Defense One - All Content

What Trump’s tech strategy means for the military, deterring China, and the future of AI

Patrick Tucker — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 03:44:46 -0400

The newest White House tech strategy pushes faster development of emerging technologies for the military, gives defense innovators more room to experiment, and will broaden the federal market for young defense tech startups. But it also doubles down on a particular approach to developing AI—one that favors a handful of well-connected U.S. tech companies at the expense of other innovative approaches. That could benefit China and slow the U.S. military from getting the tools commanders actually want.

Here’s a breakdown of the winners and losers.

Winners: swarms, deployed AI, faster military technology

The strategy puts a big emphasis on new, tech-driven approaches to warfare, particularly the use of drones and even drone swarms alongside manned and legacy assets. Specifically, it calls for “optimal combinations of lower-cost (and sometimes lower-tech or attritable) platforms that can be deployed in larger numbers and complement more limited numbers of sophisticated platforms.”

Over the last decade, efforts to field autonomous aircraft alongside fighter jets or ships, for instance, have been uneven at best—even when the Pentagon changed its talking points on the necessity for large numbers of low-cost drones—constrained by programs' internal buying policies and previous commitments to other programs' investments. The Replicator program provides a vivid example, hailed as an essential pathfinder but receiving only $1 billion in funding.

The new strategy sets specific “priority areas” for new military research and spending: undersea, space, and AI and autonomy. These priorities are the most relevant to “deterrence in the Indo-Pacific”—as in, preventing China from launching a major conflict. Within those priority areas, it lists “multi-agent systems and swarm intelligence” and various uses of autonomy, from robotics to command and control, as “critical.”

The strategy also takes square aim at policies and practices that slow down military buying of new technologies. Building off other executive orders, it pushes Pentagon buyers to bypass traditional acquisitions in favor of a “mix” of contract types, such as performance-based contracts and other transaction authorities, or OTAs. It also resets the tone for military purchasing toward “faster non-traditional approaches that may involve higher risk but offer high potential reward,” something that commanders, younger defense tech leaders, and even lawmakers have long pushed for.

Perhaps most importantly, it also takes steps to actually grow the market for younger defense tech players beyond just the military. It takes aim at foreign military sales rules and export controls that hobble the sale of much defense tech to allies. That will be especially important for newer defense companies trying to secure early-stage investment to survive. And it calls for other federal agencies to build “streamlined pathways” for smaller companies to at least get their foot in the door, even via partnerships that don’t offer young companies much more than access to federal infrastructure, such as “Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) and Agreements for Commercializing Technology (ACTs).”

Losers: open weights, small AI

While the strategy champions smaller, more innovative players in defense, it also weighs in on the debate about what the future of AI should look like and comes down on the side of Big Tech companies that are pushing a specific, energy-intensive, and deeply unpopular future of AI over emerging strategies favored increasingly by researchers. China will benefit from the oversight, Michael Schiffer, a partner at Scalare Advisors and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, wrote on Tuesday for Just Security.

In its section on critical technologies for support, the strategy lists “Foundation models, including large language, multimodal, and world systems.” The section also includes niche tech areas like brain-computer interfaces but omits entirely open-weight models and open-source software development.

Here’s why that’s important:

Foundation models, such as today’s large language models from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, represent just one potential method for building AI tools—one that relies heavily on pushing as much data through as much computational infrastructure as possible to achieve something that looks like “reasoning,” but that’s really just plain old probability calculation.

Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei helped to transform that concept from a research effort into a massive endeavor to acquire computational resources and data as quickly as possible. Amodei explained it simply in a 2023 discussion with Dwarkesh Patel. “It turns out that raw scale—more compute and more data—drives capabilities far more powerfully than complex algorithmic inventions or hand-crafted architectural changes.”

A small handful of frontier AI labs, and their big cloud computer backers, are in a literal race for company survival because there’s only so much power, so many chips to continue to pursue “raw scale.” If, as Amodei says, just having more “more compute” and “more data” means having the best performing models, then whoever has the most of those resources can push out any competitor.

It’s no wonder the AI race has become a concentration of wealth and power, in just a handful of labs with their large cloud compute backers. No wonder, also, that public perception of AI has plummeted: just 18 percent of Americans believe it will be a positive force for the United States, one new poll found. But the foundation model approach does have its fans: large-scale U.S. cloud providers who have invested billions in foundation model labs.

The very way the strategy frames the issue plays to the idea that AI has one future and that winning the AI race or achieving dominance means favoring a handful of players. But it’s also a theme that plays out in many of the White House’s policies and executive orders around AI.

Meanwhile, alternative approaches to building AI are emerging. Rather than race to build more data centers and find more data to throw at the problem of AI, they use parameters that already exist that are freely available, called open weight models, as opposed to closed weights that are protected intellectual property. And they use those in conjunction with alternative architectures that make using those models more energy efficient. Many of these alternative approaches to building AI perform almost as well as what Anthropic and OpenAI are offering, and have the potential to do so at far lower energy costs.

Why it matters to the military

The finite amount of compute power, data, and good will when it comes to AI could become a strategic problem for the U.S. military. If public sentiment undermines congressional and financial support for research and development in the field, officials fear, the country might lose its AI edge to China, which has openly declared its intention to pull ahead.

In the meantime, frontier-AI models also create tactical and operational problems for the militaries that use them. Troops and military units in the field can’t count on the connectivity that tools based on large models need. And in a new report for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Jake Steckler writes, “Ukraine’s computational architecture, consisting of Western cloud access, domestic data centers, and forward-deployed compute nodes, is already straining as it integrates more AI into targeting and coordination.”

Open-weight models don’t appear in the new strategy, though it does list niche and far-fetched concepts like brain-computer interfaces as “critical.” That’s a huge oversight and a potential gift to China, argues Schiffer.

“China’s advances in open-weight AI have exposed the limits of a U.S. strategy built too heavily on the idea of denying them access to American technology and American markets,” he said.

]]>

White House S&T strategy calls for new approaches to safeguard US research

Edward Graham — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:20:00 -0400

The Trump administration says the nation’s science and technology research ecosystem needs to embrace “novel security solutions” to ensure the U.S. maintains its global edge, according to a new document publicly released on Monday.

The National Security Science and Technology Strategy published by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy outlines how the U.S. innovation sector should be leveraged and guarded to defend the country. The new document builds off last year’s National Security Strategy, which called, in part, for “protecting the competitiveness of the U.S. economy and bolstering the resilience of the American technology sector.”

To help safeguard the nation’s innovation sector from threats “that could impair U.S. economic and military strength and competitiveness,” the strategy calls for “approaches that protect without inhibiting the productivity and agility of the national security S&T enterprise.”

President Donald Trump previously moved to curtail illicit foreign interference in the nation’s research institutions, most notably through a January 2021 memo that sought to keep adversarial governments from exploiting U.S. science and technology research.

Lawmakers from both parties have also pushed legislation to limit Chinese involvement in federally-funded research projects, and the Pentagon similarly announced on Monday that it called for 30 U.S. academic institutions to review their ties with foreign entities.

But the strategy says research institutions need to take further steps to enhance their threat awareness, including conducting “automated research security vetting” of agency-funded research proposals and performing continuous monitoring of federally-supported projects.

It also calls for “bolstering counter-intelligence support to governmental and non-governmental research centers” — which would give researchers more immediate and timely insights into potential threats—and creating “risk-based review criteria and a repository of sharable information to enhance the efficiency of information collection and sharing among agencies.”

It noted, for instance, that the FBI-led Quantum Information Science and Technology Counterintelligence Protection Team “brings an interagency team of quantum experts and security professionals to fine-tune technology protection and security outreach activities for the quickly evolving quantum R&D community.”

Another section calls for “establishing cybersecurity guidelines for researchers and research institutions,” although it is sparse on the details of what this would look like. The National Science Foundation, for its part, has a research security policy framework that includes some cyber-specific guidance as part of its broader blueprint.

“Given the evolving nature of research security threats, security experts should embrace comprehensive, new, and novel security solutions, particularly where they can be crafted to address unique or nuanced requirements of specific technology fields,” the document said.

The strategy’s implementation section highlights the need to enhance K-12 and higher education training opportunities and bring more skilled talent into the federal workforce—an effort the Trump administration has been undertaking, in part, by prioritizing skills-based hiring over degree requirements.

Notably, however, the strategy references the need to attract more nonimmigrant tech workers to the U.S., which differs from the Trump administration’s prior stance that called for a more restrictive approach.

“The United States will further strengthen its workforce by attracting and retaining top-tier global talent in critical national security S&T fields,” the strategy says. “Agencies will collaborate on using existing authorities to recruit the exquisite talent necessary to ensure the national security S&T Enterprise leads the world in developing and applying these technologies.”

OSTP did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the strategy’s inclusion of the need to attract and retain global talent.

Last year’s National Security Strategy said, in part, that the U.S. “cannot allow meritocracy to be used as a justification to open America’s labor market to the world in the name of finding ‘global talent’ that undercuts American workers.”

Trump issued a proclamation in September 2025 that moved to restrict the number of H-1B visas, saying that the program has harmed American workers. The visas allow U.S. firms to temporarily hire foreign workers, with the tech industry notably using the program to attract nonimmigrant talent. The proclamation attempted to institute a $100,000 H-1B visa fee, although a district court has overturned that mandate.

In addition to calling for the nation’s innovation sector to embrace new security solutions, the strategy said the U.S. needs to speed up its pace of innovation, build up its domestic “technological resilience” and focus its science and technology ecosystem on “maintaining battlefield advantage, countering strategic threats to the homeland, and shaping the competition toward areas of U.S. strength.”

Nextgov/FCW Cyber Reporter David DiMolfetta contributed to this story.

]]>

Bill expanding paid leave for feds pared back in Senate

Erich Wagner — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:54:59 -0400

Legislation aimed at improving the amount of paid leave federal employees are eligible each year took another step forward as Democratic senators introduced companion legislation shortly before Congress left for its August recess.

In June, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced the Comprehensive Paid Leave for Federal Employees Act (H.R. 9261), a measure that would provide feds with up to 12 weeks each year of paid family leave, to be used to attend to a serious health condition or care for a spouse, child or parent. It also would cover absences needed in connection with a family member’s deployment into active-duty military service, or to help a family member who has been the survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

And last month, Sens. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and seven other Democrats introduced their own version of the bill (S. 5168). That measure also extends 12 weeks per year of paid family leave to federal workers to deal with a health condition or a family member’s health condition and to attend to a family member’s military deployment, but it excises the provision relating to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.

“Right now, our laws are forcing federal workers to make the impossible choice between caring for their families and keeping their jobs,” Schatz said in a statement. “Our bill will provide federal workers with 12 weeks of paid leave, giving them the time they need to take care of their own health and their loved ones.”

Paid family leave and other provisions relating to federal workers has recently been a tougher sell for the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol. In 2019, as lawmakers considered providing 12 weeks of paid parental leave to federal workers each year via the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the House’s version of the legislation also included family leave, only for the Senate to balk during negotiations between the chambers.

Likewise, the House has included a provision blocking President Trump’s anti-union executive orders’ implementation at the Pentagon in both last year’s NDAA and the one currently under consideration. The Senate stripped the provision from their version of the bill last year.

Despite the more pared-back approach, the Senate’s family leave bill has still attracted the support of several unions and other federal employee associations.

“Expanding paid family and medical leave ensures federal employees never have to choose between caring for themselves or a loved one and serving the American people,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “This legislation will strengthen the federal workforce, improve employee retention, and help the government remain a competitive employer for the dedicated public servants our nation depends on.”

“Federal employees should never have to choose between caring for their loved ones and paying their bills on time,” said National Treasury Employees Union National President Doreen Greenwald. “The Comprehensive Paid Family Leave Act would provide federal workers with the flexibility and support they need during some of life’s most significant moments. As the federal government works to attract and retain talented public servants, providing comprehensive paid family leave is both the right thing to do and a smart investment in the workforce.”

]]>

CMMC Works. Now let’s sharpen it.

Katie Arrington — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:19:00 -0400

I built the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification because self-attestation was failing our war industrial base. Contractors could simply promise they were following basic cybersecurity practices, with no verification behind that promise. Our adversaries noticed that gap long before Washington did—and they have not eased up since. If anything, the opposite is true.

Nation-state actors and the ransomware crews they tolerate or direct are more aggressive, better funded, and faster than they were five years ago. This is not the moment to loosen the standard. The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement requirements behind CMMC should not change, and I would not support it if they did.

But defending a program doesn't mean pretending it's perfectly aimed. Now that CMMC is a final rule moving into real contracts, it's the right time to ask: are we targeting it precisely enough? I don't think we are yet—and artificial intelligence, used correctly, can help fix that without touching the cybersecurity bar itself.

The problem is targeting, not the standard

CMMC's requirements hinge on controlled unclassified information. But CUI determinations across the war industrial base are inconsistent: Two subcontractors doing nearly identical work can end up with completely different assessments because the call still depends on manual judgment with incomplete visibility into how data actually flows down. Some small businesses get pushed into heavy assessment burdens for data that isn't really CUI. Others handling real, sensitive data slip through with a lighter requirement. Neither outcome helps national security; the first wastes compliance dollars, the second leaves real exposure unaddressed.

AI can do the first-pass sorting here—flagging likely CUI from contract language and statements of work and catching mismatches between what a prime contract designates and what actually flows down to subcontractors — far more consistently than today's patchwork of manual reviews. In this scenario, a human with contracting authority still makes the final call. But that human should be working from a much better starting point than we give them now.

Small business is the economy, not just the supply chain

Small businesses are 99.9% of American companies and employ nearly half the private workforce. And right now, they face threats most aren't equipped to handle: ransomware that can shut down operations overnight; AI-enabled fraud that's harder to spot every year, and a coming reckoning when quantum computing breaks today's standard encryption. The quantum threat is already real, since data harvested now can simply be decrypted later.

I'm glad the Small Business Administration is leaning into this. Its Cybersecurity for Small Business Pilot Program has done real work funding training through state partners. But training grants aren't capital, and no amount of counseling gets a small manufacturer through a ransomware recovery or a quantum-resistant encryption upgrade. Small businesses can't get favorable financing for cybersecurity the way they can for equipment because most lenders don't know how to underwrite it.

We need a dedicated SBA loan program for cybersecurity investment—open to every small business, not just those working with the Department of War—to fund things like multi-factor authentication rollouts, endpoint detection, incident response, and early migration toward quantum-resistant encryption, before it's an emergency instead of a plan.

Same mission, two fronts

Inside the war industrial base, use AI to make sure CUI calls and flow-down match reality. Outside it, give the broader small business economy the capital to defend itself against adversaries who are only getting more aggressive. I still believe unverified promises are not a security strategy. But precision and support aren't the enemies of security—they're what make it sustainable.

Sharpen how we target CMMC, and open the door for every small business to invest in its own war footing. That's not lowering the bar. That's making sure the bar is doing its job.

Katie Arrington is a former South Carolina state legislator and cybersecurity executive who served as DOD CISO for Acquisition and Sustainment starting in 2019, and later returned as DOD CISO/PTDO DOD CIO under the second Trump administration. She spearheaded the Pentagon’s initial efforts to create the CMMC program for defense contractors beginning in 2019, driven by a conviction that contractors needed to actually prove — not just self-attest to — their cybersecurity compliance in order to protect sensitive defense data from adversaries. Her commitment to the program has been described as stemming from a deeply personal mission to secure the Defense Industrial Base from cyber threats that jeopardize national security.

]]>

Army’s Apache grounding prompted by deadly Texas crash will end this week, memo says

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:15:28 -0400

Army officials plan to resume Apache training flights in days, after the fleet was grounded following a crash that left two soldiers dead in Texas, according to an internal memo reviewed by Defense One.

The two soldiers, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Deontre T. Huey and Warrant Officer Seth L. Olmstead, died during a maintenance test flight out of Fort Hood on Aug. 12. On Friday, Army officials announced a stand down of AH64 Apache training flight operations and said in a news release it “will remain in effect until we have a better understanding of the root cause of the accident.”

However, a widely circulated internal Aug. 14 memo reviewed by Defense One said the grounding “concludes on midnight Tuesday,” with plans for “flight operations resuming on Wednesday 19 August.” The document acknowledges that from fiscal year 2023 through this year, the Army had nine fatalities from nineteen Class A mishaps, the term used for the service's deadliest and costliest incidents.

“During the Army aviation AH-64 fleet safety stand down, commands will focus on aviation academics and safety related topics,” the memo states. “Senior commanders will be involved during the aviation safety stand down. Opening remarks shall be provided by general officers, who will articulate the importance of this event. Commanders will review, brief, and discuss an overview of current safety statistics and trends.”

Safety stand downs are common after military crashes, but the current Apache grounding marks the latest in a recent string of safety mishaps for the storied attack helicopter. Three months ago, Defense One exclusively revealed a transmission problem that could “result in loss of tail rotor thrust, electrical power, and hydraulics. Some of the AH-64 Echo models had to be grounded as a result. Prior to that investigation, there had been at least three Apache incidents—including one crash during a maintenance flight out of Fort Hood, according to photos and information from a pilot.

While investigations into the crash are ongoing, a U.S. official told Defense One the service was “able to eliminate the transmission as a causal factor.” The official confirmed the Apache fleet would resume training flights this week.

A Boeing executive told Defense One on the sidelines of the Farnborough International Air Show in the United Kingdom last month that they couldn’t share the progress on fixing those transmission problems.

“Boeing does have crews that are there working with the U.S. Army on some of those components,” said Mark Ballew, Boeing Defense, Space, and Security’s senior director of business development and strategy for vertical lift. “So our team's been there, they’ve been working there for the last month-plus on that.”

A Boeing spokesman told Defense One on Sunday the company is still working with the Army on the transmission problem.

Apaches are being relied on heavily during the ongoing war in Iran, are part of major foreign military sales this year, and have been used for high-level transportation of Defense Department leaders and celebrities.

Officials wrote in Friday’s memo that “CENTCOM deployed formations are exempt from the safety stand down requirements.”

In June, an Apache went down near the coast of Oman while “patrolling international waters,” according to U.S. Central Command. After the helicopter was reportedly struck by an Iranian drone, the U.S. military deployed a Navy drone boat to rescue the downed crew.

]]>

Defense firm L3Harris promotes Mehta to CEO in abrupt leadership change

Ross Wilkers — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 09:31:47 -0400

L3Harris Technologies’ board of directors has promoted Sam Mehta to chief executive from his former role as president of space and mission systems in an abrupt leadership change announced Monday.

Chris Kubasik, L3Harris’ CEO since June 2021, stepped down from that position and his other roles as chairman and member of the board of directors effective immediately.

L3Harris said the board determined to enter into a separation agreement with Kubasik after an investigation found conduct by him that was “not consistent with the values of the company as outlined in its code of conduct.” The company added the alleged conduct was not related to its financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance.

Mehta joined L3Harris in 2023 as president of the communications segment, then added the additional title of president of the space and mission systems segment at the start of this year.

This transition at the very top of L3Harris is taking place in a year where the company announced its intentions to take the missile solutions segment public following a $1 billion investment from the Defense Department.

L3Harris originally eyed the second half of this year for the initial public offering, but Kubasik told investors in July that the IPO is being delayed until at least mid-2027 because of market conditions the company sees as not reflecting the value of Mission Solutions.

Kubasik’s tenure as CEO started with the completion of the integration of L3 Technologies and Harris Corp. following their merger in 2019, and includes the $4.7 billion acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne in 2023.

The pending Missile Solutions IPO is not the only move L3Harris has undertaken with respect to its space business. L3Harris closed the sale of a 60% stake in the space propulsion and power systems business this month to AE Industrial Partners, while retaining a 40% stake.

In addition to Mehta’s promotion, Lauren Barnes has moved up to be president of the space and mission systems segment from her prior role as president of spectrum superiority. Christopher Aebli, formerly president of mission critical communications, was elevated to president of the communications and spectrum dominance.

Lewis Hay III, a member of the L3Harris and a predecessor board since 2002, was elected chairman after previously holding the title of lead independent director.

]]>

The Army gave General Dynamics $533M to build an artillery plant that produced nothing

Jesse Coburn, ProPublica — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:27:52 -0400

A robot was on fire. Again.

It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week.

Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”

Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair. Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell. “We really didn’t have any standardized practice,” said Quantel White, a former employee. “It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night.” To workers, even the factory buildings themselves came to feel doomed, with acrid smoke hanging in 100-degree heat over foundations seemingly sinking into the earth.

The situation never improved. The U.S. Army, which funded the factory, ordered work halted on two of its three production lines in August 2025. By then, General Dynamics had blown eight deadlines. Work on the third production line continued, but the facility never produced a single usable shell, according to a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general in July.

The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back.

Just the opposite: General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest defense companies, has been showered with new contracts, continuing its track record as one of the greatest beneficiaries of Pentagon spending. The company is still in charge of the factory. It recently announced that it will fix things there by bringing in another much-hyped but little-proven technology.

“It’s an absolute disaster,” said one former official in an Army office supervising the project. “The Army should’ve gone after recovering money from General Dynamics,” added the official, who, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Publicly, the Army has been tight-lipped about what, exactly, went wrong at the factory, located in a sprawling suburb called Mesquite. The inspector general report described the failure but offered few specifics. It didn’t name the companies involved, much less any of the individuals responsible. The report’s recommendations were tepid: The Army should determine whether the contract was “appropriately issued,” how “the money was spent” and whether it can recoup any of it. It should also “identify and implement a solution” for producing more artillery. Army officials deflected blame, telling the inspector general that they didn’t do anything wrong.

In a detailed statement to ProPublica, the Army said it will recover funding for the project by getting unspecified discounts from General Dynamics on production orders. “The Army is exercising rigorous oversight to ensure every dollar invested delivers capability to the warfighter,” the statement read. “Where vendors fail to meet contract specifications, as seen at the Mesquite facility, we are evaluating contract performance, seeking recoupment of funds, and pivoting resources.”

As for General Dynamics, it has given no public explanation whatsoever. The company has said that it “met or exceeded requirements,” according to the inspector general report. General Dynamics declined an interview request from ProPublica. Company spokesperson Jeff Davis said ProPublica’s reporting “fundamentally mischaracterizes the circumstances and falsely impugns our record of employee safety and truthfulness with our customer.” He continued: “An article based on this foundation would be a materially false and misleading hit piece.” Davis did not respond to ProPublica’s request that he specify the alleged errors.

ProPublica reconstructed how the project went awry through interviews with 36 current and former employees of General Dynamics, the Army, the Pentagon and the White House. ProPublica also reviewed internal company documents as well as photographs and videos taken inside the factory.

Those involved described a project that was rushed and ill considered from the start. Congress paved the way, removing government contracting guardrails — meant to ensure taxpayer money isn’t wasted — so that Ukraine-related defense projects could be funded quickly. The Army took advantage, handing General Dynamics lucrative no-bid awards without knowing whether the machines it planned to use could perform the desired work. The Army’s due diligence was inadequate, four former Army and General Dynamics officials told ProPublica.

Compared to the multibillion-dollar budgets of other DOD projects, the financial cost of the Texas debacle is small. But the lack of consequences for the companies involved, in the view of defense-spending critics, is symptomatic of a larger problem: a deep-rooted culture at the Pentagon and in Congress in which expensive failures lead only to more spending. Such critics fear that extreme cases like this one could become more common if the Trump administration succeeds in boosting the defense budget from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion. The administration is also seeking tens of billions of dollars for its war against Iran and pressuring defense companies to quickly ramp up weapons production.

“Too often the contractors have no accountability for their mistakes,” defense budget researcher William Hartung said. The Texas failure, he said, “is a foreshadow of what’s to come if the Trump administration gets the budget it asked for.”

The Pitch

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 felt like an emergency to the Biden administration. For General Dynamics, it was an opportunity. And Firat Gezen was ready with a pitch.

In six years running General Dynamics’ Ordnance and Tactical Systems business, Gezen had earned a reputation as a deft strategist and salesman. At 50, he wasn’t an engineer, and he had no experience running factories. He had spent decades working on the financial side of the weapons business. With a ready smile and a delivery as smooth as his perfectly bald head, he knew how to woo corporate leaders and Pentagon arms buyers alike.

Gezen was also shrewd. In 2020, after the Army sought to diversify its artillery supplier base by contracting with a small Pennsylvania company, Gezen swooped in and bought that company. That allowed General Dynamics to maintain its stranglehold over the production of metal bodies for the standard American artillery shell, referred to by its caliber: 155 mm. “Firat throws his arm around you and talks to you nicely,” one former Army official said. “But he’s got, like, five things that he’s the sole provider of, and it’s exclusive. He’s got you locked up forever.”

Firat Gezen, former president of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems U.S. Army photo by PFC Brandon L. Perry

That put General Dynamics in an ideal position. Russia and Ukraine were firing thousands of shells back and forth each day. The United States was a key supplier to Ukraine, but decades of disinvestment had left the U.S. artillery industry emaciated. In March 2022, Congress passed the first in a series of bills allocating billions of dollars for Ukraine-related causes, including boosting artillery production. The next month, President Joe Biden pledged to send shells to Ukraine, and he wanted to move fast. But first someone had to make them.

The 155 mm shell has been a military workhorse for a century, owing to its simple, lethal power. Packed with TNT, the 33-inch cylinder can travel 10 miles when shot out of the barrel of a howitzer and send fragments flying hundreds of feet upon impact. But decades of asymmetric warfare in the Middle East, in which the United States relied largely on drones and bombs, had led some to believe the days of artillery battles were waning. By 2022, General Dynamics was the only producer of 155 mm metal shell bodies in the country, mainly in a century-old facility in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Given that, the company was an obvious candidate to meet the sudden new demand. General Dynamics could simply replicate Scranton’s traditional manufacturing method, which dated back to the time of the Korean War. But in meetings with Pentagon officials in the fall of 2022, Gezen proposed an alternative: What if the Army funded a state-of-the-art production line that used a promising new technique?

A soldier attends to 155 mm shells in Ukraine in March 2025. Dmytro Smolienko/Urinform/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Central to this proposal was a virtual unknown in the world of American defense: Repkon. The company had been operating in its home country of Turkey for decades, providing “turnkey production facilities in the metal forming industry.” (Coincidentally, Gezen himself was born to Turkish parents in the United States.)

But Repkon had never received a Pentagon contract, and certainly not for its signature metalworking process called “flow-forming.” Whereas the Scranton method mainly involves molding ultrahot steel in giant forging presses, Repkon added a step in which a fast-spinning machine squeezes and rolls out the metal like clay on a potter’s wheel. The advantage, Gezen told defense officials, is that the same equipment could produce shells of various calibers. Most important, Repkon had a production line already available, meaning General Dynamics could start making shells faster than if it had to procure traditional equipment piece by piece.

Warning signs abounded. Army officials learned that the production line that Repkon wanted to sell had been designed to produce an older, simpler model of 155 mm shells, which was made with different steel. It wasn’t clear that the Turkish equipment could even work with the steel used to make the newer 155 mm model, as the equipment had never actually produced it, according to four former General Dynamics and Army officials. Repkon said other countries were using the machines to produce the older model. But the Army and General Dynamics could not inspect those active production lines, Repkon told them, citing customer privacy.

The Army could have balked at all of this and insisted on learning more about the capacity of the Repkon machines to perform the desired work. But learning more would’ve taken time, and time seemed in short supply. “There was incredible pressure to go fast,” a former Army official said. Everybody moved forward.

In November 2022, the Army raced to give General Dynamics the first in a series of contract awards for the project that would ultimately be worth nearly $600 million if carried to completion. The next month, Congress granted the DOD extraordinary powers to award money for Ukraine-related causes without the usual contracting safeguards, dropping competitive bidding requirements and restrictions on so-called undefinitized contracting actions. UCAs allow a company to begin work even before finalizing the terms of its contract with the government. One defense executive compared them to “building the airplane as you’re flying it.”

The Army made the most of its expanded powers, awarding General Dynamics a number of UCAs without considering alternate proposals in a competitive bidding process. (The Army told ProPublica it selected the company because of its unique artillery production experience.)

In fact, the Army was so enamored with the proposal that it decided to order even more than Gezen had pitched. Instead of contracting for one Repkon production line, the Army signed up to buy three. Without knowing whether any of them would work.

Gezen had never overseen a project this ambitious. Until then, he had mainly presided over smaller expansions of existing factories that used traditional methods. But he was optimistic it would work. “He’s extremely aggressive, willing to take risks,” one former colleague said.

Some of the Army’s scrutiny of the proposal occurred only after it began awarding contracts for it. The service and General Dynamics sent staffers to Turkey to inspect Repkon’s machinery, but they never inspected a full production line in action and there weren’t enough experts who could spot potential defects in the equipment, four former General Dynamics and Army officials said. Crucially, before greenlighting the deal, the Army did not require General Dynamics to demonstrate that it could use the Repkon equipment to complete the entire production process and make shells that met the Army’s specifications. (The Army told ProPublica that “formal testing could not occur prior to full machinery installation.”)

If the typical contracting safeguards had been in place, perhaps everything that followed could have been prevented. If the Pentagon had been forced to open the project to competitive bidding, it would have had to consider other proposals in a painstaking review process. If restrictions on UCAs had been in effect, the Pentagon would have had to slow down and finalize the terms of the deal before allowing it to proceed, which might have surfaced its fatal flaws.

But one man’s due diligence is another man’s red tape. Soon, Repkon’s flow-forming machines were sailing across the Atlantic, heading eventually for Mesquite.

“This Is Actually Hell”

On May 29, 2024, the mood in Mesquite was triumphant. After two short years of planning, the factory was opening, and defense officials and executives gathered there to celebrate.

Former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth at the opening of General Dynamics’ artillery factory Sgt.1st Class Nicole Mejia/U.S. Army

“Our nation’s defense relies not only on our soldiers and other servicemembers in uniform but on production facilities like this one,” then-Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told seated dignitaries. She stood at a podium branded with the General Dynamics logo, with two howitzers posed behind her. She thanked the company’s CEO, Phebe Novakovic, and Gezen by name. “It’s a pleasure to highlight the fantastic work you all have done,” she said.

But everything was not as fantastic as it appeared. Artillery shells displayed around the plant that day had been shipped in from elsewhere, three former workers told ProPublica. A worker picked one up and was startled to discover it was fake — seemingly made of plastic. General Dynamics had already failed to perform a scheduled first article test, meant to demonstrate the facility could produce shells that met the Army’s specifications. The facility was supposed to start cranking out shells soon, but machines were barely functioning.

Soon problems seemed to explode out of every corner, according to interviews with 12 former factory workers. For one thing, the flaming robot arms also kept smashing into things. They slammed into computer numerical control machines, breaking their windows and bending their doors. They knocked over shells. They bashed into safety fences. Workers talked about the arms going “rogue” and began calling one of them “Johnny 5” after a sentient military robot from a 1980s movie.

Even simple equipment failed with slapstick regularity, six workers said. Conveyor belts broke down. Automated carts got lost. Safety gates meant to shut down machines when workers approached did not shut down machines when workers approached. A pipe exploded, spraying water up to the ceiling. Parts on Repkon machines deformed, leading a worker to discover that they were made with Chinese steel, possibly in violation of federal regulations. (The Army said it has no evidence of such violations.)

Smoke hung in the air; it rolled off the press machines when robots sprayed them with lubricant. Workers could feel the smoke in their lungs. When they blew their noses after shifts, their mucus was black. A worker complained to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about a “respirable hazard” at the factory, according to an OSHA record and spokesperson. The agency opened an investigation in October 2024, and an inspector visited the facility. The smoke-spewing press machines were scheduled to be operating on the day of the visit, but for some reason they weren’t running during the inspection, according to four former workers. OSHA issued no penalties, the agency told ProPublica. Staffers started to think it wasn’t just Repkon’s faulty equipment to blame for problems at the factory — it was General Dynamics’ management, too.

The plant could reach Sahara Desert temperatures when the furnaces or presses were on. “This is actually hell,” one worker thought to himself. It was hotter still inside cabinets containing drives that controlled critical machines, where it was regularly 140 degrees, two former workers told ProPublica. An outside inspector warned in an email reviewed by ProPublica that, at that temperature, “you would not only have drives failing but also human lives failing.”

Every day seemed to bring more of the same: another machine broken, another frantic effort to repair it, another batch of misshapen shells tossed into the discard pile. As 2024 became 2025, little seemed to get better.

With so few shells passing inspection stations along the production line, many workers had nothing to do. A cat-and-mouse game ensued. Bored staffers spent endless hours gazing at their phones, leading supervisors to restrict phone use. So workers began bringing crossword books. Managers nixed those. Some workers were seen sleeping, so supervisors took away chairs.

“We sat around twiddling our thumbs, trying to find work, trying to figure out what was going on,” said Natashia Passmore, a former production technician in the plant. “It was a waste of government money, and it was a waste of our time.”

The Dumpster Fire

Tension rose between the Americans hired by General Dynamics and Turkish workers sent over by Repkon. The Repkon team was there to install the equipment, but it seemed equally flummoxed by the problems. General Dynamics workers found them evasive. They would give curt responses to questions in English but then be seen holding long, animated conversations in Turkish outside during frequent smoking breaks. A carelessly discarded cigarette butt sparked a real-life dumpster fire, three former workers said.

Repkon was especially secretive about the flow-forming machines, refusing to answer most questions about their operations. General Dynamics workers could tell when Repkon was testing one of them, because they would find metal shards scattered on the floor around it later. The shards looked like alligator teeth. “Oh, the tooth fairy was here,” one worker would think to himself.

Paranoia set in. Repkon refused to share passwords needed to control important equipment, according to five former General Dynamics employees. Sometimes workers would be startled by the sight of a machine moving by itself and realize it was being controlled by someone in Turkey. Spooked, General Dynamics workers tore out hardware to cut off remote access to the machines, two former workers said.

Rumors swirled among the Americans that the Turks were purposefully sabotaging machinery — or perhaps even engaged in some convoluted form of espionage. “It was astonishing how little progress we would make, month after month, year after year,” one former General Dynamics worker said. “People started speculating, ‘I wonder if they’re spying on us.’” General Dynamics assigned someone to shadow the Repkon workers in the factory, two former staffers said. (The Army said it has no evidence of sabotage or spying.)

Even the buildings themselves — a trio of vast, anonymous boxes tucked into the crook of two freeways — were plagued with problems. Walls cracked, and daylight became visible around window frames. Doors began dragging on concrete floors. When it rained, water would flood in — “like a tsunami,” one former worker said. The foundations appeared to be shifting or sinking, six former employees said. It was as if the whole dysfunctional factory — its fires and smoke, its idle workers and haywire machines — was being slowly sucked down into the earth.

Faced with the kaleidoscopic array of problems, the response from General Dynamics managers always seemed to be to plow forward. “Every single time they opened their mouths, it was: ‘We need to get into production,’” one former worker said. “Production is the only thing that mattered.”

“Nobody Wins”

As the situation at the factory deteriorated, General Dynamics and the Army told a very different story to the public.

In April 2024, General Dynamics CEO Novakovic told investors: “In the U.S., we are rapidly increasing ammunition production with the opening of our Texas facility.” General Dynamics failed to conduct a scheduled first article test in Mesquite that same month.

That July, two months after the opening ceremony, Novakovic told investors that “the first line is running and producing as we anticipated.” In fact, the first line was not producing any usable shells, six former plant workers told ProPublica.

In September Doug Bush, then the Army’s acquisition czar and a key figure overseeing the project, said “there have been no major delays” to the Army’s goal of producing 100,000 artillery shells each month — a goal for which the Mesquite factory was critical. “Any delays you’ve had have been measured in, I would call them weeks, not months, certainly not years,” Bush told reporters. He downplayed the problems, describing them as merely a matter of adjusting a machine “so that it puts out shells just so, versus a little bit off.”

The next day, a laborer in Mesquite photographed the work of a machine meant to begin giving the shells perfectly smooth noses; it had instead mangled the metal into something that resembled the swirl of soft-serve ice cream.

A machine at the factory sometimes mangled artillery shells, meant to be perfectly smooth, into swirls that looked like soft serve. Obtained by ProPublica

Also in September, Secretary Wormuth touted the Army’s artillery ramp-up at a conference, saying, “part of what’s enabling that are things like the brand-new plant that we opened up in Mesquite.” One month later, an Army contracting officer sent General Dynamics a letter of concern about its performance at the facility. The company missed the Army’s deadline for completing the first production line one month after that. (Wormuth declined to comment.)

Despite it all, Gezen remained optimistic through the fall of 2024. The issues in Mesquite were mere delays, he thought, and there were plans in place to fix them, according to a person familiar with his thinking. “If Firat’s guilty of something, it’s not wanting to see the truth in the matter,” a former colleague said. He “has a tendency to not want to listen to bad news.” General Dynamics announcedGezen’s retirement in January 2025. Some industry insiders believe he was pushed out in part over Mesquite. (Gezen denied that but declined to sit for an on-the-record interview.)

The split screen of blown deadlines and rosy public comments continued into the second administration of President Donald Trump. In April 2025, General Dynamics missed the completion date for the second production line. That same month, Novakovic told investors, once again: “We are rapidly increasing munitions capacity and production with the opening of our projectile facility in Texas.” The company missed another first article test two months later.

As the failures mounted, a sinking feeling took hold in Army offices. The service assembled a team to assess the situation in the factory, which produced a report that gave little confidence the problems could be fixed. Finally, in June 2025, the Army told General Dynamics it was considering terminating the contract awards for the plant, a defense trade publication reported at the time. Two months later, the service ordered work halted on two of the factory’s three production lines.

But the Army did not unilaterally terminate the contract awards. “A termination for default would’ve taken years through the legal system, because General Dynamics wasn’t going to accept that,” a former Army official told ProPublica. “Nobody wins except the lawyers.”

This would not be the last act of generosity from the Trump administration to General Dynamics. In December 2025, according to the inspector general’s report, the government paid the company $26.3 million in “progress payments” for the second and third production lines in Mesquite, although neither line had ever produced a usable shell.

General Dynamics’ factory in Mesquite, photographed in August Desiree Rios for ProPublica

A Novel Solution

Two months ago, General Dynamics made an announcement that conjured a sense of déjà vu. To fix the problems at the factory, the company would team up with yet another unheard-of partner promising technological innovation. The solution this time? Artificial intelligence.

A news release from General Dynamics and the new company, Deterrence, was filled with techno-business jargon. “AI-enabled capabilities” and “intelligence and connectivity” would be added at Mesquite and other General Dynamics factories, the companies wrote. “AI transforms production facilities into strategic assets,” Deterrence’s CEO said in the release. “We’re building autonomous manufacturing systems that learn, adapt, and scale in real time.”

These pronouncements have baffled former Mesquite workers. “What are they talking about? There’s nothing to learn or adapt or scale,” one said. “It’s all broken.”

General Dynamics is doing this even as it replaces most of the Repkon equipment with traditional machines like those used in Scranton. How AI will wrest miracles from decades-old technology is unclear. But General Dynamics told investors it expects to be in production next year, and the Army told the inspector general that’ll amount to 20,000 shells a month.

Compared with Repkon, Deterrence is perhaps an even less conventional choice. Deterrence was established just three years ago and has never received a DOD contract. Its website gives no indication it has ever helped to manufacture anything. Its three founders have no prior defense experience. One of them worked at Tesla; the other two created a startup that enabled people to lock and unlock buildings with smartphones. Deterrence did not respond to a request for comment.

General Dynamics also pledged to put $200 million into the project. That’s a small sum for a company that generated more than $50 billion in revenue last year and gave CEO Novakovic a compensation package worth more than $25 million. (Meanwhile, the company furloughed or laid off most of the Mesquite workers.)

The Army says it won’t spend any more money on the project, but it has hardly blackballed General Dynamics. Since the Army shut down work on two production lines in Mesquite one year ago, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has received contract awards totaling $2.5 billion, the Army told ProPublica. (The service said this was for “distinct production lines and critical national defense requirements” unrelated to Mesquite.)

Repkon’s American offshoot is now at work setting up a TNT factory after receiving a no-bid contract from the Army worth $435 million. TNT is the primary explosive fill in 155 mm shells. Repkon Turkey’s CEO co-founded the American company, which was originally named Repkon USA. In March, it changed its name to Paligen Technologies. Some interpreted this as an effort to create distance from the Mesquite disaster. Paligen told ProPublica that it and Repkon are “different and wholly separate companies.” Repkon Turkey did not respond to requests for comment.

The one thing that key decision-makers appear to agree on is that they are absolutely not to blame. Gezen, the former General Dynamics executive, told ProPublica that the company and the Army did nothing wrong. In a brief conversation at his apartment door in a ritzy section of Washington, D.C., in May, Gezen maintained his sunny optimism. The Repkon equipment was a good option, and it may still be a good option, he said, holding an iced coffee in one hand and restraining a large dog with his other. In any case, he added, “it was the fastest option available.”

Bush, the Army’s former acquisition chief who had assured reporters there were “no major delays” to increasing artillery production, also declined to be interviewed. In a terse conversation in May, peering out from his half-closed front door in Northern Virginia, he told ProPublica: “All of this was done through appropriate procedures.”

Others who were involved, speaking on the condition of anonymity, engaged in mutual finger-pointing: The White House demanded too much too fast, Repkon and General Dynamics overpromised, the Army didn’t perform due diligence and Congress underwrote the whole thing.

The United States still is not close to producing the promised 100,000 shells per month, a former Army official told ProPublica in June, although other investments to increase 155 mm production have turned out better. Ukraine still needs those shells, the official said, but attention has once again shifted. In the Middle East, it’s other munitions that the Trump administration has rapidly burned through during its war with Iran. Trump officials are now calling for ramping up production in those areas — and fast.

“Conventional ammo is back on the back burner,” the official said. “Everything now is about interceptors, missiles.”

General Dynamics makes components for those too.

Alex Mierjeski and Jeff Ernsthausen contributed research.

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

]]>

Army picks M1 to lead $10B helicopter-school transformation

Thomas Novelly — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:10:13 -0400

A Texas-based aviation company beat out Bell and Lockheed Martin to lead the transformation of Army helicopter training, the service announced on Thursday.

The Army awarded M1 Support Services its Flight School Next contract, a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity worth up to $10 billion for up to 26 years. It’s the culmination of a months-long competition aimed at converting the service’s Initial Entry Rotary Wing school at Fort Rucker, Alabama, to a contractor-owned and -operated model. Officials expect the change to reduce costs by taking helicopters, instructors, and maintenance out of the service’s hands and pushing pilots to focus on aviation fundamentals.

"This is a major step forward in modernizing how we train our aviation force," Brent G. Ingraham, the Army’s assistant secretary of acquisition, logistics and technology, said in a news release. "Flight School Next delivers the next generation of training capabilities our aviators need to succeed in increasingly complex operational environments."

M1 bid as leader of a team that includes Robinson Helicopter Company, Quantum Helicopters, General Dynamics Information Technology, and the University of North Dakota Aerospace Foundation. It was one of three major finalists, including Lockheed and Bell, that emerged after the December call for solutions.

Last year, Congress raised concerns and blocked funding for the flight school effort in theNational Defense Authorization Act, pending the results of a trial program. It’s not immediately clear when the Army met the congressional requirements before it awarded the contract.

“We are honored to be entrusted with this vital mission,” said George Krivo, M1 chairman and CEO, in a press release. “M1 will deliver a fully integrated, innovation rich training solution designed to develop more proficient Army Aviators on time and on budget.”

Defense One reported in April that Lockheed had been dropped from the competition. Bell said in an emailed statement on Friday that they were disappointed in the Army’s selection.

“Bell was notified by the U.S. Army that our turnkey solution was not selected for the Flight School Next program,” a company spokesperson wrote. “While Bell is disappointed by this outcome, we are thankful for the opportunity to participate and our commitment to supporting warfighters has not changed.”

Under M1’s offering, new Army pilots will learn to fly on Robinson Helicopter’s R66 helicopter, which was offered to meet the service’s requirement for an aircraft with a single turbine engine and a rotor that spins counterclockwise.

The Army’s current aircraft, Airbus’ twin-engine UH-72 Lakota, has been criticized by military leaders as being too expensive and restrictive for teaching aviation basics.

]]>

New US security entities hint at more Latin American operations

Thomas Dolzall, Forecast International — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 21:26:27 -0400

The recent establishment of a organized-crime task force by U.S. Southern Command is the latest expression of the Donroe Doctrine, the administration's interventionist—some say imperialist—approach to Latin America. But it may also signal a increased desire to work with regional partners—or just to operate inside their countries.

Last year's launch of Operation Southern Spear marked a return to a more hands-on U.S foreign policy in Latin America. Beginning with U.S Navy strikes against alleged drug-trafficking vessels, it has expanded to encompass the U.S. abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this year and the subsequent re-intensification of U.S economic and military pressure on Cuba.

But SOUTHCOM has also worked to integrate U.S. forces into local security operations and to bring partner states’ security forces under its operational umbrella. In March, the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition was created as a U.S-led body to coordinate regional actions against transnational organized crime. That same month, SOUTHCOM dispatched forces to help Ecuadorian security forces to take action against an alleged criminal hub inside Ecuador. Now the Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, stood up on Aug. 4, is meant to facilitate and coordinate action against organized criminal threats by the U.S. military and regional partner states.

The JTF-WHEM and the A3C suggest SOUTHCOM senses a need for multilateral cooperation. Though several Latin American governments are adopting tougher policies towards organized crime and were broadly sympathetic to Maduro's removal, Southern Spear’s controversial boat strikes and the Maduro operation provoked unease in a region with a long history of U.S. interventionism.

The task force and the coalition are forums through which U.S. and SOUTHCOM leaders can build and enforce strategic consensus, guide operational planning, mediate disputes among members, and influence non-members. U.S. officials have sought to attract participation through political and material incentives. Diplomats and senior SOUTHCOM personnel have sought to attain regional buy-in, or at least acquiescence, for the United States' larger role in the region—including, perhaps, formal deployments of U.S. troops inside regional partner states. And officials are is increasingly tying security and economic assistance to commitments of cooperation in areas of U.S. interest.

The JTF-WHEM, at least, appears likely to be put to imminent use. On Aug. 12, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala had approved U.S. participation in combined operations against criminal entities.

]]>

As warfare becomes engineering, the era of the digital mercenary dawns

Patrick Tucker — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 20:28:52 -0400

Private cyber firms will be allowed to take action against foreign threats under a new White House policy, another step into a future where tech developers are ever more closely entwined with military operations, which now evolve faster than governments can keep up.

Under the policy, announced Wednesday, the U.S. government will pay private cybersecurity companies to “manipulate,” “degrade,” “disrupt,” and “destroy” foreign adversary computer networks. The U.S. government historically reserves the right to take those sorts of actions, although they increasingly do so with help from front-line private workers.

The companies will undergo vetting, be supervised by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and be forbidden to take actions that could “result in the loss of life or serious injury,” according to the presidential memo.

“The United States just revived privateering for the digital age,” wrote Jeff Gray, who led training for DHS’s emergency response team and currently leads incident response training with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The phrase recalls the 17th and 18th centuries, when governments issued letters of marque that allowed swashbuckling sea captains to attack foreign merchant ships. That official authorization is what distinguished men like Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan as “privateers,” not pirates. But when they lost that marque, many, like Kidd, went on to be pirates anyway.

Gray acknowledges that the term isn’t a perfect fit; for one thing, letters of marque are granted by Congress, not the president. Nevertheless, he says, “The government is authorizing private actors to conduct offensive cyber operations on its behalf, under its control. That's privateering.”

The memo says hiring private hackers is only logical: “American businesses’ innovative capabilities have historically been underutilized” to “secure a critical offensive cyber advantage for the United States.”

Russia has been doing this sort of thing for years: enlisting, or coercing, private companies and groups to carry out cyberattacks against Western targets.

One cybersecurity exec said the policy makes sense, especially as AI gives adversaries more tools.

“There will be more cyberattacks for sure, so I do think you want to expand the takedown activity as well,” said the executive, a founder of a prominent U.S. cybersecurity firm that works with the U.S. government.

AI-assisted cyberattacks rose 89 percent in 2025, according to a February report from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Gray also described the strategy as “strategically sound.” But he expects it to provoke a short-term increase in attacks, and over a longer timeframe, to cause adversaries to shift tactics, accelerate operations, and gain additional “cover” to hide their operations.

Finally, Gray noted that law-enforcement agencies have long hired private firms for this sort of work, particularly taking down botnets. “The work is still the same. But the environment just got more complicated,” he said.

The cyber exec agreed. “Instead of a law-enforcement person pushing the button, it will be a private-sector person,” said the company founder. “I expect every Israeli cyber startup to jump at the chance.”

Cyberops and physical war

The policy is the latest indication that software weapons are evolving to be as crucial as hardware on the modern battlefield—and that is putting private coders and weapon designers closer to real-world operations. In Ukraine, for example, engineers with drone maker Shield AI and other contractors work closely with soldiers, sometimes under fire, to modify weapons based on digital attacks.

The job of fighting is, more and more, becoming a job of engineering, said one former senior defense official we spoke to in 2025, just after Donald Trump returned to office. The official said that the Pentagon’s new leaders were considering a plan to let drone makers and other tech companies conduct operations under company-owned, company-operated agreements.

The idea was not without precedent. SpaceX operates the Starlink satellites that connect U.S. troops, rather than allowing U.S. personnel to do so. And under the first Trump administration, the Pentagon paid Anduril to maintain and update drones in the field, deploying along with special operations forces.

The official said putting engineers in the field is essential to getting new capabilities to the front lines faster.

“A lot of these technologies,” they said, are “super exquisite, they're fragile, they're very technical. The people that built them are the ones that know how they work.”

Having the weapons’ makers observe and even operate their products in the field reduced red tape in getting new designs approved, changed, or deployed.

The official last year acknowledged that most defense firms don’t operate that way, and federal law outlines boundaries on what defense contractors can and can’t do (engaging in combat is in the "can’t do" column). But ultimately, they said, “If you want capability in 2027 the only way you're going to get is if this happens.”

In April, CENTCOM hired Shield AI to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to U.S. forces with its V-BAT drone, under a contractor-owned, contractor-operated arrangement.

Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s co-founder, said of the agreement: “We aren’t just bringing the V-BAT product and service to the Navy; we’re bringing a world-class team with a wealth of operational experience and the ability to produce undeniable outcomes for our warfighters.”

]]>

Intel ops are underway at Space Command’s nascent Alabama HQ

Thomas Novelly — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 18:24:35 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Less than a year after President Trump reversed a Biden-era decision to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado, space intelligence operations are being conducted in existing offices at Redstone Arsenal while a permanent headquarters is built on base.

By year’s end, SPACECOM plans to have roughly 200 of the 1,800 Colorado-based positions at the Army base. Roughly 50 of those employees are already conducting missions with the command’s Joint Intelligence Support element, or JISE, which is already doing analysis for space operations and coordinating with allies. Those analysts are also coordinating with colleagues working, at least for the next few years, at Space Command’s existing headquarters in Colorado.

“We've designed our facilities with collaboration spaces and with the collaboration tools that allow our personnel here in Huntsville—of course, those numbers are growing—to work back with our people in Colorado Springs to execute our missions,” Whiting told reporters on Wednesday. “So far, our folks are crushing that, and I'm very proud of how they're performing.”

Reporters toured the up-and-coming facilities and saw the progress of the new headquarters on Wednesday during the Space and Missile Defense Symposium here. While the personnel moves and construction projects will not be complete until 2032, military officials said that the combatant command remains focused on its mission.

In April, Gen. Stephen Whiting, Space Command’s leader, hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Joint Intelligence Support element on base. Wednesday’s tour was among the first access allowed to media outlets.

“Make no mistake, the JISE leading this charge serves as a symbol of our commitment to ensuring mission needs are executed flawlessly throughout this move,” Brig. Gen. Nathan Rusin, who leads the USSPACECOM Intelligence Directorate, said in an April press release.

In 2021, in the last weeks of his first term, Trump announced that Space Command would move its headquarters from Petersen Space Force Base in Colorado to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. Several congressional probes followed. In July 2023, President Biden reversed the decision and said it would stay in Colorado.

An April 2025 Defense Department Inspector General’s probe wondered why the 2023 basing decision was made by the White House instead of Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. The service secretary told lawmakers in 2023 he thought “the projected cost savings, together with the availability of potential mitigation measures, outweighed the operational risks that had been identified” for moving the command to Alabama.

But a May 2025 Government Accountability Office probe showed that if SPACECOM headquarters were to remain in Colorado that “new military construction would be needed to support the headquarters’ operations” and that officials “faced ongoing personnel, facilities, and communications challenges” in setting up a permanent facility out West.

Whiting told reporters that the goal is to have half of SPACECOM at Redstone Arsenal by 2028 with a full move-in completed by 2032. The command’s joint operations center, the main command-and-control hub for space warfare missions, will remain in Colorado until the completion of the new headquarters.

“The opportunity for U.S. Space Command is that we get a purpose-built command and control headquarters out of this, we did not have that in Colorado,” Whiting said. “So to get this facility is going to be an incredible accelerant to our mission.”

]]>

Pentagon hands Palantir up to $244M in no-bid work

Nick Wakeman — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Palantir has secured another lucrative commitment from the Defense Department: a pledge to pay the company up to $243.9 million to use its software through March 31, 2027.

In a memo viewed by Washington Technology, Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg has directed DOD departments to identify options for more spending on Palantir products from April 1, 2027, and Dec. 28, 2028.

In the memo, Feinberg says Palantir's software is "providing valuable support to improve efficiencies with the defense industrial base"—for example, by flagging delays in munitions and delivery-vehicle production and maintenance.

Feinberg made no mention of specific contracts or vehicles.

The action follows a July award of a 10-year, $10 billion Army agreement that consolidated many of Palantir’s existing contracts into a single pact.

The Feinberg memo appears to be part of a trend in federal contracting, where no-compete contracts are growing as a percentage of all awards. No-compete contracts accounted for 14.8% of all awards in the first half of 2026, up from 12.6% for the period in 2025.

Federal News Radio reported that DOD said it has issued similar memos involving other companies.

No-compete contracts are allowed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation if agencies properly document why a sole-source contract is the best use of federal funds. Reasons for a no-compete contract can include urgency, only one responsible source, critical follow-on work, and national security.

Feinberg's memo mentions none of those reasons for directing the spending to Palantir.

Palantir's portfolio of no-compete contracts includes an Agriculture Department award for the One Farmer, One File program. The department also used Palantir's software for its return-to-the-office initiative.

According to GovTribe data, the company has received $3.2 billion in contract obligations since 2024, roughly half through no-compete contracts.

Last week, Palantir reported second-quarter revenues of $1.9 billion, up 93 percent year-over-year. Federal contracts accounted for $809 million of that, up 90 percent from last year.

Palantir is ranked No. 40 on the 2026 Washington Technology Top 100, rising 22 spots in a year.

]]>

Iran war reveals protection of space assets on bases has to ‘evolve,’ top general says

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 23:32:57 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Iran’s deliberate targeting of U.S. radar systems during Epic Fury shows that the military has to change the way it protects key space assets on the ground, U.S. Space Command’s leader said.

Iranian drone and missile attacks after the initial U.S.-Israel joint strikes reportedly damaged multiple radar sites. One U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command soldier, Army Staff Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, was killed in the March 1 attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The loss of life and key technology in the war highlight the military’s need to improve the way it protects key space assets, said Gen. Stephen Whiting, the head of U.S. Space Command.

“No doubt, one of the lessons learned out of operations in the Middle East is that if you have fixed infrastructure, it will be targetable, and if your opponents have over-the-horizon fires, whether ballistic missiles or one-way attack drones, you will be at risk,” Whiting told a group of reporters Wednesday at Red Stone Arsenal. “I'm proud of the defense work that we've done, but we have to continue to evolve that, because the threats are rapidly improving as well.”

While Iran was never a substantial threat to U.S. assets in space, they scored major hits from the ground. Whiting, during his last Space and Missile Defense Symposium speech as Space Command’s leader, stressed that adversaries are taking note of how they can harm military operations by targeting space and missile defense targets. That’s only going to grow in future conflicts, the four-star general warned.

“Let’s be blunt and specific. Iran is a medium-size military power—and they’re choosing to fire at space and missile defense targets. When bullets cost so much, you take great care with your aim,” Whiting said during his keynote. “You only shoot at your adversary’s most valuable targets. And right now, they are targeting the forces and capabilities represented in this room.”

Potential changes to U.S. basing patterns in the Middle East will take time and money and are likely to be heavily debated between Congress and the military, Elliot Abrams, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote last month.

“The wait will be costly—the longer U.S. troops remain within range of Iranian missiles, the more the United States will pay in readiness, deterrence, and lives,” Abrams wrote.

Defense experts have called for hardening existing structures on bases in the interim. But some military leaders don’t support increased investment in that type of protection.

Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, the Air Force chief of staff, said in an interview last month: “I don’t want to spend a lot of money on hardening shelters.” He described it as economically inefficient and called for either simpler methods for protecting against drones or increased systems to destroy incoming rounds.

Whiting said the Iran war has shown how the nature of warfare is changing.

“It used to be that the enemy would aim their snipers and sharp shooters at a platoon leader or radio operator,” Whiting said. “Nowadays, our adversaries shoot at the space and missile defense units which are deployed inside their weapons engagement zone.”

]]>

Defense Business Brief: VR welding; News from SMD; L3Harris opens maritime factory

Lauren C. Williams — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 20:41:34 -0400

PASCAGOULA, Miss.—Thick puffs of clouds didn’t stop the sun from beating down on the shipyard. And only a strong morning breeze could cut that Gulf Coast heat. But prospective welders for HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding need not immediately contend with the elements to get a taste of the trade—thanks to the yard’s air-conditioned virtual-reality welding lab.

“If you’ve never worked with your hands before, or used a welding torch, it can feel intimidating,” Brian Blanchette, president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, told Defense One. “Starting in a virtual-reality setting provides a controlled, low‑pressure environment. It not only helps reduce that initial fear, but it also gives instructors much better control and feedback.”

And while learning in a classroom may seem unrealistically pleasant, the VR lab speeds up training by giving entry-level students about 10 times more hands-on practice at melting metal than if using standard welding booths in the same amount of class time.

Ingalls and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College opened the lab, which has 48 training stations, in January 2025. About 1,000 students, including apprentices and new employees, have completed the VR welding training before advancing to traditional instruction.

The workstations are lined neatly against the walls of a long classroom.

There are blue plastic panels with lime-green QR codes in neat rows that mimic welding materials plates. The welder’s helmet, equipped with small cameras and screens, virtually transforms that plastic into steel. There were also different contact tips and attachments that could be swapped out for different tasks.

Students are gradually introduced to the realities of their tradecraft: virtually welding barehanded and then with gloves, learning angles, precision, and pace—which oddly meant going much slower than you’d think.

I wrapped the hose around my arm, steadied my two-handed grip, and virtually welded about four inches. Holding the right angle was the hardest part.

Trainees can see visual aids that measure torch position, speed, angle, the tip’s distance from the plate—all adding up on a scorecard to show progress and areas for improvement.

The software is really responsive and felt lifelike—even for someone who had never welded anything before.

But there’s one thing VR welding can’t teach: That tactile feeling of gas and fire coming from the nozzle pressing against the steel.

“I can’t teach ‘feel’ in here,” my instructor said, “all I can teach is ‘place’.”

That doesn’t stop students from practicing until they can get the highest score possible: a 99. Students need a 90 or above before they can progress to the next activity. I got a 92 on my first try on a very basic step.

Welcome

You’ve reached the Defense Business Brief, where we dig into what the Pentagon buys, who they’re buying from, and why. Send along your tips, feedback, and song recommendations to lwilliams@defenseone.com. Check out the Defense Business Brief archive here, and tell your friends to subscribe!

Space Command’s new HQ: The command’s new facility in Huntsville, Ala., will have about 200 personnel by year’s end, up from the 113 at Redstone Arsenal right now, Gen. Stephen Whiting, who leads the command, said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium Wednesday. There were, and just 20 in March.

“We plan to have over half our headquarters staff on the Arsenal by the end of 2028, and the entire command fully moved by 2032,” Whiting added.
Some background: The command’s move to Huntsville has been hotly debated in recent years. Space Command is also updating its facilities and opened its first operational facility at Redstone in April.

Making moves + other news

L3Harris opened a maritime production facility in Providence, R.I. The 50,000-sq.-ft. facility at ProvPort will be used to “integrate and test advanced undersea training systems for the U.S. Navy” and allies, the company said in a news release.
Vatn Systems inked a research deal with Taiwan’s national science and technology institute to explore defense uses of autonomous undersea vessels. Last year, the company signed a deal with South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Defense.
U.S. Southern Command tapped HII’s tech division for a $2.2 billion task order for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance kit.
DARPA dropped an RFI on next-generation hypersonic cruise missiles—h/t to Defense One’s Thomas Novelly. Check out his latest here.
Boeing is selling its eVTOL business to Archer Aviation in exchange for a stake in the company, piloted air taxis and UAS.
Joby Aviation is expanding its defense business by acquiring defense tech company Resonant Sciences for around $500 million. Resonant Sciences has “classified infrastructure…established production operations and longstanding customer relationships, as well as a deeply experienced technical team,” according to the release. Related: Cerberus Capital Management, the firm Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg co-founded, has been investing in Resonant Sciences since 2023.

]]>

New Marine commander takes the helm in the Pacific

Jennifer Hlad — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 20:39:12 -0400

MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII—The Marine Corps’ “future lies in the Pacific,” Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said Tuesday as Lt. Gen. James Glynn transferred command of roughly two-thirds of the service to Lt. Gen. Roger Turner.

Glynn is a “once-in-a-generation” talent whose “efforts under a constrained budget, doing things across the expanse of the Indo-Pacific” have been “truly Herculean,” Smith said at the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific change of command ceremony here. But Turner, who comes to the command from the Okinawa-based III Marine Expeditionary Force, also has “spectacular” leadership skills, technical ability, and interpersonal skills, Smith said.

“We’re a Pacific-facing nation, and we put our best and brightest out here,” he said.

Adm. Samuel Paparo, who leads U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, echoed that sentiment minutes later.

“We live in incredibly dangerous times, and we live in incredibly dynamic and exciting technological times. Our nation is under threat like it hasn’t been in generations, and it requires hard, innovative, smart, determined people in order to meet the challenges of the time,” he said.

Glynn has been “so key in transforming the Marine Corps,” and “meeting the challenge of the times,” going from “leading a formation of 40 in Desert Storm in 1991 to leading a formation of 84,000 in 2026,” Paparo said.

As commander of III MEF, Paparo said, Turner has already “changed the face of the United States Pacific Command,” “enhanced deterrence,” and “never given up an inch, and gained ground. It is the most Marine thing that you can do.”

Glynn and Turner graduated from The Basic School together, but “absolutely no one” 37 years ago was saying “there goes the next two commanders of Fleet Marine Forces Pacific,” Glynn said.

Now, as Glynn steps into retirement, he said he stayed in the Marine Corps as long as he did “because I like to fight. I like to fight in this outfit, because we win. And who doesn’t like to fight for a winner?”

]]>

Five things Space Command says it needs to win tomorrow’s wars

Thomas Novelly — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 17:42:53 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Space weapons and refuelable satellites are among the items needed to preserve the U.S. military’s orbital edge over China, the head of U.S. Space Command said.

America’s adversaries are targeting U.S. space assets and rapidly developing their own, Gen. Stephen Whiting told attendees at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium on Wednesday. China, for example, has direct-ascent ASAT missiles, ground-based lasers, jammers, and maneuverable, dual-use satellites, he said.

“These developments intend to degrade our current space superiority and would potentially give

China a maneuver and logistics advantage in space – something we would not accept on the land, at sea, or in the air,” Whiting said.

In the four-star’s final Space and Missile Defense Symposium speech as the leader of the combatant command, Whiting told military and industry audience members that there are five major things on U.S. Space Command’s Integrated Priorities List for 2029 to 2033.

“This isn’t just a wishlist. It’s a clear demand signal to several audiences describing the warfighting capabilities we need to meet our mission,” he said.

1. Integrated space fires: Mirroring Army usage, Whiting has used this term throughout his tenure at Space Command to refer to the offensive and defensive capabilities needed to deter orbiting threats.“

We’re a combatant command and we fight to win wars,” he said. “To win, we need credible, acknowledged, kinetic and non-kinetic fires. They are a key component of how we establish space superiority and restore credible deterrence.”

2. Counter-pLEO tech: Whiting said new technology is needed to counter adversaries’ low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations. As of last month, China has launched 200 G60 and 168 SatNet communications satellites as it builds a pair of “mega constellations...to compete with Western proliferated LEO (pLEO) architectures,” according to a Space Force fact sheet.

“I don't want any U.S. force to be put at risk because somebody else might have a proliferated low-Earth-orbit constellation that could find, fix, track, and target them,” Whiting told reporters after his keynote address.

3. Joint, integrated space command and control: Military leaders often stress the centrality of being able to oversee, organize, and order complex space operations.

“We must enhance machine-to-machine connectivity to support decision-making and battle management of this global space fight on tactically relevant timelines,” Whiting said in his address.

4. Dedicated space domain awareness for space engagements: It’s not just for missile defense, Whiting said: space domain awareness needs to expand and evolve to a whole range of space operations, not just one segment of it.

“We must adopt a ‘target-quality track’ mindset to everything we do in space, just like the missile defense community has done for decades,” he said.

5. Sustained space maneuver: Developing satellites that can be refueled to extend their usefulness remains one of U.S. Space Command key priorities. In March, a Chinese commercial satellite used a flexible robotic arm to “to demonstrate on-orbit servicing, refueling, and debris removal,” according to the Space Force.

“Today, our satellites are limited by the fuel they launch with, which leads to a psychology of scarcity. Husbanding that fuel often overrides desired warfighting maneuvers,” Whiting said. “That must change. We must be able to actively avoid threats and maneuver to gain a position of advantage on our adversaries.”

Whiting has pitched some of these items at past symposiums; in 2024, he said his 2027 Integrated Priorities List was topped by space fires and resilient command and control.

“Our space assets need to shoot, move, and communicate just like the rest of the Joint Force,” Whiting said Wednesday. “In short, space needs to fight like the Joint Force, to empower the Joint Force’s ability to fight and undermine our adversaries’ ability to do so.”

]]>

The lasers are coming, but don’t forget training

Lauren C. Williams — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 21:12:47 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—Lasers and high-powered microwaves will need equal standing to traditional weapons when it comes to the Army’s approach to missile defense, the service’s space and missile-defense chief said. But as battlefield tech is developed and integrated, proper training will be key to keeping soldiers safe.

“Integrating systems like lasers or high-powered microwaves, there's a pretty significant burden of implementing that across training and organizations,” Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, who leads Army Space and Missile Defense Command, told reporters Tuesday at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.

Rafferty’s top enlisted advisor concurred.

“I know everyone's talking about faster, cheaper—all those things are needed. But what's most important is our soldiers need to be trained on it,” Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson told reporters Tuesday. “We don't want to assume too much risk in that, because the soldiers are the ones that are going to have to use it and implement it. So I look forward to the rest of this week and hearing from industry and how we can do that, because ultimately our soldiers need it.”

In his keynote, Rafferty said air-defense strategy should balance the use of missiles, which can reach beyond line of sight, and energy weapons, which can be cheaper per round and used for closer ranges.

“We need a more comprehensive missile defeat strategy that focuses on interceptors—equally so on non-kinetic effects, both electronic warfare and directed energy—and the type of targeting [command and control],” on top of the ability to move sensitive data to lower classification levels “and make decisions to engage targets faster,” he said.

After decades of touting directed energy as a weapon of the future, the Pentagon may at last be on the verge of realizing its vision. Nascent programs such as the Army-Navy Joint Laser Weapon System and the Army’s Enduring High Energy Laser, as well as operational systems such as the Navy’s HELIOS drone-dazzler, suggest that directed-energy weapons may soon go mainstream.

The Army tested non-kinetic weapons during a recent test at White Sands. They synced C2 systems to get a clear picture of the battlefield and help soldiers pick the right weapon for the incoming threat, Rafferty said.

“The individual systems worked, right, because they're all systems that exist right now. That wasn't the trick. The trick was integrating them into a command-and-control system to make sense of and then assign effectors against those against those targets. So that, in a nutshell, is a sort of combined-arms approach to missile defeat or or a comprehensive missile-defeat strategy,” Rafferty told reporters.

“I'm not surprised that we could do it, I'm just thrilled that we actually did it, that we decided to integrate multiple C2 systems and figure out how to enable our soldiers to defeat complex threats.”

The Army has leaned forward on adding lasers to its armory through a directed energy program.

But ultimately, the concern isn’t about the Army’s ability to integrate new tech and weapons systems into its operations—it’s training.

“Clearly, there are technical challenges to integrating platforms into command-and-control systems and planning software that helps us to integrate the effects at the right place and time,” Rafferty said. “But in terms of our Army being well-equipped and agile enough to do this, I'm 100-percent confident.”

The challenge comes in making sure there’s an adequate power source, in “maneuvering and supporting” the system, he said.

“It's not about the laser anymore. It’s really about putting it together, packaging it, making it ruggedized, and coming up with the doctrine and the techniques…the sustainment that needs to be done to go from a high-end technological capability to a no-kidding weapons system that’s able to be…usable by 20-year-old sergeants,” Tom Karako, a missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Fox News in a recent interview.

That also means the systems have to work in bad weather and austere conditions, and be repairable in the field, he said.

]]>

‘There is no Golden Dome’ unless Congress prioritizes funding, general warns

Thomas Novelly — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:25:54 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.—The sprawling Golden Dome missile-defense program is in peril because the White House decided to seek the vast majority of its 2027 funding via a controversial budget maneuver, the program’s leader said Tuesday.

Gen. Michael Guetlein didn’t explicitly call out the administration’s decision to propose using reconciliation to fund about 97 percent of the program’s $17.5 billion request. But the Space Force four-star did say it creates a “tough budget environment" as lawmakers remain cool to the administration’s request for a third partisan-led defense-funding measure.

“If they don’t figure it out, there is no Golden Dome,” Guetlein told attendees at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium, “because there is no funding.”

His public cry for help contrasts sharply with the mysterious gag order imposed by Pentagon leaders at last year’s symposium.

And it comes, Guetlein said, as the program makes good progress. He said that 90 percent of the roughly $24 billion allocated for the missile defense program through last year’s reconciliation effort has been obligated. He also said there’s been two “phenomenally successful” tests tied to the effort, and that contracts have been awarded for many of the key parts, such as space-based interceptors, radars, and data networks.

The general also warned that progress could stall without consistent funding.

“So if there's no additional funds, we have to continue to leverage the enormous amount of investment that [Congress] already gave me in reconciliation in FY 25-26, and then leverage that going forward,” Guetlein said.

One of Golden Dome’s cornerstone capabilities—space-based boost-phase interceptors— could be too costly for the final architecture. Physicists have said such a scheme would require thousands or even tens of thousands of armed satellites to provide 24/7 defense against even a handful of incoming missiles.

In April, Guetlein told the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee that if building and deploying satellites armed to down enemy missiles early in flight can’t be done affordably or at scale then “we will not go into production.”

On the sidelines of the symposium, Guetlein told reporters that he hadn’t seen anything from the defense industry to change his mind on the affordability of space-based interceptors, but added he was impressed with what he’s seen.

“All of the providers that are part of the competition are progressing exceptionally well,” the general said, adding that he expects those companies developing the technology to progress to the next stage, which involves building the on-orbit capability. He declined to say how Space Systems Command plans to test those interceptors.

Guetlein told reporters that the Defense Department is already planning for contingencies if they don’t secure the requested funding in the 2027 budget, but said no final maneuvers have been settled on.

“There are discussions within the department about how to go forward because we have diversified execution of a lot of these capabilities, and a lot of these capabilities are already requested by combatant commands,” Guetlein said. “There are some alternatives that we can pursue. We have not made any decisions on any pathway.”

He said, as an example, that some of the capabilities in the Golden Dome program are also being funded by the Space Force, and added that the service could continue to work on those systems.

Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said it isn’t likely that Golden Dome would have to raid various service budgets to continue its progress.

“I think that Congress would prioritize Golden Dome funding and find it another home, either through a supplemental bill, a smaller reconciliation package, or tuck it into a higher base budget,” Harrison said.

Earlier this year, Golden Dome’s price tag had already swelled $10 billion over the original $175 billion goal, and the potential long-term costs have already been the focal point of criticisms.

In the absence of a publicly released architecture, Congressional Budget Office analysts crafted an estimate for a national missile defense system based on Trump’s “Iron Dome for America” executive order. The watchdogs calculated it would cost $1.2 trillion to “develop, deploy, and operate” for 20 years.

Guetlein has since gone on defense, publicly pushing back on that trillion-dollar figure and saying that the analysts “did not estimate the architecture that we're building.”

During his panel at the symposium, Guetlein acknowledged Golden Dome’s steep price tag, but averred its necessity.

“That’s a lot of money. That’s one of the biggest systems that we’ve ever put together as a nation,” he said. “We got to keep it affordable.”

]]>

Pentagon to solicit entrants for next giant cloud-service contract vehicle

Nick Wakeman — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:00:00 -0400

Expect to see the solicitation for the next iteration of the Pentagon's main cloud-computing contract on Aug. 24.

The Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability contract is the Defense Department’s vehicle for buying cloud services from the main hyperscalers: Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft Azure and Oracle. The Defense Information Systems Agency announced the date as part of its monthly acquisition post.

The new version, called JWCC Unified Cloud Marketplace, will expands what DOD can buy through the vehicle.

Tier 1 will be for the hyperscalers. Tier 2 covers “everything-as-a-service” including software, platform, and non-hyperscale infrastructure. Tier 3 is reserved for what DISA is calling “Commercial innovators and small businesses”: emerging companies and small businesses.

DISA has not posted an estimated value for JWCC Unified Cloud Marketplace.

The current JWCC vehicle had a $9 billion ceiling. AWS has received the most task-order obligations, $526.5 million; followed by Microsoft, $221 million; Oracle, $76.9 million; and Google, $35.9 million, according to Deltak data

]]>

How Congress is reshaping the administration's FY27 budget

Shaun McDougall, Forecast International — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:21:24 -0400

The start of the 2027 fiscal year is less than two months away, and in typical fashion, the annual defense budget is in limbo. Three out of Congress' four defense committees have released markups that adhere to the Trump administration’s $1.1 trillion topline request. None has addressed the White House's proposal to spend another $350 billion through the unusual use of reconciliation funding, though discussions are underway for a smaller reconciliation package that could include money sought in a supplemental request for operations in Iran and other priorities.

The administration's decision to seek funding for many of its top priorities through the reconciliation process—until last year, it had never been used for defense appropriations—creates a "terrible risk," as Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, put it earlier this year. Congressional resistance to the idea of using novel funding mechanisms could mean that various programs get far less money than the adminstration wants.

Per Forecast International's U.S. Defense Budget Spotlight dashboard, the biggest drops would be seen in defense industrial base and equipment investments contained in the Defense-Wide accounts, such as:

$54.6 billion for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group
$40.6 billion for Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment
$30.5 billion for equipment funded through the Office of the Secretary of Defense
$30 billion for Defense Production Act purchases
$20 billion for the Office of Strategic Capital Loan Program
$17.1 billion for the Golden Dome missile defense initiative

Infographic by Jorge Morejon

The White House also sought to buy many munitions through reconciliation, a choice rendered fraught by the subsequent decision to launch the war on Iran and expend much of the Pentagon's stockpile. For example, the reconciliation portion of the request contained $10.9 billion for Patriot interceptors and $10.5 billion for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors. The administration also aims to use reconciliation to backfill other programs, such as the F-35, KC-130J, and several shipbuilding programs.

Acquisition adjustments

Dzens of programs across the services would see their funding adjusted under the legislation released by the House and Senate armed services committee and the House Appropriations Committee (HAC) legislation. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not released its markup. House appropriators recommended the biggest variance from the administration request: a $9.2 billion cut for procurement programs and a $2.2 billion plus-up for research, development, test and evaluation.

Discretionary research budgets came out ahead in all the defense bills so far: proposed increases of $2.2 billion by the HAC, $1.1 billion by the SASC, and $687.2 million by the HASC. All three committees recommended additional funding for Army and Navy research, to varying degrees, while the adjustments for the Air Force’s account were mixed. The HAC and SASC proposed to add $1.7 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively, while the HASC recommended a net reduction of $480.9 million. Meanwhile, every committee cut the Space Force’s research budget, from as little as $201.4 million by the HASC to as much as $3.1 billion by the HAC. Defense-Wide research was also cut by nearly $1 billion by the HAC and SASC, while the HASC proposed to add $558.1 million. The Air Force’s E-7, the Navy’s F/A-XX fighter, and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) are poised to benefit from congressional adjustments, while efforts like the hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike and the Space Force’s Automate Sat C2 effort may lose funds.

The graphic below shows total procurement and RDT&E funding adjustments by branch across the three defense bills that have been released so far.

Infographic by Jorge Morejon

On the procurement side, one of the standout performers is Army aviation, which did not benefit from the overall influx of money in the FY27 request. Despite the record size of the request, Army aviation funding declined in FY27 compared to FY26 levels and was $1 billion less than originally planned by the previous administration. Driven by ongoing transformation efforts, the request reduced funding for key programs, including the UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook. The HASC and HAC aimed to reverse some of those cuts, recommending increases of 27 percent and 47 percent, respectively, for Army aircraft procurement. However, the SASC recommended further reductions, trimming the service’s aircraft account by 7 percent. Following the initial release of the FY27 request, the Pentagon said it was open to revisiting its proposed aircraft reductions for the Army, and additional funding is expected to appear in the final version of the defense spending bill. Outyear spending plans may also be more favorable to Army aircraft.

The SASC pushed for a 12 percent increase in Air Force missile spending, a move the other committees did not match. That adjustment stems from an additional $845 million for the service’s Family of Affordable Mass Missiles (FAMM) program, which aims to field a range of new low-cost cruise missiles. House appropriators did recommend an extra $300 million for FAMM, which would offset a lack of reconciliation funding for the program. However, the committees reduced discretionary Army and Navy missile funding across the board.

The White House asked for a boost for Navy shipbuilding this year, but lawmakers demurred. The SASC and HAC proposed reducing the shipbuilding account by 5.1 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively. The SASC removed $1 billion requested for the BBG(X) battleship, as well as $2.4 billion for CVN refueling overhauls. The submarine tender program was also cut by up to half. House appropriators recommended stripping $1.4 billion for the service’s P-8A maritime patrol aircraft.

Topline with caveats

Even without reconciliation, all the budget proposals released by congressional defense committees so far sign off on a $1.1 trillion discretionary budget request, which is around $242 billion more than the FY26 base budget and $91 billion more than the total FY26 enacted level. The latter included around $152 billion from the initial reconciliation bill signed in July 2025. The result is that many of the appropriation accounts that faced discretionary cuts in the congressional markups are still funded at higher levels than in previous years, and the administration expects future base budgets to to exceed $1 trillion.

At the same time, the administration’s efforts to quickly increase production of munitions, drones, and missile defenses, among other priorities, may have to be tempered. Reconciliation requires only a simple majority in both chambers, several Republican lawmakers said they do not see enough support to pass a $350 billion reconciliation bill. Meanwhile, the defense industry is already struggling to keep up with growing demand.

The GOP has been working on a smaller reconciliation bill that includes $60 billion for the Pentagon. If adopted, that funding would primarily support initiatives contained in the Iran war supplemental request, particularly munitions replenishment. At the same time, the House and Senate have drafted continuing resolution proposals with the understanding that a final discretionary defense budget will not be passed until after the mid-term elections, meaning the FY27 budget process is far from over.

]]>

ICBM killer passes two key tests ahead of design review, Lockheed says

Thomas Novelly — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 20:14:00 -0400

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.— Lockheed Martin’s new ICBM killer, ordered two years ago to supersede the oft-troubled GMD interceptor, hit two major milestones this week and is expected to clear the design phase later this year, company officials said.

The company said last week that its L3Harris Technologies L3Harris Technologies, or NGI, had completed a critical burst test of its second-stage motor case. On Monday, ahead of the Space and Missile Defense Symposium here, Lockheed Martin announced that they had successfully fired its stage 2 rocket motor in a static test. Company officials said NGI, ordered under the Biden administration to replace the nation’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System, should clear the critical design review, or CDR, phase by the end of this year.

“These milestones are major steps toward our path to CDR, confirming our utmost confidence that NGI will meet the demanding performance envelope on track for fielding by 2030,” Christopher Jewell, Lockheed Martin’s NGI vice president, told reporters on Monday evening.

In 2024, the Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin an $18 billion contract to design and build the Next Generation Interceptor. This April, MDA director Gen. Heath Collins told lawmakers the program fell behind schedule by 18 months due to several technical problems, but that it still remained on track to pass the design review in 2026.

“We are, as we transition into manufacturing, identifying and finding some issues with some of these new systems -- the solid rocket motor, the inertia measurement movement, as well as some in the sensors,” Collins said during an April 30 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “And we are working to buy down those risks and move forward as quickly as possible to make sure we pull the day as far to the left as possible.

The Government Accountability Office’s 2026 weapons system assessment did not include information on the Next Generation Interceptor “due to the lack of long-term cost and schedule baselines, which we could use to measure progress.”

NGI is slated to be part of the Trump administration's sprawling Golden Dome defense system.

This week’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium will likely see more discussion of Golden Dome than last year’s conference, when officials were ordered not to talk about it amid a general crackdown on public discussion by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. On Tuesday, Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Golden Dome director, is scheduled to update attendees on the program’s progress.

Collins told lawmakers in April that he, Guetlein, and U.S. Northern Command leader Gen. Gregory Guillot frequently discuss the role that NGI will play in the military’s defense strategy.

“Gen. Guillot, Gen. Guetlein, and I are regularly talking about Next-Gen Interceptor and the important part it plays in the layered defense of our homeland,” Collins told lawmakers.

]]>

Local water utilities are under cyber attack. A new group wants to help

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 18:00:00 -0400

LAS VEGAS — As dozens of small water utilities report cyber intrusions—possibly from Iran-linked groups–an industry association and a university are teaming up to help raise their defenses.

The Water Watch Center will provide cyber mitigation support to utilities that serve fewer than 10,000 people—that is, most of the nation’s community water systems. Launched at this year’s DEF CON hacker convention, the initiative is a collaboration of the National Rural Water Association and DEF CON Franklin, a project of the Cyber Policy Initiative at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.

More than 30 community water systems in Minnesota were targeted late last month, according to state officials. Around 12 states have reported similar activity in recent days, though state officials said they continued to operate safely and that there were no known effects on public health. The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are working on incident response.

An initial group of five cybersecurity firms will help deliver services to water utilities as part of the initiative.

“These leading cyber firms and NRWA are architecting a scalable cyber delivery model that has eluded water industry and national security officials to date,” Jake Braun, the co-founder of DEF CON Franklin and a former White House acting principal deputy national cyber director, said in a statement.

Paul Nakasone, who led U.S. Cyber Command and the NSA from 2018 to 2024, said at DEF CON this year that water utilities around the country are highly exposed, and he pushed for higher defense standards in the sector.

“These [programmable logic controllers] should not be exposed to the internet,” Nakasone told reporters in a briefing on Friday, referring to the small computers used to operate pumps, valves, and other equipment inside water facilities.

Some U.S. officials believe Iran may be responsible, though there has been no definitive public confirmation.

“I think [the government] is taking a very measured approach to make sure that they have the right actor that’s doing this,” Nakasone said when asked about why Iran hasn’t publicly been linked to the hacks.

“I look at intent. I look at capability. I look at history. I’m not the person that’s making the call on the attribution, but I see an actor here that has certainly shown a history of being able to do this,” he said. “They certainly have the capability, and I think there’s an intent right now — we’re in conflict with Iran.”

]]>

The government was ready to expand its voting-security work. Then it pulled the plug

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:00:00 -0400

LAS VEGAS — After spending roughly six weeks analyzing Dominion voting systems used in Puerto Rico’s 2024 elections, Mojave Research came back to the Trump administration with findings that startled its researchers.

The systems contained at least a dozen high- or critical-severity software vulnerabilities. Passwords were reused, firewalls were disabled and basic cryptographic protections were poorly implemented. And in Puerto Rico, active cellular hardware modems opened additional pathways into underlying software that was thought to be isolated.

But the small cybersecurity firm found no evidence that any of those weaknesses had actually been exploited, or that votes had been changed. The company still wanted more time to be certain.

Federal officials initially seemed willing to give them considerably more of it. The company was asked to grow the team working on the effort from roughly 10 people to about 60, according to CEO Jason Wareham.

Chief Technology Officer Manbir Gulati also said Mojave received an authorization to proceed with a follow-on effort, hired personnel, and was given funding to acquire equipment for examining more voting systems ahead of the November midterms. A contracting officer had even been brought in to finalize the new agreement, Gulati said.

Then, as Mojave prepared to move ahead, the work was abruptly shut down.

Wareham and Gulati recounted the episode on Friday at DEF CON hacker convention’s Voting Village, where they publicly unpacked their technical findings before sitting down with a small group of reporters and onlookers.

Their account fills in new details about a federal effort that grew out of the Trump administration’s broader focus on voting machines and election interference, and the political pressures that emerged when Mojave’s findings did not support claims of election manipulation.

The ODNI request

Mojave never set out to become an election security provider. Its involvement began last year through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under then-director Tulsi Gabbard, where it was already performing unrelated technical work for the agency when officials approached the company about examining voting machines and data obtained from Puerto Rico.

Reuters reported in February that the May 2025 operation was tied to an effort involving ODNI and the FBI to investigate allegations that Venezuela had hacked Puerto Rico’s voting systems, though Gabbard’s office denied that Venezuela drove its work and said the examination was focused on technical vulnerabilities. The probe produced no clear evidence of Venezuelan interference.

Wareham said at DEF CON that ODNI asked whether his team of reverse engineers and forensic specialists could travel to Puerto Rico and capture an image of a voting system that had actually been used in an election, without the vendor overseeing the process. He agreed, thinking it would be a relatively small addition to Mojave’s existing contract.

The assignment instead dropped Mojave into a much larger skirmish over American elections. “Ultimately, I made the worst decision of my life in a business context,” Wareham said.

President Donald Trump has spent years falsely maintaining that his 2020 loss was stolen and the product of widespread fraud and foreign interference, claims that have been rejected by courts and officials in his own administration. A 2021 intelligence community assessment found no indication that a foreign actor attempted to alter ballots, vote tabulations or any other technical aspect of the election.

Since returning to office, Trump and allies have revived investigations into the 2020 contest and pushed election security back to the center of his administration’s agenda. Gabbard’s ODNI was one part of that effort, hauling off and analyzing voting systems from Puerto Rico and later becoming involved in a federal investigation of 2020 election records in Georgia.

Wareham said the ODNI officials directly overseeing the company’s technical work wanted the research to continue. Both he and Gulati described the ODNI staff they worked with as professionals who wanted to protect the security of election systems.

The resistance, Wareham said, came from a separate White House collective that was repeatedly dissatisfied Mojave had not produced evidence supporting claims that the 2020 election had been manipulated.

“There was a separate group — let’s call them White House-adjacent — who was dissatisfied,” he said. “They were dissatisfied overall that I was not willing to name and shame at that moment” and declare that Trump had actually won the 2020 election.

Asked whether he believed Mojave’s government work was axed because it failed to find the “smoking gun” some officials wanted, Wareham said: “I believe that was part of the termination, yes.”

Reuters reported in April that Kurt Olsen, a prominent 2020 election-denier and Trump adviser involved in efforts to investigate the election, pressed Mojave to broaden its work in search of evidence that could support those claims.

Olsen, who now works at the Justice Department, turned against the company when its research failed to uncover evidence that the Puerto Rico machines had been hacked. He advocated terminating its work and accused Mojave of secretly receiving money from billionaire George Soros, a frequent target of right-wing conspiracy theories, the news agency reported. ODNI has said Mojave’s contract ended because the company completed its voting-machine analysis.

Wareham said an ODNI official informed him while Mojave was preparing to expand its work that the company had been accused of receiving Soros funding. The allegation prompted him to compile a detailed accounting of the young company’s funding sources within three days and send it up the government chain. Asked who he was told had made the accusation, he said an ODNI official reported to him that it was Olsen.

“One, I’m not funded by George Soros,” Wareham said. “Two, it would be great to be funded by George Soros because I would probably not be here, I’d be on a yacht.”

The company kept moving forward. Wareham said Mojave briefed the White House on some of its findings around September. The firm believed it was heading toward a broader effort to remediate vulnerabilities before the midterms and conduct a deeper analysis for signs that the weaknesses it discovered had ever been actually abused.

Then came the record-long government shutdown. Wareham said that on the day he expected an expanded contract to move ahead, Mojave instead received a stop-work order and no additional funding.

“I think the government shutdown was all that was required, really, to have some folks that I didn’t know were still in the game, again, White-House adjacent, to take their shot,” he said. Wareham stopped short of saying he had direct proof that White House officials ordered Mojave removed because of its findings, but said “it was reported to me it was Kurt Olsen” who led the efforts.

The White House, ODNI and Olsen did not return requests for comment.

Identified vulnerabilities

Mojave had found many issues with the machines it examined. Gulati described the Puerto Rico system during the Voting Village presentation as “deeply insecure,” saying it did not meet the security bar he would expect from “an average low-risk application, let alone critical infrastructure.”

Researchers identified at least 12 major vulnerabilities in commercial software installed on the system, Gulati said. Mojave successfully executed five of them. None were newly discovered flaws, and fixes were already available — in some cases well before the system was used in the election.

Other weaknesses were rooted more deeply in how the system was built and deployed. Some passwords could be easily cracked and others were embedded directly into software. Firewalls were turned off on critical systems and ports were left open. Gulati was particularly critical of the system’s cryptography, which he described as being “in shambles.”

The company does not believe every problem it found necessarily stopped at Puerto Rico, as its formal review covered only one system from one manufacturer in one jurisdiction. Gulati suspects the issues could extend beyond a single voting machine company, though Mojave has not examined enough systems from other manufacturers to establish that.

“I don’t expect that the problems are unique to them,” he said. “I think many manufacturers probably exhibit the same problems.”

Mojave produced an approximately 100-page document of the Puerto Rico findings. Gulati said Mojave has been in discussions with Liberty Vote — which acquired Dominion’s election business last year — and that Liberty told the researchers it does not plan to make changes before November.

Liberty said it has not received Mojave’s report.

“Liberty Vote is not in receipt of any such report so, therefore, we cannot provide any comment,” a spokesperson said. “As always, Liberty Vote is committed to advancing the future of secure American elections.”

No evidence of vote tampering

Looking at the systems headed into the midterms, Gulati said, “I do know that as of now, the state that we have described is going to be pretty similar to what will be deployed in November.”

Despite the extensive findings, Gulati repeatedly returned to what the researchers did not establish: “We found extensive and largely unacceptable weaknesses,” he said in the presentation. “But we did not find evidence that those weaknesses were actively exploited or that votes were altered.”

That distinction has drawn renewed attention as Trump and his allies again focus on election matters.

Last month, the president used a prime-time White House address to release newly declassified intelligence he said showed China interfered in the 2020 election. Among several disclosures, Trump pointed to intelligence showing Beijing had acquired personal information on roughly 220 million American voters. But the documents did not show China altered votes or gained the ability to manipulate voting systems.

Gulati echoed those conclusions Friday when asked about the declassification.

“The China thing isn’t really much of anything,” he said, arguing that a large amount of the voter information at issue could be obtained commercially and should not be confused with access to election systems in ways that can manipulate votes.

“There is no evidence that I know of that says China successfully or any other country has successfully infiltrated our systems and manipulated votes in any way,” he added.

Wareham called the 100-page document a preliminary report and said the firm had wanted another six months to a year to dig deeper into the underlying data.

Gulati said the company’s interactions with the ODNI employees overseeing that work were markedly different from the political pressure the researchers later encountered. “We were never pressured to put anything in our reports that was untrue or politically leaning in a certain way,” he said of those officials.

Wareham said Friday that Mojave itself has pushed for its report to be made public for roughly a year and has recently been told it could soon emerge through a Freedom of Information Act request. Nextgov/FCW could not immediately determine the origin of the FOIA requester. As of publishing time, ODNI’s FOIA logs are available up until January 2025.

“I’m a little annoyed that we are very close to midterms and we had a whole year to freaking figure this out,” Wareham said.

With their government work scrapped, he announced at the Voting Village that he had filed paperwork to create the Machine Assurance Institute, seeking to bring together cybersecurity researchers and election technology companies to examine and independently verify voting infrastructure.

“We wanted to be the national security answer, and put to bed, finally, discussions about prior elections and/or accusations of voter fraud,” said Wareham. “Because, believe it or not, I find it fairly national security-destabilizing to constantly accuse each other of cheating.”

]]>

AI agents conspired to hack into networks and steal data during an experiment: study

Patrick Tucker — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 04:39:22 -0400

AI agents from OpenAI and Anthropic autonomously collaborated with one another to deceive humans, share break-in tools, and steal data in a series of independent tests, confirmed by both companies.

On Tuesday, the AI Security Institute published a paper about experiments intended to help understand how AI agents solve cybersecurity challenges. AISI researchers found that agents given access to the internet and allowed to disregard some security features would perform “autonomous, unsanctioned action...targeting real people and organizations.”

Company officials confirmed the findings Thursday.

“AI-orchestrated, fully automated offensive attacks are real now,” OpenAI security official Michael Dalton said during a briefing on the report during the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas.

In one of the tests, the researchers told an OpenAI model to compromise three target networks and recover a token as part of a “capture the flag” exercise.

In response, the model created a series of agents that set up a shared GitHub account so they could efficiently collaborate to build malware. When GitHub suspended the account, the agents set up new accounts on other websites, bypassing CAPTCHA and other security features by searching the web for audio and image samples to “see” and “hear” clues that are meant to be invisible to software programs. The agents exchanged credentials for passwords to access the new sites to continue to build out their attack tool.

It may be time for organizations to adjust how easily they grant access not just to humans, but to anything online, said Morey Haber, chief security advisor at BeyondTrust, a digital identity security firm.

“The technology industry has spent decades designing open models of interoperability. APIs connect everything, identities federate across boundaries, and access gets granted to enhance productivity. The concept of an open security model breaks down completely with agentic AI because of unmanageable risk,” Haber wrote in an Aug. 4 commentary.

In another AISI test, an Anthropic agent pretended to be a human to submit malware to GitHub, where developers routinely trade or post code to help one another. Cybersecurity officials’ warnings about attempts to poison open-source code libraries usually refer to human actors.

What the agent did next shocked AISI reviewers, who described it as “the kind of goal-directed deception that, until recently, had been largely theoretical.”

After submitting the poisoned code, the agent created a different “sock puppet” account to pose as an impartial third-party developer and endorse the contribution. When a reviewer flagged the code submission as likely to contain malware, the agent erased evidence that it had submitted malware, as well as the reviewer comments that it had done so.

In all, AISI ran 122 tests—and found that in 19 of them, agents took “autonomous, unsanctioned action on the live internet, targeting real people and organizations.”

In their report, the researchers note that they conducted the tests in a deliberately “permissive” environment, allowing the agents to access the open internet and even disabling some security features to better “assess what these models can do.” They recommend that “implementing internet access controls would likely have prevented these events.”

Had a gang of human hackers done any of these things—injecting malware, gaining access to data repositories under false pretenses, sharing stolen credentials to access a private network without permission—in a real world setting, they would face criminal prosecution.

But perhaps the most alarming incident mentioned in the paper was one that was not part of the test at all, only briefly mentioned alongside the suggestion on access controls.

In July, OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol broke out of a sandbox, a confined virtual environment, by finding a vulnerability no one knew existed.

Rob Joyce, who once led the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations, told the audience at BlackHat on Thursday that the incident was “arguably the most consequential hack” in nearly three decades.

On Friday, OpenAI officials at Blackhat said they had decided to delay the release of the company’s newest Astra model over cybersecurity concerns.

]]>