Just like old times.
Sec. Hegseth, speaking last Saturday at Asia's premier forum for defense leaders, militaries and diplomats, said a stronger, more self-reliant network of allies is essential to deter aggression and preserve the balance of power.
Dig Deeper
China is pushing ahead to become the world leader in AI — an effort driven as much by market forces as by state controls. Read more from War on the Rocks. Meanwhile, the U.S. and China held "candid and constructive" military exchanges in Hawaii last week related to maritime safety, according to Reuters.
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The order asks companies, on a voluntary basis, to participate in a benchmarking process to assess a model's "advanced cyber capabilities" and determine whether it should be considered a "covered frontier model."
An Iranian drone and missile attack damaged a terminal building of Kuwait's International Airport earlier this week, resulting in one death and dozens of injuries.
President Trump has issued an executive order turning an estimated 8,000 federal workers into at-will employees, which means the government could fire them without providing any reason.
The career development initiative is available to servicemembers, military spouses and civilians and includes links to resources and information about national defense-related jobs and other topics.
"By bringing together government and industry partners in a collaborative environment, we can accelerate the development and fielding of critical capabilities that strengthen the Navy's arsenal and the larger munitions industrial base," said the commander of the Naval Surface Warfare Center.
Americans for Responsible Innovation, Alliance for Secure AI and The AI Policy Network on Wednesday called for safeguards in the National Defense Authorization Act ensuring that humans make the final decision about using lethal autonomous weapon systems.
"A compromise at a small supplier can jeopardize a warfighter making a real time decision, and I don't think that's acceptable for any one of us in this room. That should make us all very uncomfortable, that that small of a compromise can impact a war fighter out at the edge," said Pentagon Chief Information Officer Kirsten Davies.
The intelligence-sharing alliance warned that Chinese intelligence is using fake job advertisements on websites like LinkedIn, Indeed and Upwork to obtain sensitive information from government personnel. As if we needed more reason for a secure networking space.
A draft solicitation outlines plans for a three-tier cloud ecosystem that would support artificial intelligence, tactical edge operations and secure data sharing across the Defense Department.
President Trump said Tuesday he was appointing Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence to replace Tulsi Gabbard. Pulte currently serves as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chairman of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, which supports mortgage markets.
Dig Deeper
The move ruffled feathers on Capitol Hill because of Pulte's apparent lack of experience in intelligence, with Senate Leader Thune implying he would face an uphill battle to confirmation were he to be nominated for the position permanently. Read more from the Hill. Pulte is entering an office experiencing infighting with the agencies it oversees, according to Reuters. And Democrats Friday blocked a motion to begin debate on extending enhanced surveillance authorities in protest of Pulte, according to the Hill.
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Feature Opinions
Mark Munsell, former chief AI officer for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, argues we are currently operating under a dangerous fallacy: that because AI can generate code and simulate reasoning, the "entry-level" phase of a technology career is no longer necessary.
The Defense Department has always struggled to push new capabilities to the field quickly enough for them to matter. Michael MacFadden, CTO at Sigma Defense, says that as agentic AI floods the pipeline, the Pentagon's deployment bottleneck is becoming a national security liability.
Jack Barry, managing partner at Blackbird, argues that America's export-control system is losing a critical Cold War-era habit: industry leaders openly translating what their technologies can do in adversary hands into actionable guidance for government, a failure he says is now especially urgent around AI chips and frontier models.
In the Weeds
U.S. Army Col. Christopher Hill, director of the Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate, explains how the service's shift in cultural norms is resulting in delivering tech at speed and at scale.
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Army South cased its colors and inactivated on May 29 in a formal ceremony at San Antonio's Trinity University, ending four decades of the unit's service supporting military operations in the Caribbean region and Central and South America.
Sec. Hegseth announced the AUKUS 'Pillar Two' signature project focused on fielding advanced uncrewed undersea vehicles during a press conference in Singapore last week.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is spearheading a markup amendment to the Senate's 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would create a "Cyber Force" as the next armed service branch.
"How we're going to win in sort of a contested logistics fight is having access to data," said Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.
The Trump administration is pursuing a bureaucratic rule change that could allow for greater political influence over billions of dollars in federal research grants.
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