commercial acquisitions and a high-low mix.
The Air Force, Navy, and Marines continue to integrate autonomy in their Force Designs while the Army wants to better integrate offensive and defensive fires.
Space continues to be a growing marketplace with some big shifts coming soon.
Below we capture the interim department leadership in the new administration.
Top Stories
Why Numbers, Not Just Tech, Will Win Future Wars
Modern Warfare has become a battle of numbers. Yet no longer is the main data point the number of troops but rather the number of systems and their cost.
Mass matters now more than ever because warfare has become democratized. Small, one-way drones - which have effectively become piloted munitions, are relevantly cheap yet extremely effective.
The U.S. military industrial complex has created incredibly complex, expensive, exquisite products for the last half-century.
The U.S. military industrial complex has created incredibly complex, expensive, exquisite products for the last half-century.
China focused on cheaper systems that, in mass, can destroy these large systems.
If the PLA fires five DF-21 missiles that cost $25M each at the Ford Class Carrier, only one needs to get through to complete a mission kill.
The cost of the PLAN to destroy a $13B asset could be only $125M.
Or about 1% of the cost of its target.
In the Red Sea, the Navy has been shooting down Houthi attack drones that cost around $40K with two $1M missiles) or 2% of the cost of the target.
The battlefield in Eastern Europe is now littered with hundreds of thousands of drones with Ukrainians burning through 20,000 and 40,000 drones per month.
An FPV drone, can be built for under $1000 and fly (one-way) up to 25km (with an extended-range antenna) with munitions to destroy a variety of targets.
Luckily, DoD initiated a way to mass produce multiple thousands of smaller, more attributable or one-way systems, through the Replicator Initiative.
Yet Replicator 1 is not complete. We are still an order of magnitude off. Our forces don’t need 100 drones, nor 1,000 drones but over 100,000 drones per month.
China understands the concept of mass – the PLA reportedly submitted a purchase order of 1 million attack drones.
Our adversaries are out producing us right now and doing more to integrate modern warfare doctrine into their fighting force.
We need more low-cost systems at scale. We need more attention to the integration of these systems into our warfighters training concepts. We need to focus more on lethality to deter and if necessary, defeat our adversaries.
Our Take: Yes, 100%, DoD is still too highly dependent on exquisite systems that are vulnerable and too few in number (with no growth path or affordability). Our colleague Dan Ward wrote a great piece in 2011 on how its time to stop building Death Stars and build more droids. Turns out George Lucas had the answers to DoD’s force projection challenges all along.
Build a High-Low Mix to Enhance America’s Warfighting Edge and Deter China
Stacie Pettyjohn, Carlton Haelig, Becca Wasser and Josh Wallin
The military balance in the Indo-Pacific is shifting. China’s military modernization has greatly expanded its inventory of ships, planes, missiles, and drones—and with it, Beijing’s ability to alter the status quo.
The PLA has significantly increased the scope and scale of its coercive military tactics in the region, asserting its territorial claims in the South and East China Seas and conducting increasingly threatening maneuvers around Taiwan.
The U.S. military does not have a force equipped with the appropriate mix of capabilities and a concept for how to employ them to defeat the PLA.
The first days and weeks of a large-scale war with China would place immense demands on weapons stockpiles, and there would be considerable attrition of large platforms—even more so if the fight becomes protracted.
Although exquisite capabilities—such as stealthy aircraft, attack submarines, and long-range missiles—remain essential to defeating Chinese aggression, the United States cannot afford, nor can it build quickly, enough high-end weapons.
DoD has moved too slowly in the development and integration of autonomous systems across all domains and warfighting missions.
Risk-aversion has limited U.S. willingness to field and integrate autonomous weapons into the Joint Force, constraining the development of new warfighting concepts.
Imagine complex salvos that contain cheap autonomous systems along with high-end missiles as an effective way of penetrating defenses and damaging targets.
Recommendations
End the risk-averse approach to testing and evaluating multidomain autonomous systems and fully leverage DoD Directive 3000.09 to get them into the Joint Force for validation and integration.
Develop a warfighting concept for the Indo-Pacific that determines the most effective way of integrating high-cost exquisite platforms with lower-cost attritable systems to achieve key missions.
Encourage a problem-driven, rapid, and agile acquisition process that solves key operational problems, incorporating end-user feedback to enable the DoD to get a greater variety of platforms into the hands of operators at speed and scale.
Immediately increase the production quantity of exquisite munitions and invest in spare production capacity for critical large weapons platforms during wartime.
How Ukraine Rebuilt Its Military Acquisition System Around Commercial Technology
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the profound vulnerabilities of its defense industry became clear - serving as a catalyst for Ukrainian policymakers, defense officials, and private sector actors to undertake a sweeping transformation of the country’s defense acquisition and technology ecosystem.
Long reliant on Soviet-era legacy technology and monopolistic state entities, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex struggled to respond effectively to the sudden and intense demands of modern warfare.
A central aspect of this transformation has been a strategic shift toward integrating commercial technologies into military development, production, and deployment processes.
Recognizing that the traditional centralized procurement and manufacturing practices were ill-suited to the rapidly changing realities of the battlefield, the government implemented critical changes in military R&D, and procurement processes in order to leverage private-sector innovation and expertise.
Key Regulatory Changes
Grow private sector partnerships. The government needed to expand its pool of defense contractors beyond state-owned enterprises by engaging with startups and other innovative firms.
Leverage commercial and dual-use technologies. Facing a numerically superior adversary, the Ukrainian military required advanced capabilities—such as software, robotics, and AI—to gain an advantage on the battlefield.
Move faster in adopting and fielding new technology. The Ukrainian government has implemented streamlined procurement cycles to expedite the delivery of mission-critical capabilities to frontline forces.
Ensure immediate battlefield relevance. Ukrainian military leadership has prioritized capabilities and services that address urgent operational needs and requirements and deliver tangible benefits on the ground.
Example of Major Process Change (Requirements)
Before 2022
A top-down system: the General Staff set Military Equipment and Weaponry (MEW) requirements, which defined operational needs, including any necessary R&D.
These requirements were then formalized into budget requests and justifications by the MOD and incorporated into the State Defense Order (SDO), the central document that guided all defense procurement for Ukraine’s 16 authorized agencies.
The SDO adopted a three-year planning cycle in 2017, allowing for more effective allocation of resources and giving manufacturers more confidence in future demand.
Now
The General Staff remains the primary authority defining MEW requirements however the requirements increasingly reflect needs reported directly from the front line.
Quasi-governmental initiatives such as Brave1—led by the Ministry of Digital Transformation—enables companies and startups to understand the armed forces’ most urgent needs and propose solutions accordingly.
In the development process, there is now direct interaction between military forces and industry engineers which allows firsthand communication of operational requirements from the battlefield and rapid iteration of new products.
This communication bypasses traditionally long requirement cycles within the General Staff and formal requests through the MOD. As a result, engineers can quickly update and refine their products in response to evolving battlefield conditions and adversary capabilities, sometimes even while being forward deployed.
Recommendations for DoD
Significantly increase its procurement from commercial firms and startups to test and deploy off-the-shelf capabilities or readily available prototypes. Reallocate a dedicated portion of its acquisition budget toward commercial technology solutions and emerging firms. Clear multi-year commitments would provide the demand stability that investors and entrepreneurs require, ultimately fueling breakthroughs in areas like AI, robotics, and autonomous systems.
Decentralize acquisition authorities and provide combatant commands with direct control over a greater share of the budget to rapidly field new tech. Empowering combatant commands to shape requirements, allocate funding, and experiment with new technologies would accelerate the delivery of tailored solutions in domains such as C2, data integration, and network resiliency.
Reduce market-entry barriers by scaling and tailoring streamlined acquisition procedures for specific systems and programs of record. DOD should expand and refine existing streamlined acquisition mechanisms and develop new, targeted processes to meet urgent operational needs. CSOs have grown from 127 in FY 2022 to 161 in FY 2023.
High-level military authorities should serve as facilitators—removing barriers, securing funding, and ensuring interoperability—while enabling lower-level commands to identify and adopt urgently needed technologies. Enabling units such as the DIU and CDAO already serve as vital glue between end users and industry. Focus on connecting fighters to commercial tech solutions and help them to acquire and deploy the technology they need.
Our Take: This is an incredible piece that deserves a full read. There are no shortage of lessons here for DoD as it embarks on a period of transformation.
Building a Future-Focused Industrial Strategy
After six decades of sidelining a coordinated industrial strategy, Washington appears ready to pivot. The last time we saw a robust industrial policy was during the space race in the 1960s, when competition with the Soviet Union fueled a nationwide effort to push the limits of technological and scientific advancement.
Rekindling an industrial policy within a democratic system is complex.
Identifying and Securing Strategic Projects
From quantum computing to advanced semiconductors, agencies need support to identify and prioritize initiatives that serve U.S. security interests.
Catalyzing Early-Stage Risk Capital
Encourage private investors by providing clear signaling of intent to partner and using de-risking mechanisms such as guarantees and offtakes in the case of critical mineral projects.
Structuring Investment Vehicles to Unlock Institutional Capital
Back financing vehicles that are designed to reach the scale and have the diversification needed to attract pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds to invest in the industries of the future.
The task of designing a 21st-century industrial policy for the U.S. rests on creating partnerships that are agile, responsive, and future-focused.
Reforming How the Pentagon Works is Possible—But Not Easy
Fixing Pentagon acquisition will take confronting Congress.
DoD already has efforts to entice new companies and speed the acquisition of drones and other new technologies - current and former officials said the new administration would do well to enlarge those efforts.
DIU is already leading those efforts, but with just under a $1B allocated to the unit last year, it doesn’t have the budget or clout to disrupt established purchasing systems.
The solution (according to Michael Brown), isn’t for DIU to be bigger, but rather for it to take a leading role in helping the military services acquire weapons—and use the already established DIU model of training contract officers on how to buy things at the speed of software.
This will help support efforts to drive major reforms in contracting.
A report from the DIB (see our analysis here) recommends DoD establish a hedge-fund portfolio ~15% of the defense budget) to spend on joint force requirements.
The biggest obstacle to acquisition reform is Congress.
As Mike Brown noted, as much as lawmakers complain about the speed of Pentagon acquisition, they still want to maintain control, and don’t necessarily use that control well.
Mike Brown and Gen Berger urged caution when cutting federal staff, particularly contracting officers - highlighting that it is not helpful to eliminate precisely the expert civil servants you need to speed up the system of buying.
“The defense budget is divided into 1,700 program elements. The amount of scrutiny on so little money is ridiculous. So congressional oversight has really become micromanagement.” Michael Brown
Read our recent post: Applying Elon's Algorithm to the DoD
Trump Charges DOGE with Modernizing Federal Tech and Software
The US Digital Service is renamed the US DOGE Service.
Within hours of taking office, Trump signed an executive order bringing the DOGE into being by the simple expedient renaming of the ten-year-old US Digital Service as the US DOGE Service.
But DOGE is already the target of three lawsuits alleging that it doesn’t comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), a 1972 law intended to ensure that government advisory committees are accessible to the public and provide objective advice.
USDS was created in Aug 2014 by President Obama, with the mission “to improve and simplify the digital experience that people have with their government.”
Within the renamed USDS, the order creates a temporary organization dedicated to advancing the President’s 18-month DOGE agenda. The US DOGE Service Temporary Organization will cease to exist on July 4, 2026.
USDS is expected to “commence a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and IT systems and promote inter-operability between agency networks and systems, ensure data integrity, and facilitate responsible data collection and synchronization.”
Same Threats Drive Air Force, Marines to Different Visions of Future War. How Will They Work Together?
The Air Force became the latest service to roll out a new operating concept for the future but the Air Force is hardly the only service with a Force Design, and a pressing question for military and civilian leadership is how to stitch them all together.
The Air Force’s Force Design envisions a future in which the Air Force can no longer operate with impunity and must tailor its capabilities to China’s growing capability to target U.S. bases and command centers throughout the Pacific.
Under the Marines’ concept, small units equipped with anti-ship missiles and drones would move from island to island to try to bottle up China’s naval fleet.
The Marine plan to fund the transformation with offsetting cuts entailed getting rid of all the tanks, eliminating bridging companies, and upping missile batteries.
The Marine plan is well underway, though it has been hindered by delays in acquiring the amphibious warfare ships.
The Army has its new multi-domain task forces, and the Navy has developed a Navigation Plan, with future war plans with China in mind.
While the services all seem to agree about the threat, it is less clear how the various visions will work in practice
To harmonize the disparate service initiatives, the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a classified Joint Warfighting Concept.
“The JWC is something that we all have to fit under, something we all have to contribute to. We do that through joint wargames, and those are run by the Joint Staff run out of the Pentagon, so we do see how they all fit together. Where do we overlap? Where do we maybe have a little bit too much, maybe not enough?’”
“We’re all seeing the same threats from the PRC as the pacing threat, and we’re all attempting to modernize to meet that threat. We’re all doing it slightly different ways, but the theme is the same—that we have to have longer range, we have to have lower signature, we have to have more lethality, we have to be more distributed and more dispersed.”
Gen Eric Smith
Goldwater-Nichols Do-Over? Mitchell Institute Calls to Reinstate Service Chief’s Acquisition Powers
DoD has been unable to adequately prepare for great power competition with Russia and China due in large part to the inability of service chiefs to prioritize funding and other resources away from today’s needs to those of tomorrow.
It’s a problem that would require a significant restructuring of the Pentagon chain of command and one that the Mitchell Institute calls on the incoming Trump administration — no stranger to pursuing big changes — to fix.
Their belief is that the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Reform Act resulted in a bureaucratic structure that severely restricts the ability of the services to prioritize long-term strategic threats in favor of the immediate, non-combat demands of the combatant commands and civilian defense bureaucracy.
The result has been that the Pentagon has not been able to properly fund its pivot to the Indo-Pacific theater, which their analysis asserts requires a shift in resources from the Army to the Air Force, Space Force and the Navy.
Recommendations
Initiate a comprehensive reassessment of national security, objectively evaluating the prevailing threat landscape and acknowledging the shortcomings of existing strategies.
Take immediate action to restructure the DOD and correct the organizational deficiencies that hindered past reform efforts aimed at countering the threats posed by China and Russia.
Increase the defense budget to bring it in line with the evolving security landscape.
Evaluate defense capabilities and shift investment among the services based on a cost-per-effect assessment. This requires a holistic review of the roles and missions of service contributions to the NDS.
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Defense Tech
Faster into the Cloud: Accelerating Federal Use of Cloud Services for Security and Efficiency
The history of federal cloud efforts began with the E-Government Act of 2002 and included initiatives like Cloud First made in 2011 and the subsequent Cloud Smart strategy.
While progress has been made, federal data usage has grown dramatically, increasing by a factor of 30 between and 2010 and 2020.
However, the pace of cloud adoption has not kept up.
The Cloud First strategy called for shifting a quarter of all federal IT spending to the cloud ($80B in 2011). While federal IT spending has now reached more than $130B, federal spending on cloud technologies (~$17B in FY 2024) is far from what the strategy envisioned.
Slow adoption is the result of overly complex federal cloud governance processes, expensive and time-consuming certification procedures, regulatory barriers, and workforce recruitment and retention difficulties.
The current federal IT spending model is particularly problematic, with over 75% dedicated to maintaining outdated legacy systems that can be costly, inefficient, and less secure.
The CSIS Commission on Federal Cloud Policy recommends several strategic approaches that would accelerate cloud adoption:
Streamline cloud governance and approval processes.
Include mandatory cybersecurity requirements in cloud contracts.
Adopt zero-trust security architectures.
Consolidate cloud services for smaller agencies and reduce the number of federal data centers.
Modernize and streamline funding and procurement methods.
Use cloud computing as a foundational technology for AI adoption.
The benefits of greater federal cloud use are significant, including potentially lower spending, improved cybersecurity, and more efficient government services.
Cloud computing is not just a technical upgrade, but a necessary transformation to modernize government operations.
Army
Army Moves Toward Potential Recompete of $22B IVAS Program
The Army has issued an RFI for an enhanced version of its troubled Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), signaling a potential recompete of the $22B program.
Named IVAS Next, the new version aims to transform how soldiers see, train, and fight on the battlefield while addressing major issues identified with previous iterations.
Interested vendors have until February 26 to respond with their solutions.
Early interest has come from companies such as Anduril, L3Harris, Palantir, and the American arms of Elbit Systems and BAE Systems. Kopin — the developer of F-35 helmet display technology — was also named a potential contender.
U.S. Orders More NVGs From L3Harris Under $263M Contract
The Army awarded L3Harris a $263M contract for additional Enhanced Night Vision Goggle–Binocular (ENVG-B) systems.
The fused night-vision technology provides advanced capabilities to identify and engage targets in low-light conditions.
With the ability to extend the system as a communication hub or sensor, we can increase soldiers’ situational awareness and drive connectivity with the larger Integrated Tactical Network.
The ENVG-B is a helmet-mounted goggle that combines advanced thermal and white phosphor technologies, providing soldiers with enhanced vision in various conditions.
It features augmented reality technology, allowing soldiers to view critical information — such as maps, waypoints, and friendly unit locations — without taking their eyes off their surroundings.
The goggles also enable real-time intelligence sharing across units to enhance coordination.
Ukraine Is Burning Through 155mm M777 Howitzer Barrels So Fast The U.S. Army Can’t Keep Up
The Army is moving to establish a second production source for barrels for 155mm M777 towed howitzers in response to unprecedented demand from Ukraine.
Only one U.S. government-owned and operated arsenal makes the barrels and that facility cannot currently meet a requirement to churn out more than 30 new ones each month.
The Army submitted a congressional reprogramming package to fix the issue requesting $161M in manufacturing investments.
The high volume of artillery fire missions has created an unprecedented demand for M776 155mm Cannon Tubes (39 caliber), with a projected requirement of over 30 tubes per month. The current manufacturer of cannons, Watervliet Arsenal (WVA), a Government Owned Government Operated (GOGO) facility, has not been able to support the demand. Facilitization investment will support up to 10 cannon tubes per month, including large cannon calibers.
The Army found that firing a high volume of rounds, especially with full propellant charges to get maximum range, in a relatively short amount of time dramatically increases the wear rate on the barrels.
A Pentagon factsheet simply says the U.S has provided more than 200 155mm howitzers, which also includes variants of the self-propelled M109.
The Ukrainian armed forces have received at least four more M777s from Canada and another six from Australia.
Army Wants Land-Based Fires to Play Both Offense, Defense
Imagine an Army with common sensors conducting counter-fire and air surveillance almost simultaneously, seamlessly passing targeting data to air defense and field artillery command-and-control systems at machine speed to inform launchers that can fire both offensive and defensive weapons.
While air defense and field artillery should and do remain two distinct branches, the future battlefield calls for a convergence on commonality that will enable the delivery of fires.
The Army is developing launchers that can fire both offensive and defensive weapons.
The five-ton Autonomous Multi-Domain Launcher reached TRL 6 and has the potential to be a common system that can deliver both preemptive offensive fires and defensive reactive fires, or launched effects beyond traditional munitions.
The Army is also developing a palletized, 10-ton Objective Launch System that can fire both offensive and defensive weapons. That launcher is at a very low TRL right now but it’s really promising, and seeking to accelerate it.
Navy
Funding Biggest Challenge for Marine Corps’ Force Design Plan
Force Design 2030, and now simply referred to as Force Design — is a modernization effort to redesign the service for naval expeditionary warfare to better align with the NDS, particularly focused on strategic competition with Russia and China.
Force Design is driven by two operational concepts: littoral combat operations in a contested environment and expeditionary advanced base operations.
Gen. Eric Smith said its most significant hurdle could be money. With a continually delayed budget, we’re losing years on Force Design
One victim of funding shortfalls in the previous year was the Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System program for land-to-sea attacks.
The Landing Ship Medium program has also slipped. It envisions procuring a class of 18 to 35 amphibious ships to support the Marine Corps’ expeditionary advanced base operations concept.
Marine F-35Bs Fought A Mock War From A Pacific Island
Six F-35Bs along with two C-17s flew from Yuma, AZ to an airfield on San Clemente Island (SCI), a U.S. military-controlled outpost used for training, test, and weapons development, located roughly 65 miles off the San Diego coast.
Before the C-17s landed, VMFA-214’s F-35Bs faced a host of ‘red air’ adversaries, including 5th generation fighters, before the C-17s could safely ingress. In other words, they would have to fight their way in.
They would test a host of new tactics, techniques and procedures while refining others, before fighting their way out on the way back to MCAS Yuma.
The Marines would be stationed as they would in a conflict, living in tents and eating MREs, while living and operating from SCI.
It was a peek into USMC’s evolving Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) playbook and what a real fight in the Pacific with the USMC’s most advanced fighter aircraft could actually look like.
Disparaged, Discontinued, and Indispensable? LCSs Take on Real-World Ops
The battle-tested LCS has moved past its reliability problems.
The Navy may have capped its fleet of much-anticipated—and much-maligned—littoral combat ships at 28 for now, but their commanders haven’t stopped trying to squeeze every last ounce of capability out of them.
While the Navy has been putting its young LCS fleet to work, its future is still uncertain.
Like a number of previous ship types, the LCS was originally conceived of as a nimble option for counterinsurgency operations But the program ran way over its original budget and took so long to come online that by the time ships were ready to get underway, the Pentagon’s focus had shifted away from low-tech extremist groups to China’s increasingly capable forces.
Though the Navy began implementing fixes, it has since decommissioned seven of the ships, with two more proposed for decommissioning.
Navy Aims to Expand Vendor Pool for COCO Drones and ISR Support
The Navy announced it wants to bring on new vendors as current deals are nearing expiration next year.
PEO Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons is looking to onboard additional companies that can support ISR missions via contractor-owned, contractor-operated drones and sensors.
A sources-sought notice about the initiative was published Tuesday on Sam.gov.
The PEO intends to “broaden industry partnership and to procure, on a competitive basis, COCO services” to provide land- and sea-based ISR capabilities for the Navy and Marine Corps and support U.S. and coalition military partners.
Insitu, which is owned by Boeing and Textron System have been providing these types of services under basic ordering agreements.
The Navy wants runway independent, “multi-intelligence” capable drones with an operational range of at least 75 nautical miles from a ground control station located at the launch site, 10 hours time-on-station and a variety of sensing capabilities — including full-motion video, EO/IR sensors, and an EW type sensor or wide area maritime search sensor. The platforms must be able to operate effectively in adverse weather conditions, austere environments and areas where GPS navigation is degraded.
Why the Navy Wants to Build a Fully Autonomous Satellite
Navy researchers are testing a fully autonomous satellite designed to detect and characterize objects in space.
The system, called Autosat, is designed to task, calibrate its signals and send and receive information on its own without the need for a human operator.
Steven Meier, director of space technology at the Naval Research Laboratory, said NRL demonstrated the capability in the lab.
Autosat features an imaging payload that the lab has trained with a database of images, including airports, runways, roads and buildings. The more information the payload receives, the smarter it becomes about recognizing patterns and spotting objects.
Satellites that can detect and track objects and send intelligence to military users are in high demand from defense agencies like the Space Force and Space Command.
The true potential of Autosat is in its autonomy, allowing it to navigate without GPS, communications, and ground control.
Navy Now Seeking Commercial Ship Design To Propel Its Long-Delayed Medium Landing Ship Program Forward
The Navy halted the Medium Landing Ship effort last month after high cost estimates and is now seeking commercial vessel designs to move Marines in a Pacific fight.
After years of delays procuring its own Medium Landing Ship (LSM) to ferry platoon-sized elements of Marines between West Pacific islands during a war with China, the U.S. Navy is now looking to existing, private-sector designs to potentially fill this capability gap.
The Navy halted its efforts to acquire the LSM last month, after an industry RFI resulted in cost estimates that were beyond what the Navy and Marine Corps envisioned paying for the platform.
The NDAA provided a unique opportunity to explore acquiring a non-developmental vessel to serve as the medium landing ship.
Opinions have differed on what the LSM should be, with the Navy wanting a more survivable vessel and the Marines looking to field the capability as quickly as possible, as some warn that China could invade Taiwan and prompt a U.S. response in the next few years.
Air Force
Second Batch Of CCA Drones Could Be 20-30% Pricier Than The First
The second tranche of Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones could be between 20-30% more expensive per airframe than those in the first batch.
Frank Kendall has said he does not believe the so-called Increment 2 CCAs should evolve into high-end exquisite platforms.
This comes amid serious questions about the Air Force’s ability to afford its next round of CCAs, as well as other future advanced aircraft, including new sixth-generation crewed combat jets and stealthy tankers.
The Air Force is working to acquire what could ultimately be a fleet of multiple different types of CCA drones through iterative development cycles.
Anduril and General Atomics are currently developing designs as part of Increment 1. Dozens of contractors are also working on other aspects of the program, including advanced autonomous technologies.
Kendall in the past said the price point goal for CCA Increment 1 was 1/4 to 1/3 of F_35. That would be $20.5M-$27.5M. A 20-30% increase would be $25-35M.
While a crewed fighter has EW, C2, Comms, and weapons, every CCA doesn’t have to have all those things, but rather a mix that when working with a crewed aircraft gives you the set of capabilities that’s most cost effective.
CCAs are not expendable like munitions.
Affordability with a number of major modernization efforts is a concern for CCA.
The Air Force expects CCAs to have a transformative impact on how it fights, day-to-day activities like training and maintenance. They may buy 100-150 Increment 1 CCAs and multiple thousands across the increments.
See our Way Ahead for NGAD piece for related insights.
F-35 AI-Enabled Drone Controller Capability Successfully Demonstrated
Lockheed Martin says the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter now has a firmly demonstrated ability to act as an in-flight quarterback for advanced drones like the Air Force’s future CCA with the help of AI-enabled systems.
Lockheed Martin states that its testing has also shown a touchscreen tablet-like device is a workable interface for controlling multiple uncrewed aircraft simultaneously from the cockpit of the F-35, as well as the F-22 Raptor.
For the Air Force, how pilots in crewed aircraft will actually manage CCAs during operations has emerged as an increasingly important question.
These AI-enabled architectures allow Lockheed Martin to not only prove out piloted-drone teaming capabilities, but also incrementally improve them, bringing the Air Force’s family of systems vision to life.
The Air Force is also still very much in the process of developing new concepts of operations and tactics, techniques, and procedures for employing CCA drones operationally.
Cheap Cruise Missile Paired With Affordable Seeker From Ship-Killing Smart Bomb Eyed By Air Force
A new, relatively cheap precision-guided air-launched stand-off munition the Air Force is working on could be employed against ships with the help of seeker technology from the service’s Quicksink program.
The Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM), under development primarily for Ukraine, is otherwise shaping up to be a highly modular design, variants of which could be optimized for use against other target types.
Details about ERAM, including plans to leverage work done under Quicksink, are in a recent contracting notice. Plans for ERAM first emerged in January 2024. In addition to Ukraine, NATO allies Denmark and the Netherlands are also known to be involved in the program.
The ERAM program is currently executing an OTA which will conclude with a Phase 2 development option, a full rate production OTA, and potential future development for additional capabilities. This request will support these future opportunities for the USAF to procure ERAM baseline configuration.
Future ERAM phases will incorporate various seekers, payloads, and capabilities to enhance performance in GPS-denied areas and or to produce ERAM variants to achieve disruptive effects when launched.
Air Force Predicts Enemy Anti-Air Missiles w/1,000-Mile Range By 2050
By 2050, the Air Force will face the challenge of missiles that can target its aircraft at ranges as great as 1,000 miles — a huge advance in anti-access capabilities compared to the distances air defense missiles can reach today.
This is one of the standout predictions from a new report to Congress by the Air Force, which aims to present a vision of what the Air Force and Space Force should look like by the middle of the century.
Control of the air will still be critical to military success, but how, when, and where it will be achieved are all subject to change.
Vulnerability of forward-located fixed bases (and, to some extent, even remote air bases) to attack by precision missiles.
Extension of counter-air weapons engagement zones to unprecedented, almost unlimited, ranges.
By 2050, Air Force operations will be expected to be challenged by counter-air weapons with ranges out to over 1,000 miles and supported by space-based sensors. In particular, such long-reaching weapons will threaten aircraft, such as tankers, that have traditionally operated with impunity.
The result of this is the expectation of an entirely different kind of air war by 2050, one in which the U.S. is far less able to establish control of the air, whether defensively (in its own airspace) or offensively (in an adversary’s airspace).
Money-Saving Microvanes Inch Closer to Fleetwide C-17 Use
Small new devices meant to save money spent on gas by reducing aerodynamic drag are inching closer to fleetwide adoption for the Air Force’s 222 C-17 transport jets.
Microvanes are 3D-printed out of composite materials into thin blades about 16 inches long. When attached to the rear exterior of the C-17 fuselage, microvanes reduce drag, and thereby fuel consumption, by 1% compared to unmodified C-17s.
It will save up to $14M annually over the frequent flights C-17s take globally.
Every gallon of fuel saved strengthens readiness and operational effectiveness.
The microvanes had cost about $5M to develop.
Space Force
How Trump’s Air Force pick could elevate space priorities
As a DoD insider with deep acquisition and technology-development experience, Troy Meink would bring to the job a government background unlike that of Trump’s other DOD nominees. And his specialization in space could upend the priorities of a service typically dominated by Air Force interests.
Choosing a space expert like Meink to lead the Air Force is consequential and indicates that space will be a high priority under the Trump administration.
Meink’s current role as deputy director of the NRO, he oversees the day-to-day operations, which provides space-based intelligence to the military.
Throughout his career, he’s held positions in the Air Force space community, including stints at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center and in the office of the deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space.
The next Air Force secretary will decide how resources are distributed between the two services, and a leader with Meink’s space expertise could shift more funding toward the Space Force, whose $30B budget for FY25 is a fraction of the Air Force’s $188B request.
TBT: Check out Dr. Troy Meink on Schriever Spacepower Series from 3 months ago.
NRO, Navy Launch Experimental Otter CubeSat
The system is carrying primary and secondary payloads for space-based maritime domain awareness and communications.
The NRO and NPS recently put a new CubeSat into low-Earth orbit to conduct experiments and reduce risk for future programs of record.
Otter was launched via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA.
The platform’s primary payload has space-based maritime domain awareness capabilities. The secondary payloads — an X-band transmitter and an LED on-orbit payload (LOOP) — will help the government evaluate communication technologies and concepts of operations on future CubeSat missions.
“This demonstrator showcases the value in rapidly qualifying low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf hardware.” Aaron Weiner, NRO Advanced Systems and Technology Director
Space Venture Firm Predicts Industry Shakeup
Venture firm Space Capital predicts both Boeing and Airbus will divest their space divisions in 2025, marking a significant shift in the commercial space landscape.
According to Space Capital’s latest investment trends report, these aerospace giants are struggling to maintain pace with the rapidly evolving space sector.
These divestitures by entrenched government contractors marks a pivotal moment in the space economy, as it changes the competitive landscape, establishes a new power broker system, and creates new opportunities and risks in the government’s extended capabilities in space.
The report highlights increasing defense spending as a crucial factor shaping the industry’s future.
Redwire, traditionally focused on space infrastructure, is set to acquire Edge Autonomy for $925M, signaling a strategic pivot toward defense tech.
Voyager Technologies (formerly Voyager Space) has announced a restructuring to emphasize defense and national security operations ahead of a planned IPO.
Planet, an operator of imaging satellites, and satellite manufacturing startup K2 Space have both recently recruited former defense officials, indicating their intent to pursue more military contracts.
Space Force to Spend 40% More on Commercial SATCOM This Year
Space Force’s Commercial SATCOM Office is forecasting nearly $2.4B in contracts not only for USSF, but also combatant commands and every other military service.
The office forecasted its needs for the next 12 months to industry in a December release that covers the rest of FY25 and extends into FY26, complete with estimated lifecycle values for many of the 18 programs.
The combined value of the high end of those estimates is $2.37B, though some programs do not have an estimate, meaning the true value could be even higher.
By far the largest program of the bunch is the Space Force’s Maneuverable GEO. Officials have described it as a marketplace to take advantage of small commercial communications satellites that can move in GEO orbit, a growing market. They anticipate awarding contracts in July worth up to $905M.
Fearing U.S. Hostility, Russia Could Escalate Early in a Space Conflict
In a conflict between NATO and Russia, the U.S. should be prepared to face an adversary that not only possesses advanced space and counterspace capabilities but has also learned lessons during the invasion of Ukraine about how to target Western space assets most effectively.
RAND Report: Exploring Factors for U.S.-Russia Crisis Stability in Space
The report warns U.S. policymakers and diplomats that Russia’s relative restraint regarding the space domain in the conflict in the Ukraine war should not be expected in any future conflict in the West.
The key problem, the study finds, is that Moscow’s hyper-suspicious view of U.S. military intentions in space are driving Russia’s military to a more aggressive and hair-trigger stance, but also raising barriers to bilateral communications aimed at ratcheting down conflict risks and/or finding ways to de-escalate once a crisis is underway.
International
Silicon Island: Assessing Taiwan’s Importance to U.S. Economic Growth and Security
William Alan Reinsch and Jack Whitney
Taiwan remains a critical partner to U.S. economic interests given its contributions to global advanced technology supply chains. Taiwan’s inputs in the semiconductor supply chain have enabled U.S. companies to maximize their productive efficiency.
Sound U.S. economic security policy should aim to balance taking advantage of Taiwanese investment to onshore critical and emerging technology capabilities, while ensuring they can secure its own domestic ecosystem and make investments in other countries with comparative advantages the U.S. does not possess.
Supply chains for semiconductor fabrication and distribution are among the most complex, specialized, and globalized in the world.
The development of several critical U.S. industries and national champions is linked to Taiwan’s success in CETs.
As U.S. companies and customers increasingly benefited from Taiwanese chipmakers’ growth, local industrial “clusters” of Taiwanese chip companies sprang up across the supply chain, including in sectors like packaging, design, materials, and electronics manufacturing services—a shift that would deepen the U.S.-Taiwan semiconductor relationship.
Apple depends on third-party suppliers to bring its products to life as these companies excel in their areas of expertise, particularly with integrated circuits (ICs) for sound enhancement and connectivity, which surpass Apple’s capabilities.
The Taiwanese government actively encourages foreign direct investment (FDI) through policies that keep the economy attractive to international investors.
Taiwan fabricates nearly a third of the globe’s computing capacity each year, and U.S. companies and consumers are among the leading beneficiaries of direct and indirect trade with Taiwan’s chip sector.
Taiwan’s chip industry is inextricably linked to the health of U.S. industries as wide ranging as smartphones, computers, automotives, 5G, and medical equipment.
Amid these reshoring efforts, Taiwan’s domestic semiconductor industry will remain a key economic asset for U.S. commercial and government interests.
Middle East Nations Need Less Expensive Air, Missile Defense Tech
A $20K Mirsad-1 drone made of lightweight steel and plastic supplied by Iran to Hezbollah is designed to avoid radars. Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome didn’t stop it.
Drones with bombs can be constructed for as little as $1,000 to $2,000 and are being widely used by Iranian proxy terrorist organizations such as the Houthis.
Today we see different militias that have highly sophisticated weapons and move freely around countries that don’t have a strong military. These attacks don’t just affect the oil and gas industry, but the maritime domain too.
Bahrain acquired the PAC-3 (aka Patriot) system made by Lockheed Martin to destroy ballistic missiles and high-end aircraft. Yet the cost is $5M per shot.
Until there is a reliable directed energy weapon, the cost advantage will remain with the attacker. Better radars and more redundant sensor networks may allow better estimates as to which missiles will hit critical areas … but these advanced radars and networks are themselves costly, at least initially.
Providing affordable and advanced arms can help manage defense budgets, enhance regional stability and promote international collaboration, contributing to a more secure and stable future.
Drone Boats Rushed To Help Prevent Baltic Seafloor Cable Sabotage
In the coming weeks, USVs will join NATO’s new Baltic Sentry effort to protect power and communications cables running under the Baltic Sea, some of which have recently been sabotaged.
The USVs, also known as drone boats, will help establish an enhanced common operating picture to give participating nations a better sense of potential threats and speed up any response.
It is the first time NATO will use USVs in this manner.
NATO’s Allied Command Transformation (ACT) will bring some new USVs at the speed of light. In less than a few weeks, we will bring that to (Allied Marine Command) MARCOM and then we will begin to use these ships to give a persistent, 24-7 surveillance of critical areas.
The plan is to create a single network combing all the pictures, all the video, the Integrated Automation System, the picture on a radar picture, and then share the resulting data with all stakeholders.
There will be at least 20 USVs assigned to Baltic Sentry.
Requirements will focus on delivering situational awareness, through largely passive sensors (including imagery and the electromagnetic spectrum) and generating the necessary number of platforms to cover the areas of interest.
Other International News
Congress
Defense Innovation and Acquisition Reform, SASC, Jan 28
Feat. Jim Geurts, Shyam Sankar, and Nathan Diller
New Administration
The following have been named to serve in Performing the Duties Of or Acting roles in the DoD until the nominees for these positioned are confirmed:
Steven Morani, USD(A&S)
James Mazol, USD(R&E)
Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, USD Comptroller
Alexander Velez-Green, USD Policy
Leslie Beavers, DoD CIO
Mark Averill, Secretary of Army
Terry Emmert, Secretary of Navy
Gary Ashworth, Secretary of Air Force
Dr. Brett Seidle, Navy SAE
Patrick Mason, Army SAE
Steve Wert, Air Force SAE
MGen Stephen Purdy, Space Force SAE
Podcasts, Books, and Videos
Buy, Buy, Buy, ASI Education
National Security in a New Administration w/Nadia Schadlow and Stephen Rodriguez, Building the Base
Want Combat Airpower? Then Fix the Air Force Pilot Crisis, Aerospace Nation
Truth About DoD’s Innovation Challenge w/Josh Marcuse, Defense Mavericks
Upcoming Events and Webinars
WEST 2025, AFCEA, Jan 28-30, San Diego, CA
Prodacity 2025, Rise8, Feb 4-6, Nashville, TN
DOGE: Implications, Opps for Gov’t Contracting, Feat Matt, GMU, Feb 5
NCMA Nexus, Feb 9-12, Long Beach, CA
Defense and Intelligence Space Conference, NSSA, Feb 10-12, Reston, VA
National Logistics Forum, NDIA, Feb 11-13, Orlando, FL
Munich Security Conference Innovation Day feat. DIU, Feb 13, Munich, GE
Congressional M&S Leadership Summit, NTSA, Feb 18, Jacksonville, FL
Special Operations Symposium, NDIA, Feb 19-20, Washington DC
Accelerating Capability to the Field, DAU, Feb 19-20, Virtual
Creative Disruptors in the Desert, Feat. Pete and Matt, CDF, Feb 21-22, Indian Wells, CA
Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference, NDIA, Feb 24-26, Reston, VA
National Summit on UAVs, ACI, Feb 25-26, San Diego, CA
Defense Software and Data Summit 2025, Govini, Feb 26, Washington DC
Power of Prototyping Symposium, NDIA and GMU, Feb 28, Arlington, VA
Pacific Operational Science & Tech (POST) Conf, NDIA, Mar 3-7, Honolulu, HI
Human Systems Conference, NDIA, Mar 11-12, Arlington, VA
Manifest: Demo Day, Long Walk Tech, Mar 17, Navy Yard, Washington DC
Undersea Warfare Spring Conference, NDIA, Mar 17-19, San Diego, CA
Munitions Executive Summit, NDIA, Mar 18-19, Parsippany, NJ
See our Events Page for all the other events over the next year.
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