“We will keep supporting Ukraine, including with European air defence and PAC-3 Patriot systems,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X on Sept. 2, confirming the request alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We will work closer than ever with NATO. And deter anyone who attacks our freedom and security.”

The statement comes a day after Ukraine’s defense minister, Yevhenii Khmara, pressed allies for more aid. Russia is continuing a second week of launching near-nonstop aerial strikes on Kyiv, Odesa and other cities as Ukraine faces a dire antiballistics interceptor shortage.

“Ukraine calls on partners to allocate national budget funds for the procurement of Ukrainian drones, expedite the provision of the EU loan, and resume discussions on the use of frozen Russian assets,” Khmara said in a statement.

He said Ukraine currently faces a $27 billion defense budget deficit, but emphasized that supporting Kyiv is a “win-win” for Europe.

“Every euro invested in Ukraine’s defence is an investment in European security,” he said.

The €90 billion loan Kyiv hopes to tap into — finalized by the Council of the EU in April after months of delay — sets aside roughly €60 billion for defense procurement and €30 billion for budget support.

But the loan’s rules were written to prioritize European and Ukrainian-made weapons, capping non-EU/Ukrainian content at 35% of a given purchase’s value.

Because PAC-3s are built in the U.S., Kyiv’s request needs to receive a formal exemption to access the funds.

Ukraine already secured a similar carve-out in April for Chinese-made drone components, a precedent officials are pointing to as EU member states weigh the latest request.

Von der Leyen said in her Sept. 2 statement that the exemption review “is moving in the right direction,” and that EU representatives were due to decide on the exemption on Monday.

Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the Air Force’s chief modernization officer, told reporters at the Pentagon that a follow-on was already under discussion as the MQ-9 aged out.

“Although we have plenty of MQ-9As today, we are going through them at a rate that is concerning to us,” he said, according to Breaking Defense, which covered the briefing.

Defense Daily reported that Air Force Secretary Troy Meink directed the acceleration, and that the fiscal 2031 target of 20 mission-ready aircraft could be pulled forward by about two years.

In May, Lt. Gen. David Tabor told the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland the fleet was down to about 135 aircraft, roughly 54 below the service’s 189-aircraft floor. Niemi did not update the inventory.

Backfilling the fleet is difficult. General Atomics shut down MQ-9A production in 2025, and Tabor said the service was pursuing a short-term buy of existing MQ-9A airframes in fiscal 2026. Niemi said Sept. 3 that budget constraints make buying a large number of upgraded MQ-9B SkyGuardians unrealistic. It is a misconception, he said, that the Air Force could write a check and take delivery of 100 aircraft.

A Congressional Research Service Insight updated May 13 cited an April 9 news report of 24 Reapers lost since military operations against Iran began in February, and said it was unclear whether the Pentagon had given Congress an accounting. The Washington Post reported Aug. 13, citing three U.S. officials, that at least 45 had been lost, roughly 25% of the fleet.

Niemi signed requirements in May for a cheaper, modular, mass-producible aircraft.

That program, Massed Modular Aircraft, or MMA, opened as a Defense Innovation Unit competition July 7 with the Air Force as partner. The solicitation, which closed July 23, asked for a drone that could fly Reaper-class strike, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare and communications-relay missions cheaply enough to absorb losses. It called for at least 2,800 pounds of payload and an 8,000-nautical-mile one-way ferry range.

That is the aircraft Niemi now prices against Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA. He put CCA air vehicles near $20 million and MMA at about half that, Defense Daily reported.

An Air Force spokesperson said those figures are for the air vehicle only, not a fully missionized aircraft, according to Breaking Defense. In May, Niemi told senators a Reaper with a full sensor package can cost up to $50 million. At the Sept. 3 briefing, he said the Air Force will probably field at least 180 MMA drones.

Niemi argued the Reaper’s value is not the airframe.

“What makes the MQ-9 special has nothing to do with the aircraft itself,” he said, calling its speed, altitude and range decades-old technology.

Initial MMA versions, he said, will rely on proven technology rather than new systems to hit the price. He described a long-aspect-wing turboprop in the “4,000 miles-type class,” farther and heavier than a CCA but slower. Officials did not say how that class relates to the 8,000-nautical-mile ferry range in the July notice.

General Atomics is bidding a design it calls Wildfire, first reported by Aviation Week in August. Spokesman C. Mark Brinkley told Air & Space Forces Magazine it “meets every wish on the [MMA] list and exceeds most of them,” but declined to give capabilities or cost. The company has not released images.

Brinkley told The War Zone in August that treating MMA as a Reaper replacement misses the immediate need for a backfill. Wildfire does not depend on winning the competition, he said, and “we can deliver Wildfires years earlier than the current schedule.”

He framed the design targets as considerations rather than specs, among them a 10,000-nautical-mile ferry range, four Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles and 100 aircraft under semi-autonomous control.

Col. Todd Dye, senior materiel leader in the Air Force’s medium-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance division, said awards for MMA concept refinement were expected in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Breaking Defense reported.

Officials did not announce a new date at the Sept. 3 briefing.

In July, Trump unexpectedly left the NATO summit in Turkey on a different plane, citing a potential threat as the conflict with Iran escalated. He switched to a smaller military aircraft in secret, using a catering truck for deception.

The swap raised further questions about the modified Qatari jet’s security as a presidential aircraft. That same month, Trump announced that the jet would be soon sent to be “maxed out” for security upgrades.

Trump said the alterations would begin in roughly a month, but no official statement has been made about the schedule.

“We don’t comment on specific upgrades or modifications to Air Force One,” a senior administration official told Military Times. “We maintain a consistent posture that ensures a safe, secure, and reliable capability for the President of the United States and routinely evolve the capability as required to maintain that posture.”

Trump will be in Ireland on Sept. 12 and 13, attending the Irish Open at his golf course in Doonbeg. The BBC reported that he is scheduled to meet Irish President Catherine Connolly and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin during his two-day trip.

Ahead of the midterm elections, Trump is also scheduled to headline the Republican midterm convention next week in Texas, and he has promised to campaign for Republican candidates across dozens of battleground states.

The 128 states that are party to the Convention on ​Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), an international framework hosted under the United Nations in Geneva that regulates or bans specific types of weapons considered excessively injurious or indiscriminate, have been meeting this week in the Swiss city.

They are set to decide whether consensus can be reached on a non-binding text that may usher in negotiations on prohibitions and regulations for Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS).

Concerns have been mounting about the role of semi-autonomous weapons that can identify and engage targets with varying degrees of autonomy in conflict zones such as Ukraine, Sudan and the Middle East.

Human Rights Watch and the Stop Killer Robots campaign group have warned that weapons systems, some of which are assisted by artificial intelligence, may behave unpredictably, raising the risk of fatal errors.

States agree that international humanitarian law applies to LAWS, but specifically binding international standards for such systems remain virtually non-existent.

A majority of countries at the meeting have expressed support for a draft text, but the U.S. and Russia have proposed late changes and deletions to it, two diplomatic sources said.

The Russian mission in Geneva did not comment. The U.S. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The window is getting smaller to getting an agreement,” one of the diplomatic sources told Reuters.

Diplomats may run out of time and key provisions discussed over several years could be dropped, running the risk of no deal emerging, a second diplomatic source said.

Differences over language

The U.S. position has hardened over the past six months, a senior diplomat said, with Washington favouring something more akin to guidelines than a legally binding international treaty as it says international humanitarian law already provides a framework to govern the conduct of warfare.

This position is supported by states including Russia, India and Turkey.

At least six countries received formal diplomatic approaches from Washington to back its position concerning the draft text, two diplomats said. This showed U.S. engagement to try to reach consensus on the issue, one of them said.

Policies needed to share AI-generated intel across NATO countries, official says

But differences remain over language, with the use of words such as “lethality” and a section related to exercising human judgment and control being debated, one of the sources said.

Backers of a legally binding treaty, including Brazil, Ireland and several African states, say safeguards are needed to ensure meaningful human control over the weapons systems in question. Opponents favour greater flexibility.

In August, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric warned the world was nearing a moral red line where autonomous weapons could kill without human involvement.

The study, “Breaking Glass, Missing Hands,” asks how quickly the country could replace satellites and supporting systems lost early in a protracted conflict. It sets the benchmark for reconstitution, the term for restoring lost capability, at 12 to 24 months, a pace much more demanding than the decade or so the report says it typically takes to replace an aging satellite.

The study examines whether the space defense industrial base could meet that timeline between 2027 and 2032. The authors argue that existing workforce gaps could take years to close, putting a 12-to-24-month timeline out of reach.

Gen. Michael Guetlein, now the Golden Dome director, sponsored the study while serving as vice chief of space operations. RAND Project AIR FORCE conducted it as part of a fiscal 2024 project titled “In Emergency, Break Glass,” with Alexandra Gerber as lead author.

Researchers analyzed federal labor and education statistics from October 2024 through March 2025, and interviewed industry representatives and education administrators from May through July 2025.

The report divides the space-supporting workforce into three categories.

The first is engineers who design and test space systems. Nearly 3 million Americans work as engineers in jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher, but only about 3% of them work in industries RAND counted as supporting space: satellite communications, semiconductors and nonmetallic mineral product manufacturing that produces optical glass. RAND calls that grouping a subset of the space industrial base. Aerospace manufacturing was not included.

RAND estimates that those three counted industries account for only about 7,000 of 208,000 annual engineering job openings, noting that the space sector has little leverage against employers in the artificial intelligence, software and data analytics sectors that pay more and offer more flexible work environments.

The second category is “skilled touch labor,” the technicians and assemblers who physically build spacecraft. Using 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, researchers estimated about 30,000 annual openings for technicians, while only about 11,000 people earn the necessary qualifications each year.

For assemblers, including cleanroom technicians, they found about 244,000 annual openings with just 13,000 credentialed workers each year, a gap of 19 to 1. The space industry accounts for a small share of that demand, but it competes for the same pool as semiconductor manufacturers.

The third category takes the longest to build: specialists who advance infrared and electro-optical detection, and engineers who design systems to survive natural and man-made radiation. Qualified candidates hold master’s or doctoral degrees, and the expertise can take 15 years or more to develop.

Few schools offer advanced degrees in laser and optical engineering, and most specialists come up through electrical or computer engineering programs instead. Of recent doctorates in those fields, 70% went to foreign nationals, the report says, shrinking the pool eligible for classified work.

Security clearances slow hiring even further. In fiscal 2024, initial Secret investigations averaged more than 87 days while Top Secret cases took nearly six months, according to a Trusted Workforce 2.0 progress report RAND cites.

Separately, interviewees said even fully credentialed workers can take up to a year to become productive, and the report notes that cleanrooms and secure work areas cap how fast plants can absorb new hires.

Those interviewed described the central problem as “surging from zero.” Without steady production between contracts, specialized skills atrophy and experienced workers leave, taking with them the institutional knowledge needed to scale. RAND says writing surge-planning requirements into future contracts would help companies prepare to expand before a crisis.

Researchers found no consensus that emergency mobilization would work. Defense Production Act authorities could pull workers from other industries, but interviewees questioned whether that is feasible given security clearances, certifications and domain expertise.

RAND recommends roughly $5 million a year for scholarships, internships and academic outreach, plus an $800,000 study on whether workers from other fields could be retrained for surge production.

The report also suggests advocating for the expansion of the National Imperative for Industrial Skills program and evaluating the Navy’s Talent Pipeline Program as a model for the trades.

Another proposal would let Reserve Officers’ Training Corps graduates satisfy service obligations by working at qualifying space firms, and would extend the same option to SMART scholarship recipients now committed to civilian Defense Department jobs.

RAND assigns the policy lead to the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, arguing workforce capacity is a supply-chain and production risk, not an internal Space Force staffing issue.

Interviewees pointed to hiring pipelines and faster clearances, rarely mentioning robotics, process automation or AI as a way to cut the labor hours per satellite. RAND did not independently assess whether automation is feasible, but flags that absence as a gap in reconstitution planning.

Most space producers run at volumes too low to justify the investment in automation, though RAND argues a reconstitution surge could change that math.

In a social media post, Trump also slammed reports of heavily depleted U.S. munition stockpiles amid the separate war in Iran, while adding that the United States was ramping up production and stockpiling munitions.

“We are taking them for ourselves, the U.S.A., rather than selling them to others, but the sales to allies will soon again, begin,” Trump wrote.

“Hundreds of Billions of Dollars was given to Ukraine and NATO, free of charge, that Europe would have paid for — If they were only asked, but we will be asking for that money, though somewhat belatedly!” he added, blaming the administration of his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.

Last year, the United States and NATO developed the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List initiative, under which European countries pay to supply Ukraine with U.S. weapons.

Reuters reported last month that the U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during the Iran war, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts.

Both the wars in Ukraine and Iran — and their economic shocks — could impact whether Trump’s fellow Republicans maintain control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress next year.

On Thursday, oil prices hit fresh six-week highs as the latest U.S. strikes on Iran and renewed ‌Israeli threats against Tehran revived concerns about disruptions to Middle East supplies as vessels remain throttled in the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday sought to partly blame Kyiv’s recent strikes against Russian energy targets for rising oil and gas prices.

“We are going through an energy shock right now due to both the war in Ukraine - because, you know, Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets and refined products, so that is creating upward price pressure on a global basis - and then the conflict in Iran,” he told Fox News in an interview.

Rather than deploying missiles to shoot down unmanned aircraft, the E-HEL fires a laser beam at its targets and can reload its magazine through the system’s power supply, according to the Army.

“This first-of-its-kind directed energy program will enable our formations to defeat unmanned systems and dominate from the outset,” Vice Chief of Staff of the Army General Christopher LaNeve said in an Army statement. “Pairing human ingenuity with advanced technology is what ensures our Army will continue to outpace America’s adversaries.”

Under the Other Transaction Agreement, AV will deliver dozens of 30 kW LOCUST laser weapons capable of taking down smaller drones that fit within what the Defense Department characterizes as groups one through three. Those include miniature UAVs comparable to the Air Force’s Wasp III to the Army’s RQ-7B Shadow in the larger class.

The E-HEL production announcement also notches a much-needed win for the service’s laser program, following soldiers’ disappointing feedback on the Army’s Directed Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) performance in the Middle East.

While those prototypes were tailored for the Stryker combat vehicle, AV’s LOCUST X3 laser weapon is platform-agnostic and can fit on the Army’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV).

The E-HEL program builds on the success of the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) prototypes currently in use by U.S. soldiers.

The contract follows LOCUST’s successful testing at White Sands Missile Range, led by Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401) and PAE Fires, which demonstrated safe, effective counter-drone operations in U.S. airspace and directly enabled a DOW–FAA safety agreement validating the system for domestic use.

The 600-member “Unmanned Assault Battalion,” created as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, was charged with learning tactics and skills from Ukraine’s more-than four-year fight against Russia and applying them to the U.S. military. In a letter, legislators expressed concern that eliminating the battalion was another sign of the Defense Department’s “uneven and inconsistent” support to Europe and Ukraine, and they questioned how the U.S. would continue to learn drone warfare from the Ukraine theater.

“We have deep concerns that eliminating this specialized drone unit will limit our ability to learn from allies, particularly the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and hinder our efforts to modernize drone warfare at the speed necessary to compete on the modern battlefield,” Sens. Jeanne, Shahee, Thom Tillis, Angus King and Rep. Michael Turner, said in the Sept. 1 letter, provided by Sen. Shaheen’s office.

“This specialized unit was a prudent response in a moment when the character of warfare is changing faster than a conventional formation’s ability to adapt,” the lawmakers said after asking if the decision to close the unit was made by the Army or based on guidance from Defense Department leadership. They asked for an explanation by Sept. 21.

The unit is expected to return to its airborne infantry mission after participating in the multinational Exercise Saber Junction this month.

In the letter, addressed to Acting Army Chief of Staff. Gen. Christopher LaNeve and outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, legislators said they understood the move to be a result of Gen. LaNeve’s “back to basics” message, where he ordered the force to focus on its primary combat mission.

The Army has seen a massive leadership shakeup as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired over a dozen top leaders. Former Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Randy George, who championed drone innovation through his Transformation in Contact initiative, was ousted at Hegseth’s behest. He has not yet nominated a successor.

Driscoll, who supported modernization measures and acquisition reform, resigned on short notice this week amid friction with Hegseth. His resignation further thins the Army’s top ranks as the country remains locked into a war with Iran that has now stretched over six months amid missile stockpile shortages and extended deployments.

Companies in the United States and Europe rode a wave of significant defense-spending increases on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, individual national budget increases, as well as the European Union’s increasing involvement in brokering and financing joint procurement, continued to increase the revenue of defense industry players large and small.

In the United States, the 2025 Reconciliation Act is set to pump most of the legislation’s total $156 billion into acquisition — on top of the regular defense budget of roughly $900 billion for that year.

“Now, it’ll take years for that enacted money to actually flow to the companies and to their financial statements,” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser in the defense analysis program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But it will be a big boost for many companies.”

Click here to view the 2025 Defense News Top 100

In Europe, the trajectory is perhaps more immediate, as governments spooked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 began dialing up their military expenditures drastically years ago.

Besides absorbing the overall plus-up in the amount of money available, companies on the continent have rewired their business strategies to align with a preference for European-made equipment by many European governments, though the massive influx of cash on all sides obfuscates whether European companies have meaningfully cut into the bottom lines of U.S. defense giants.

More money on both sides of the pond

The latest Defense News Top 100 ranking of global defense companies bears out the overall upward trend, with companies posting higher annual defense revenues, a combined $700 billion compared with $629 billion in the prior year, a 11.3% increase.

The first four spots of our latest ranking continue to be in the hands of U.S. firms, with Lockheed Martin in the top spot with $72.1 billion in annual defense revenue, followed by RTX ($46 billion), General Dynamics ($39.4 billion) and Northrop Grumman ($37 billion), in that order.

Britain-based BAE Systems, which has a sizable U.S. operation, is the first non-American company in the lineup, creeping up one spot into number five over last year’s ranking, with $36 billion in revenue reported.

Boeing’s defense segment similarly climbed one position, into slot number six with $35.7 billion in revenue, as did L3Harris ($17.4 billion), which now places eighth.

In between sits a Chinese entrant, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, at $32.3 billion.

Click here to view the 2025 Defense News Top 100

On the heels of that company begins a lineup of firms from all over the world, with European outfits continuing to inch upwards — the big players Leonardo, Airbus and Thales placing 9, 10 and 12, respectively.

Perhaps no company represents the European defense uptick as much as Germany’s Rheinmetall, which reported $11.2 billion in 2025 annual revenue, up from $8.3 billion in the previous year. The company now sits at number 15 on the list, up from 18 in the prior year.

The firm has, over the years, branched out its operations into virtually all domains of war — land, air, naval, space, cyber and unmanned — from Europe to Australia, and has embraced the formerly low-brow segment of explosives and ammunition.

That category, which includes artillery shells, missiles and air-defense interceptors, has seen unprecedented demand in all NATO countries, based on the experiences since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Air defense competitions on the rise

The air defense category is also where the biggest shortfalls lie. Companies have expanded their supply chain setups in recent years to build artillery shells, urgently needed in Ukraine to shoot over immediate front lines’ robot-dominated no-go zones for infantry.

But what’s still lacking are sufficient interceptor missiles and drones to defend against Russian missiles fired at Ukrainian cities.

With the Patriot air defense complex — radars, launchers and interceptors — in the hands of U.S. firms, European and Ukrainian officials have begun thinking through alternatives to the scarce equipment.

Offerers include the Israeli companies involved in that country’s anti-missile architecture, with Elbit ranking 21 on the list, Israeli Aerospace Industries at 27 and Rafael at 30, as well as pan-European firm MBDA at 26 and Germany’s Diehl at 58, up from 82 last year.

Companies with a naval shipbuilding portfolio, such as General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls (ranking 13, at $12.3 billion annual revenue, up from 16) and South Korea’s Hanwha (rank 16, at $10.4 billion, up from 22), have been lifted by a favorable tide of capital-intensive naval modernization projects worldwide.

In the U.S., defense officials and lawmakers have envisioned a new armada of warships and icebreakers, dedicating a whopping $29 billion for shipbuilding in the 2025 Reconciliation Act alone.

“The Biden administration, and now the Trump administration, have just been pouring money into shipbuilding — way beyond what the industry can absorb,” said Cancian. “And then they’re talking about building another shipyard to produce all these ships that have now been funded,” he added, leaving shipbuilders with order books filled into the 2030s or beyond.

Defense spending as an ‘engine’?

Production bottlenecks for defense components, combined with economic woes in civilian industry sectors, have led to some new creative arrangements.

In Europe, some automotive companies and rail car makers have turned their factory floors into production sites for drones and counter-drone equipment.

The rush to re-arm, based on the worry that Russia might try a Ukraine-style attack elsewhere, has prompted political leaders in Europe to tout what they consider secondary economic effects of the defense bonanza.

Defense officials in the U.K. published figures in August, for example, that said the 2024-25 period saw British weapons and ammunition manufacturing jobs rise by 51%, “part of a wider 26,000 increase” in defense-supported roles nationwide.

Click here to view the 2025 Defense News Top 100

“The increase underlines defense as an engine for growth and the move towards a resilient industrial base, proving that investment in the U.K.’s security is investment in the U.K.’s prosperity,” reads an Aug. 20 statement by the Ministry of Defence.

Some Turkish companies, meanwhile, representing a country with a government mandate for making defense equipment at home rather than importing it, made the latest Top 100 list again, improving positions in some cases. Aselsan jumped from spot 43 to 40 on roughly $4.5 billion in reported annual revenue, and Roketsan gained seven ranks, on $2.4 billion, landing at spot 64.

Similarly, Polish state-owned armaments group PGZ jumped from rank 54 in 2024 figures to number 41 in the latest accounting, based on $4.4 billion in revenue last year.

The Polish government has set out plans to create one of NATO’s most powerful armies in Europe, and local weapons programs are typically designed to include Warsaw’s go-to producer as a key partner.

Meanwhile, the collection of Ukrainian defense companies under the umbrella of Ukroboronprom improved their ranking to spot number 36, up from 49 last year, with a reported revenue of $4.6 billion in 2025.

The country’s defense industry over the past years has put the Kyiv government in a position to provide armaments to its forces that the country previously had to import, often with operational limitations attached.

So much has the Ukrainian defense industry gained in expertise that allied militaries are itching to incorporate its know-how into their own supply chains.

Looking ahead, there is more spending expected, and more business for relevant defense companies, in the field of air and missile defense, said Cancian. Much of that will be connected to whatever the Trump administration’s Golden Dome program will entail, he noted.

Golden Dome wildcard

The controversial Golden Dome effort will consist of a sweeping suite of sensors and interceptors — stationed on Earth, in space and everywhere in between — that would make the United States almost impervious to aerial attacks of any kind, the theory goes.

Details have been scant on its exact architecture, and companies are searching for avenues into what they suspect will be a generational chunk of government spending in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

“We still don’t really know what it is,” Cancian said, adding the lack of clarity could make the whole project an increasingly hard sell as time goes by.

On the whole, the analyst said, there is so much defense spending on the books that the U.S. government, for its part, isn’t forced to choose between buying legacy weaponry and new technology.

“The thing that struck me most — I come out at this from a program budget perspective — is that there was enough money to do both,” he said.

Turning the influx of defense money into meaningfully improved defenses will be a top oversight job for politicians. And industry will have to be disciplined to get its ducks in a row to contend with order backlogs and production bottlenecks.

As PricewaterhouseCoopers analyst Scott Thompson noted in a recent performance analysis of the aerospace and defense sectors, “In a market where demand is not the constraint, execution is the differentiator.”

Among these ideas, none have been more controversial than the proposed Trump-class battleship.

Proponents argue that this new capital ship would bring concentrated fighting power with new high-tech weapons and large magazines that could fight independently and also withstand substantial punishment in battle. With its currently planned nuclear propulsion, moreover these behemoths could patrol for extended periods without the need to refuel.

Critics have taken aim at the project’s enormous expense, as well as the feasibility of the proposed design that is characterized as over-ambitious.

Into this roiling debate, it is instructive to survey a rather different perspective: What do the Chinese make of this project? An Aug. 21 article in China National Defense News [中国国防报] provides some initial insights into how America’s chief global rival is assessing this potentially major change in direction for the U.S. Navy surface fleet.

This article, published in an official paper of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) does note that the ship could have the advantages that “large vessels can continue to execute certain combat missions even when communications are jammed, and their hulls offer superior damage resistance compared to small or medium-sized ships.” It notes that smaller, distributed platforms could overly “rely on stable data links.” In addition, it’s worth observing that this rendering does note that the planned U.S. battleship would have nuclear propulsion, and would possibly also carry nuclear-armed missiles.

Nevertheless, the Chinese analysis, mirroring many Western evaluations, is suffused with ample skepticism.

For 15 Trump-class battleships built between 2028 and 2056, the costs would amount to $275 billion, with the lead class carrying the price tag of $23.4 billion. The report says that cost is 55% higher due to the change from conventional to nuclear propulsion and terms this price as “exorbitant.” Illustrating some familiarity with nuclear power issues, the analysis adds that “nuclear waste disposal and vessel dismantling following retirement are not included” in the $275 billion estimate.

“Unfinalized designs and insufficient technological maturity” are also flagged as potential major problem that may cause delays and cost overruns. Potentially carrying rail guns, hypersonic weapons, as well as lasers, this critique seems quite valid. As the PLA assessment states: “This ‘build the platform first, install equipment later’ approach could increase the risks.” The piece cites the examples of the both the Zumwalt-class destroyer and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) as relevant examples of recent problematic programs.

Notably, the Chinese article is also particularly attuned to potential shifts in the basic U.S. Navy warfighting doctrinal paradigm.

The article observes: “This design differs from the Distributed Maritime Operations concept that the U.S. Navy has been advancing in recent years. The theory of distributed maritime operations emphasizes the dispersal of detection, command, and strike capabilities across multiple nodes … to mitigate the impact that damage to a few large vessels would have on the entire formation.”

In a closely related point, the PLA article also broaches the question of whether large surface combatants are simply too vulnerable to quiet submarines, hypersonic missiles, and “drone swarms.”

Apparently quite aware of major difficulties in U.S. shipbuilding, the Chinese military assessment adds that leading American shipyards “are currently facing average delays of five years, with the delivery cycle for a single ship extending from approximately five years in the early 2000’s to about eleven years today.”

Noting that the new battleship program could have cascading results for other high priority U.S. Navy programs, the article concludes: “Assembly of nuclear-powered battleships … could further slow the construction of aircraft carriers and submarines.” These Chinese strategists are no doubt aware such a delay would further impact the Asia-Pacific naval balance.

China itself has indicated interest in nuclear-powered surface vessels. Thus, they have thoroughly investigated the newly renovated Russian battle cruiser Admiral Nakihimov.

Yet it is would be foolhardy to invest in such ambitious platforms for the U.S. Navy at a time when the service confronts so many shipbuilding challenges and when the nation also faces an inevitable process of belt-tightening. Perhaps some of America’s allies can experiment with the new battleship concept. But the U.S. Navy will be well advised to go toward its time-tested strengths, especially in undersea warfare, but also in the emergent domain of drones.

Overall, America’s sea service must bring its force structure into alignment with a new strategy appropriate to the multipolar world that involves reducing expensive “presence” missions and embracing more cost-effective hedging.

That will most likely mean a less high-profile role for surface combatants and thus recognizing the reality that the Trump-class battleship will most likely never get built.

Certainly, this Chinese military article implies that at least some Chinese strategists are eager for the U.S. to pursue that extravagant project, knowing that it is folly and would thus weaken Beijing’s chief rival.

Lyle Goldstein is director of the China Initiative at Brown University’s Watson School and concurrently serves as director of the Asia Program at the think-tank Defense Priorities.

The goal is to develop sensors that can “scan individual hard armor plates for cracks and delaminations,” according to a Marine Corps Request For Information, which is due Oct. 2. More specifically, the devices will inspect Enhanced Small Arms Protective Inserts and United States Marine Corps Lightweight Plates.

The Enhanced Armor Inspection System will use computed tomography, or CT, scanners. CT scanning, commonly used for tasks such as medical imaging and airport bomb detection, creates 3D images that are more detailed than traditional 2D X-ray images.

The Marine Corps intends to set up 10 CT scanners for body armor inspection. This includes six devices in the continental United States, two in Japan and one each in Hawaii and Guam.

The Marine Corps currently uses two techniques to spot defects in body armor, as explained in a 2023 Small Business Innovation Research solicitation that sought new methods of examining cracked ceramic plates and delaminated polyethylene layers. Cracked ceramics are detected by X-rays and deformed polyethylene by tapping the armor and determining whether the sound is like a chime (good) or a thud (bad).

The SBIR did point to CT scanning as an alternative, but noted that “this method is extremely expensive and requires highly trained personnel.”

The new RFI seeks an automated commercial system. It should include an “automated material custom conveyance & sorting system, imaging system, and data processing/handling that is fully equipped with customized Automated Defect Recognition (ADR) software to meet the USMC’s requirements.”

Contractors should specify how many plates per minute their systems can examine. They are also asked to describe how well the scanners can handle “materials with varying densities or compositions, such as the blend of boron carbide and silicon carbide, or the presence of metal crack arrestors.”

In 2011, a Department of Defense Inspector General audit found that the U.S. Army had purchased 5.1 million ballistic inserts that might have been defective. Army tests sometimes failed to use the correct-sized armor plates, the proper velocity for bullets fired at the plates or assess the effects of weathering and altitude.

The Army replied that there was “no case in which the military’s body armor has failed to do its job in protecting troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

There have also been claims of defective military body armor in Britain and Taiwan, as well as for U.S. police departments.

Iran’s health minister said 18 people were killed and 108 wounded in Tuesday night’s U.S. strikes across Iran. The Iranian Red Crescent said four people were killed and 67 wounded at a wedding ceremony near the coast of the Strait of Hormuz.

The return of combat operations has alarmed countries throughout the region, as Iran launched missile and drone attacks against what it said were U.S. assets in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq.

The guns had largely gone silent since the previous exchange in July, although peace talks failed to advance in the interim. President Donald Trump threatened to unleash yet more military force, even though the war is unpopular at home and has driven up the cost of gasoline.

Iran, for its part, has remained defiant, despite suffering heavy military and economic losses.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply alarmed by reports of civilian casualties, including a strike that reportedly hit a wedding ceremony in Iran,” and called for an immediate cessation of military action, his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

“The Secretary General condemns all attacks against civilians. He recalls that all parties must respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution,” Dujarric said.

The deaths would be in addition to the 3,636 people documented as killed in Iran as of April 7, including 1,701 civilians, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an independent Iranian rights group.

The U.S. has reported 18 military personnel killed and more than 750 wounded.

“We are aware of reports, which originated from Iranian state media. The U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC,” U.S. Navy Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for the U.S. military’s Central Command, said in an email.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society released video showing debris strewn on the ground next to a building with a large hole in the roof, accompanied by still images showing people, some in Red Crescent vests, at a damaged building and a utility tower lying on the ground.

Reuters was able to verify the location using satellite imagery, which showed the fallen tower was 136 metres (149 yards) from the damaged building.

The wedding incident recalled the blast at a school in Minab that killed 160 people at a girls’ school on the first day of the war.

The Pentagon has yet to issue an official finding on the Minab strike, which would be the U.S. military’s largest civilian casualty incident in decades. It may have been the ‌result of U.S. use of outdated targeting data, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Democratic members of the U.S. Congress have called on the administration to release findings of its investigation of the incident, but the report has not been sent to lawmakers.

Lawmakers demand Pentagon release findings from probe of Iran school strike

U.S. defenders of the Iran war also point to civilian deaths that resulted from Iranian attempts to put down street protests that embroiled the country in December and January, before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. HRANA has put that death toll at more than 7,000, while Iranian exile groups claim the number is much higher.

Trump has cited an incentive for Iranians to overthrow their government as one reason for the war, in addition to seeking to halt Iran’s nuclear program and ending its support for militant groups abroad such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Iran has also responded to the U.S. attacks by threatening any oil tankers that transit the Strait of Hormuz without Iranian authorization, severely curtailing traffic in a waterway that before the war carried 20% of the world’s oil supply.

A cornerstone of the Army’s ground system modernization effort, TITAN was designed to simplify the data-gathering process for soldiers aiming at far-off targets.

The Army chose Palantir as the prime contractor to develop the next-generation targeting system in 2024.

Palantir, which received $127 million, will lead TITAN’s production, alongside L3 Harris Technologies, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Strategic Technology Consulting and World Wide Technology.

Anduril, which received $65 million under the award, will manufacture the ruggedized, vehicle-mounted systems and integrate the power and thermal subsystems that allow TITAN to operate in austere environments.

The TITAN program will create an advanced variant of the system to be mounted on the Army’s tactical trucks and have the ability to gather data from space sensors, as well as a basic variant for the service’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

The award covers procurement and integration of four advanced and four basic variants, which are slated for delivery over the next 18 months. Those will buttress the Army’s nine existing prototype units that the service uses today.

The Army expects to award additional production orders in fiscal 2027.

A nearly monthlong investigation identified telltale signs of a Russian hybrid warfare action, German investigators had found.

An explosive-laden drone fell near a Ukrainian cargo airplane used to shuttle munitions to the country at war in early August. It failed to detonate and was instead defused by a police bomb squad. German media later reported that two similar drones were found at or near the airport in the following days and weeks.

The airport at Leipzig/Halle plays a key logistical role in the supply of Ukraine and for NATO airlift operations.

“Taken together, police investigations, patterns of the act, and intelligence findings demonstrate Russian responsibility for the attempted attack at Leipzig Airport,” said German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt. “The Federal Government therefore concludes that Russia is responsible for the hybrid attack in Leipzig on August 4.”

In response, Germany will be closing Russia’s consulate general in Bonn, a 70,000 square meter complex that hosted Soviet intelligence rezidenturas during the Cold War, by Sept. 18. Berlin will also terminate the leases for the Russian House for Science and Culture in Berlin. In addition, German authorities will be implementing heightened scrutiny during immigration of Russian citizens and push for further visa restrictions for Russian people, particularly those tied to hybrid operations.

The German announcement was made jointly by the country’s ministers for interior and foreign affairs.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the decisions a “grave mistake,” and accused the German government of falsifying evidence to distract from domestic political woes and Chancellor Merz’s poor popularity ratings.

Russia’s ambassador to Berlin, who had previously been summoned by the foreign ministry, said the “hastily concocted provocation at Leipzig airport” was the basis of “absurd” allegations.

The Russian foreign ministry has said it would “mirror” Germany’s actions, which is longstanding Russian policy. In the past, Russia has frequently responded to the expulsion of diplomats from a Western country by expelling a similar number of that country’s diplomats from Moscow. This often worked out in Russia’s favor, given Moscow’s numerical advantage in its diplomatic corps.

The European Union and NATO issued separate statements of support for and solidarity with Germany. Both organizations have scheduled high-level talks on the topic for Wednesday.

Not quite a technological breakthrough, military analysts say.

But the 054A frigate has advantages that are expected to raise the People’s Liberation Army Navy clout along and beyond the Chinese southeast coasts and in turn fluster nearby Taiwan and Japan – each with concerns about Beijing’s maritime activities – while putting the United States on higher alert, analysts say.

The frigate comparable to the U.S. Navy’s Constellation-class ships can operate in blue waters, meaning open seas far from its own coasts — an asset that its predecessors lacked, said David Silbey, a military historian and associate teaching professor with the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy.

Can China’s latest air-to-air missile take on its US equivalent? Definitely maybe, experts say.

China’s 054A could do anti-submarine warfare as well due to its helicopter launch features, Silbey added. Helicopters increase a warship’s submarine detection range. The frigates could be produced fast in high numbers, he added.

State media outlets reported that the frigate did a training mission on Aug. 22. Part of a PLA Eastern Theater Command flotilla, it joined other vessels for combat-related training, command coordination tests and emergency responses, state broadcaster CCTV News said.

The 054A frigates will grab attention offshore because they add to an already expanding naval fleet, experts believe.

“Taiwan is concerned about its increased anti-submarine, escort and fleet air defense capabilities around the Taiwan Strait,” said Huang Chung-ting, associate research fellow with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.

“Japan will pay attention to its activities in the East China Sea, the Miyako Strait and around the first-island chain,” Huang said, referring to Japan itself as well as other land masses between China and the open Pacific Ocean.

He said Washington would worry about whether the Chinese navy is forming a “large enough modern escort fleet” able to maintain long-term deployment in the open sea.

The frigate could become a “multiplier for bigger units in a vast array of tasks”, said Enrico Cau, an associate researcher at the Taiwan Strategy Research Association think tank.

China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military drills nearby since 2022 — as Washington continues to help arm Taiwan in case of any conflict. Japan, a U.S. treaty ally, contests with China a chain of uninhabited islets and Beijing resents Tokyo’s stance on Taiwan.

Chinese media reports call the 054A, also known as the Jiangkai II, a second Ningde branded ship type after the 056 guided-missile corvette that entered service in 2016. It has little if any unique technology, analysts believe. It even comes with “limited” missile capacity, rendering it “not a particularly powerful ship,” Silbey said.

But it matters because it would bolster the navy’s overall potential, the experts said.

“I think the multirole designation allows it to cover an important gap between smaller ships designed for a limited set of littoral, coastal and short-range missions and bigger ships designed for different tasks in long range missions,” Cau said.

The nuclear-powered Lincoln, with roughly ​5,000 personnel, was involved in the U.S. naval blockade and combat operations in the war with Iran and — according to ​Democratic lawmakers — set a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea.

Accompanied by other U.S. naval vessels, the Lincoln arrived early Wednesday in Thailand, the United States’ only treaty partner in mainland Southeast Asia, for rest and recuperation during a visit that Thai officials said would last five days.

By afternoon, busloads of sailors and Marines wearing civilian clothes, many smiling and waving, started arriving at a hotel in the resort city of Pattaya, about 150 km (93 miles) southeast of Bangkok.

‘Truly historic accomplishments’

“Our arrival in Laem Chabang provides a well-deserved opportunity for our Sailors and Marines to rest and recharge,” the commander of Carrier Strike Group 3, Rear Admiral Robert E. Loughran, said in a statement.

“What this strike group has accomplished is truly historic. I could not be prouder of the exceptional professionalism and expertise demonstrated by every member of this team during our operations.”

The Lincoln was deployed last November. Typically naval deployments are for between six and nine months, but those can be extended during times of conflict.

Shakeira Fairfax flew in from New Jersey and was waiting outside the Pattaya hotel to meet her 25-year-old daughter Jade, a crew member on the Lincoln.

Fairfax said there were moments during the long deployment after the start of the Iran war when morale was low, when contact was limited and she feared for her daughter’s safety.

“There was a period of silence,” she said. “It was an uncertain time, it was a scary time. It was difficult, it was definitely difficult, but she has a support system,” she told reporters.

“I just can’t wait to see her smile. I can’t wait to hear ‘Mom’, I know that’s the first thing she’s gonna say.”

Eastern Thailand is long accustomed to port visits by the U.S. Navy and has a relationship going back to the Vietnam War, when Pattaya was a sleepy beach town close to a naval base and an airfield used by U.S. bombers, with thousands of U.S. personnel based in the area.

Thailand became a U.S. treaty ally in 1954 before being designated a major non-NATO ally in 2003. The two countries’ militaries maintain strong ties and hold joint exercises every year.

The Lincoln, its broad flight deck packed with helicopters and warplanes, including the latest F-35 fighter jets, arrived in Laem Chabang early on Wednesday and the guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. docked in nearby Sri Racha.

Both vessels were streaked with rust and showed mottled paint along the waterlines. A third ship, the guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls, arrived in the port of Map Tha Phut.

‘Drinks, having fun, and letting loose’

The port visit has raised hopes of an economic boost for Pattaya, which also has a long-standing reputation as a sex tourism destination.

The city’s mayor, Poramase Ngampiches, met the commander of the Lincoln on Wednesday and said U.S. officials had placed restrictions on the crew’s activities during the stay, including on water sports and visiting certain entertainment zones after sunset, which he said could present a negative image.

Police will deploy additional patrols around Pattaya’s main beachfront and nightlife district, following raids ​over the weekend and the arrest of 40 to 50 people for suspected prostitution.

Although illegal in Thailand, the sex industry operates openly in tourism ​hubs, including in Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya, despite occasional crackdowns.

On the eve of the Lincoln’s arrival, Pattaya street vendors near the city’s infamous “Walking Street” nightlife zone were excited by the prospect of a boost in sales.

“It’s been so quiet these days,” said clothes seller Kadsalin Ketpa, 43. “I hope with their arrival they would drive my sales up.”

Food seller Saroch, 45, said port visits by the U.S. military were good for business.

“They’re here for drinks, having fun, and letting loose,” Saroch said.

The former minister left office in July but had said little about his future outside of government until last weekend, when he confirmed that he would not be returning to government and that he would instead begin focusing on several new projects — including building a major defense investment fund and advising the Italian Ministry of Defense.

“During the full-scale war, our team gained unique experience working with defense technologies in Ukraine and seeing firsthand how technology is transforming modern warfare,” Fedorov said in a press release.

“Now we want to use this experience to build technologies that will strengthen Ukraine, help our allies and ultimately make the world safer.”

Karp’s backing could mean billions in investment for Fedorov and Ukraine’s defense industry.

Palantir posted 93% year-over-year revenue growth last quarter, and Karp has watched the company’s valuation soar past $440 billion — up nearly 28-fold from its 2020 stock market debut. Roughly half of its total revenue comes from U.S. government contracts.

Fedorov built his reputation as Ukraine’s tech-first defense chief in part on his backing of Delta, Ukraine’s state-of-the-art battlefield management system that fuses drone feeds, radar and field data into a layered dashboard that can be used to oversee the front in real time or learn from a battle’s lessons afterwards.

“Ukraine’s Delta common operating system, their modular open system architecture command and control system, is absolutely incredible,” outgoing U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who resigned from his role this week, told the U.S. Senate in May.

U.S. Army systems, meanwhile, remain “compartmentalized, isolated and ineffective against modern threats,” he said.

The American equivalent of Delta is Palantir’s Maven Smart System, which uses Anthropic’s AI model to similarly combine real-world data and intelligence analysis into a single powerful tool for battle planning and briefing.

Karp was among the first Western tech executives to travel to Kyiv after Russia’s 2022 invasion, and Palantir’s tech has since been deployed by more than half a dozen Ukrainian government agencies.

Ukraine’s Brave1 Dataroom, a joint project between the defense ministry and Palantir launched earlier this year, runs on Palantir’s infrastructure and lets Ukrainian companies train AI models — including target-detection systems for countering Shahed-type drones — on real combat data.

“We’ve worked together for a half decade,” Karp said in a joint video with Fedorov announcing the partnership. “I have been absolutely inspired by what you and the Ukrainians have pulled off, and very... delighted that we could play a part.”

Karp reportedly reached out to Fedorov almost as soon as news of his dismissal broke over the summer.

Fedorov told reporters at the time that Karp had called to propose “we do something together,” though he said he asked to revisit the conversation later.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy abruptly dismissed Fedorov from his position in July, despite the former minister’s widespread popularity among civilians and soldiers alike for his tech-first military strategies and aggressive initiatives aimed at tackling some of the government’s toughest wartime challenges.

His departure set off weeks of nationwide protests demanding his reinstatement.

Fedorov said in Tuesday’s press release that despite his new international ventures, “Ukraine will be the priority for me.”

The proposed Foreign Military Sale includes GAU-19 three-barrel machine gun launchers, M260 seven-tube launchers for 2.75-inch rockets, electro-optical/infrared sensors and missile launch detection systems.

The State Department did not specify how many helicopters Iraq is seeking to purchase.

The package also includes Very High Frequency radios, spare parts, ground support equipment, technical publications and data, and new-equipment training for Iraqi pilots and maintenance personnel. U.S. government and contractor personnel would provide engineering, technical and logistics support.

The State Department said the proposed sale would improve Iraq’s ability to address current and future threats by strengthening its rotary-wing transport, reconnaissance and air-to-surface targeting capabilities.

Equipment to be sold includes L-3 Wescam MX-15HDI electro-optical/infrared sensors and AN/AAR-60 Block 2 missile launch detection systems.

The proposed sale follows earlier U.S.-Iraqi efforts to modernize Iraq’s military helicopter fleet. A 2026 Department of Defense Office of Inspector General report on Operation Inherent Resolve said Iraq’s Ministry of Defense had submitted Foreign Military Sales requests for four Bell 412EPXs and 16 Bell 412Ms to replace Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters, as well as 15 new Bell 407Ms to replace existing 407s in the light-attack role.

Those previously reported quantities and the Bell 412M request, however, should not be considered as the quantities or configuration of the newly minted $800 million sale and are based solely on the OIG report.

The State Department said the proposed sale would support U.S. foreign policy and national security interests by helping improve the security of a “strategic partner.”

Bell-Textron, based in Fort Worth, Texas, would be the principal contractor.

The official notification represents approval of a possible Foreign Military Sale, not a completed contract. The final quantity, configuration and cost could change as the proposed sale moves through the Foreign Military Sales process.

Oil prices had already risen after that first exchange of direct attacks since July and after reports of two tankers being hit on Monday leaving the Strait, the global oil supply waterway that Iran has effectively closed to shipping. Brent crude futures, already up 2% on the day, jumped almost 2% more on the reports. [O/R]

Tehran remained defiant, warning that it would prevent oil being exported from the Gulf, despite a threat by President Donald Trump to hit Iran “hard” in response to the renewed Iranian strikes, and a warning from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Washington was about to impose new sanctions.

“Today at 12 p.m. ET (1600 GMT), U.S. forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran,” U.S. Central Command posted on X. “The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”

Iran’s state broadcaster said there had been reports of explosions on Iran’s Qeshm Island, on the northern side of the strait.

The state-linked news agency Nour News said there had been reports of explosions in the port city of Bandar Abbas and in Chabahar, a port on the southern coast. The state news agency IRNA also reported the sound of explosions in Jask and Sirik.

Trump posted on his social media channel that if Iran retaliated for the attack, “they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level”.

The Fars news agency cited an IRGC spokesperson as saying the U.S. “will regret its new attacks”.

Scale of resumption of Iran hostilities unclear

The U.S. Embassy in Qatar urged Americans currently in the Middle East to exercise “heightened vigilance and be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures, and travel disruptions”.

The six-month-old conflict had shifted into an economic standoff before the weekend strikes, in which U.S. forces attacked Iran’s Larak Island on Sunday and Iran responded by launching missiles at two U.S. air bases in Jordan.

Although he warned of a U.S. response to the Iranian strikes, Trump also told reporters on Monday that they did not signal a return to full-scale war, and a senior Iranian source told Reuters they were a “limited and contained confrontation”.

But pledges by both sides to respond to further attacks have highlighted how quickly a conflict that has increasingly been fought through sanctions, blockades and economic pressure could spill back into military action.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had said early on Tuesday at a regional summit in Kyrgyzstan that Tehran would reciprocate immediately if Washington honoured its commitments under a June Memorandum of Understanding that was intended to halt the conflict.

The MOU declared an end to fighting that has now killed thousands in Iran and Lebanon since U.S. and Israeli strikes began on February 28. But it also deferred many of the most difficult issues and paved the way for a broader 60-day negotiation period — which passed without further agreement.

Iranian officials have shown no public sign since then of bowing to pressure.

“If the enemy wants us not to export oil from the Persian Gulf, no one will be able to export oil,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told a press conference in Tehran that Washington was “addicted to making excessive demands and has mistaken negotiations for dictating terms”.

New US economic sanctions loom

“As long as they act in this manner, they will certainly get no result other than what they have achieved so far,” he added, warning that Tehran would “use all our capabilities, whether on the battlefield or through our diplomatic apparatus”.

Before the latest attacks, Bessent had said Washington was likely to announce bank sanctions against Iran this week and next, stepping up an attempt to “economically asphyxiate” Iran’s leadership after six months of conflict.

At a G20 finance leaders’ meeting in Asheville, ​North Carolina, he said the U.S. was also looking at targeting airline leasing companies and other entities that did business with the IRGC.

“We have zero tolerance. We are going to economically asphyxiate this regime,” he said.

Iran’s leaders have defied decades of U.S. sanctions, many of which have been aimed at curtailing Tehran’s oil revenues and acquisition of weapons components.

Bessent has also warned that countries doing business with Iran could face U.S. sanctions.

The heightened tensions have renewed fears of oil supply disruptions from the world’s key crude-producing region.

“The tit-for-tat missile exchanges between the U.S. and Iran bring validation to those who believe that even if not a ‘forever war’, this conflict will run and run,” said PVM analyst John Evans.

Highlighting such concerns, two supertankers carrying Saudi oil were struck by unknown projectiles within minutes of each other while transiting outbound through the Strait of Hormuz late on Monday, according to data from shipping intelligence and tracking firms Marisks and Kpler.

The vehicle is slated to start testing, while seven additional prototypes are scheduled for delivery later this year. The evaluation is part of a roughly $764 million Engineering and Manufacturing Development contract intended to take the vehicle from digital design through validation.

The Lynx XM30 was created for a battlefield increasingly shaped by drones and electronic warfare, according to the company, and its design features modular, open architecture to enable the quick integration of new technology while it is in service. Rheinmetall said the prototype has a first-of-its-kind hybrid-electric powertrain that combines a traditional engine with electric power.

Once the prototypes clear safety checks, soldiers will put them through exercises that simulate combat. The Army plans to do technical testing while troops simultaneously train with additional prototypes in what Matt Warnick, American Rheinmetall’s CEO, called a “parallel evaluation timeline.”

In 2023, the Army selected American Rheinmetall and General Dynamics Land Systems for the XM30 design phase. The prototypes are meant to supersede the Bradley, which entered service in the 1980s.

The XM30 model is built off of Rheinmetall’s Lynx KF41.

Vladyslav Vlasiuk showed reporters on Aug. 25 foreign-made components recovered from Russian ballistic missiles, laid out on a table adorned with miniature flags marking the parts’ countries of origin.

The display included parts recovered from Iskander missiles and 48N6-family rounds fired from S-400 launchers, with guidance and navigation-related components traced to the United States, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, France, Britain and Switzerland.

One country was overrepresented in the tech spread.

“The United States is the leader,” Vlasiuk said. “In ballistic systems, it is the United States above all, because ballistic missiles are especially demanding in terms of quality and product characteristics.”

The broader pattern is not new. In a 2024 investigation, Ukraine found that roughly 70% of the foreign components recovered from Russian missiles came from U.S. companies, according to RBC-Ukraine.

While the United States has historically been aggressive in enforcing international sanctions, Russian missile makers are still sourcing sensitive electronics through third-country intermediaries that can be replaced almost as quickly as they are sanctioned.

That leaves an enforcement gap that lets Moscow keep acquiring components made by Western-headquartered companies, including Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices and Microchip Technology.

Cutting those supply lines matters even more for Ukraine now, as Russia ramps up production of ballistic and high-speed missiles to more than 100 a month, according to military officials, and allies worldwide face a “dire” interceptor shortage precipitated by the outbreak of the Iran war earlier this year.

With partners reducing the supply of Patriot interceptors to Ukraine to about 50 to 60 monthly — a fraction of what’s needed to counter the combined salvos of hundreds of drones and missiles that Russia launches at Ukraine on an almost weekly basis — Kyiv has had to get creative with its antiballistic strategies.

To plug these sanctions gaps, Kyiv wants partners to pass a new set of restrictions on the companies and people supplying foreign electronics and chemical inputs to Russian ballistic manufacturers, along with eliminating the third-country suppliers and routes used to backdoor the components into Russia.

Vlasiuk offered a three-part plan: partners should synchronize designations on every identified Russian ballistic manufacturer across allied jurisdictions; impose sectoral restrictions on roughly 110 materials used in missile production; and tighten export licensing for sensitive electronics and other inputs.

Ukraine wants the EU to pass a small interim package aimed specifically at Russia’s ballistic-weapons chain as soon as September, followed by another package in October, rather than wait for a broader 22nd sanctions package expected no earlier than late October, Vlasiuk said.

The commissioner arrived in Washington on Tuesday to lobby House members to take up the Senate-passed Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which would address many of these loopholes but has yet to be approved by both houses.

U.S. President Donald Trump largely withheld support for the sweeping Russia sanctions bill for nearly a year after taking office while pursuing peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, before reversing course earlier this year.

While the service did not detail the aircraft’s combat radius, the Aug. 31 Request for Information did note that the service wants the CCA to carry up to 5 tons of weapons and cost no more than $30 million per unit.

The service has set a response deadline of Sept. 18.

Prospective contractors are asked to “provide the maximum combat radius including weapons loadout, 30 minutes on-station and reserve fuel for safe recovery that the proposed solution can perform.”

While potential CCA designs can have both internal and external weapons, according to the RFI, the aircraft must be capable of carrying “four weapons up to 2,500 pounds each externally throughout the target flight envelope and carrier certification flights.”

The Navy is seeking two prototypes capable of achieving shore-based, aircraft carrier qualifications within the next three years.

The prototypes are intended to demonstrate “extended range and payload capacity, while minimizing deck footprint and integrating with established CVN [nuclear-powered carrier] infrastructure,” the RFI said.

The CCA project aims to deliver an autonomous combat drone that can team up with manned carrier aircraft and perform missions in contested skies that are becoming increasingly risky for human pilots.

The Navy also wants carrier-based combat drones to soften the blow of traditional weapons losses, alleviating the “high cost and extended timelines required to replace manned platforms and naval surface combatants,” which “limit the Joint Force’s capacity to absorb operational losses,” the RFI states.

The service’s Aug. 31 request describes an ideal unmanned aircraft capable of executing single- and multi-aircraft strike missions. Conceptual images from major defense firms such as Anduril and General Atomics suggest designs that resemble smaller versions of manned stealth fighters.

Regardless of final design, the Navy wants a CCA that will not require drastic changes to carriers and embarked air wings. For example, the CCA should operate easily from Ford- and Nimitz-class carriers, the RFI states, including catapult takeoffs and arrested landings up to Sea State 5 (waves up to 13 feet high).

Flight operations are to be conducted using existing carrier air wing personnel, the Navy request states, with CCA drones controlled by the MD-5 Unmanned Carrier Aviation Mission Control System that serves the MQ-25 Stingray.

“Physical dimensions, height, width, and weight thresholds must meet carrier deck, elevator and hangar bay requirements,” the request notes. There should also be a minimum of specialized support and deck-handling equipment for the drones. The drone spot factor — how much deck and hangar space it takes up — “must not exceed existing fourth generation fighter aircraft.”

The Navy does eventually want new methods for servicing and handling its CCA platforms. Contractors are asked to suggest alternatives for “a deck handling system that can operate all carrier-based unmanned air vehicles through launch, recovery and deck operations during EMCON [emergency] conditions without increasing support equipment solutions or requiring any additional flight deck personnel,” according to the RFI.

The CCA’s price tag, meanwhile, is growing.

In 2024, Navy officials noted that, because the drone is meant to be expendable, the service would like to keep the cost down to around $15 million apiece.

The new RFI, however, asks companies to provide an interim manufacturing and supply chain plan for “reaching the Navy’s affordability goals of $30 million per unit.”

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Poland’s neighbor Ukraine has triggered an expenditure hike by Warsaw, with the Polish defense budget forecasted to total 4.8% of the nation’s GDP this year. Over the past years, Poland has allocated a significant share of its military procurement spending to gear from the United States, purchasing Abrams tanks, F-35 fighter jets, AH-64E Apache helicopters, Patriot missiles and M142 HIMARS rocket launchers, among equipment. At the same time, the conflict in Ukraine has encouraged Poland’s current pro-European Union government to pursue a ramp-up of its domestic weapons, equipment and ammunition manufacturing capacities.

Benefiting from the bloc’s Security Action For Europe (SAFE) scheme which provides low-interest loans for military acquisitions, Poland has also secured up to €43.7 billion ($50.9 billion) worth of loans. For the Polish defense industry, the EU’s €150 billion scheme also presents an opportunity to market its products through joint acquisitions between member states.

On Aug. 24, Poland, Norway, Lithuania and Latvia signed a framework deal to purchase Piorun (Thunderbolt) man-portable air defense systems from Polish state-run defense group PGZ under a contract worth more than 8 billion zloty, with Warsaw leading the procurement.

“It is the first contract of this type in which a consortium is not formed by companies, but by countries,” Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and National Defence Minister, said during the official signing event. “It’s a demonstration of strength, resilience, a demonstration that Poland can be an exporter of military equipment”.

Amid growing demand for its output, Poland’s private sector is also investing to expand its manufacturing capacities and roll out new products, with numerous premieres scheduled for the four-day defense extravaganza event, scheduled to take place in Kielce, central Poland, between Sept. 8 and 11.

Polish leading private defense business WB Group is among the producers that have benefited from Europe’s intensifying demand for drones amid lessons from Ukraine. WB Group has been expanding its range of UAVs over the past years, offering products such as the Warmate loitering munition and the FT5 short-range tactical unmanned aerial platform, among others. On Aug. 27, the group held a press briefing during which it discussed its plans and the role that it aims to play in Poland’s efforts to build up its domestic defense manufacturing capacities.

Piotr Wojciechowski, the chief executive and co-founder of WB Group, said that one of the group’s objectives is to ensure its products are made almost entirely with components made in Poland and European countries, with the inclusion of non-European components limited to the level of “only a few percent.”

The vendor’s goal is to support the development of the “technological sovereignty” of Poland, but WB Group is also open to cooperation with foreign defense groups on projects that can contribute to the domestic manufacturing ramp up, Wojciechowski said.

“Technological sovereignty and European cooperation are not mutually exclusive,” the CEO said.

Using SAFE loans, in May 2026, the Polish Ministry of National Defence awarded three contracts to WB Group to purchase “hundreds” of Warmate sets, close to 200 FlyEye reconnaissance UAVs, and a dozen battery fire modules of the Gladius unmanned reconnaissance and strike system, according to data from the business.

Beyond the Polish market, WB Group is also developing its exports to foreign markets. The business has supplied drones to the Ukrainian military since 2015, and operates a production facility there. WB Group also exports its products to various countries in Europe and Asia. The manufacturer’s plants have the capacity to produce 25 unmanned platforms per day, the CEO said.

Wojciechowski stated that, under a recently-signed contract, WB Group is developing a version of its Gladius system that will fit the requirements of Sweden’s military. The Polish group has a partnership there with Saab.

Next week’s MSPO show will feature Canada as this year’s lead nation. Housed in the newly-built hall in Kielce, some 82 Canadian companies are to showcase a broad portfolio of military vehicles, aerospace solutions, cybersecurity systems, opto-electronics, radar systems, and modern battlefield technology, the show’s organizers said in a statement.

The Canadian industry’s commercial offensive in Poland comes as the North Atlantic nation is working to bolster its defense ties with European partners. In December 2025, Canada announced it would become the first non-EU state to participate in the SAFE scheme. A string of contracts that are either in progress or under discussion could bring the Canadian industry closer to European suppliers.

In July, Ottawa selected German shipbuilder TKMS to supply 12 new submarines to its Navy in what the government has described as the largest defense procurement in Canada’s history. The Canadian authorities are also mulling plans to purchase Gripen E/F fighter jets from Saab.

The scope of Canada’s presence at this year’s MSPO indicates the country is intensifying efforts to look for new partners and markets for its defense industry also in Central-Eastern Europe.

The goal, as military officials and industry executives often describe it, is to give commanders the information they need to make consequential decisions as quickly as possible.

But no matter how fast or accurate the analysis is, there’s still a gap between identifying what needs to happen and acting on it. Much of that AI processing happens on computers and servers miles from the battlefield, leaving troops to receive the information through radios, tablets or other devices.

That means the next step in military AI may be putting the technology directly on the bodies of those in the field. While some companies are exploring wearable technology like helmets equipped with heads-up displays, Smack Technologies thinks the answer may be much simpler: Instead of putting AI in a helmet, put it on an operator’s wrist.

The California-based defense tech startup recently raised $61 million in Series B funding to develop Alpha, a wrist-worn device designed to connect operators in the field to real-time data collected and processed through Smack’s Omega AI software.

Andy Markoff, Smack’s co-founder and chief executive, told Military Times that his company started with the software because it could train its AI around day-to-day operations.

“Alpha tackles a much harder problem because you have to make the model work in the field with hardware and little to no connectivity, but we’ve always known this is what has to happen to enable decision dominance,” he said.

During an interview, Markoff walked Military Times through the concept of Alpha, from how operators would wear the device to how it’s used.

As a former Marine Raider, Markoff said he and his team of former military personnel believe the wrist is a more convenient place to access intelligence in the field.

“The form factor we’re building replaces what I literally used to wear on my forearm, only here I’m exchanging a whiteboard and grease pencil for a flexible computer screen that has our models’ capabilities on it,” he said.

He likened the concept to a QB sleeve, which allows a quarterback to see plays at a glance.

“Our sensors that are out collecting information about enemy forces and their location are sending that information to a screen on my forearm along with actionable decision options informed by campaign equities and adjacent units,” he said.

Markoff said he recognizes that a heads-up display could be useful for some missions, but he also sees drawbacks, particularly in hot or humid environments.

“If you’ve ever walked in the jungle at night, you know you’d actually rather risk having an eyeball poked out by a tree than wear shooting glasses that fog up and prevent you from seeing anything,” he said.

However, Markoff said that the hardware is the easy part of building an AI-enabled wearable. The more difficult problem is figuring out what information an operator needs in the field.

He explained the fundamental idea behind Alpha is to decentralize command and control in environments where operators cannot communicate directly with commanders.

“To do this, we’re essentially encoding commander’s intent: here’s our goal, here’s what makes the most sense for the theater and the theater’s goals, and here’s context around how everyone at the front lines should be going after that goal, including constraints and contracts with adjacent units,” he said.

He added that the goal isn’t to have AI make decisions, but to give the operator enough information to make better ones, potentially increasing effectiveness while reducing wasted time and resources.

Alpha has been in development for only about four months, but Markoff projects that Smack will have a working prototype within the next year and could secure contracts for the device within two years.

The agreements come as escalating conflicts with Iran and Ukraine have bled U.S. stockpiles of both THAAD and Patriot missiles.

The ongoing conflict with Iran has depleted around two-thirds of the United States’ pre-war Patriot missile interceptor inventory, according to a July report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The think tank estimated that the U.S. has dispensed around 65% of its Patriot inventory and 38% of its THAAD interceptors. The U.S. is draining those supplies on two fronts, both in Iran and by transferring large stockpiles of Patriot air defense interceptors and Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine.

That diminished inventory also reduces the U.S.’s ability to wage war and defend against other peer adversaries, notably China in the western Pacific, CSIS experts noted.

The U.S. recently marked six months of war with Iran, a conflict that President Donald Trump had estimated would last as little as five weeks at its outset.

With the DoD’s weapons cache dwindling, the Trump administration has turned its strategy away from military intervention and toward economic sanctions against Iran.

The framework agreements with General Dynamics and Lockheed would initiate seven-year procurement contracts to increase production quantities and accelerate delivery schedules for critical missile subcomponents, the DoD stated on Monday.

The work includes tripling Patriot production and quadrupling THAAD interceptor production capacity. However, the Pentagon also noted that the funding for that surge would be subject to annual congressional appropriations.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced framework agreements with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to expand Patriot and THAAD production.