Just like old times.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation against Anthropic was unlawful, ordering it removed after finding it constituted First Amendment retaliation and violated Fifth Amendment due process requirements. The Department of War had applied the label in February, which barred all Pentagon components and contractors from working with Anthropic's products.
Top Headlines
Iran's rial has hit a new record low amid economic pressure from double-digit inflation, negative growth, and anticipation of additional U.S. sanctions, compounding financial strain that preceded the U.S. and Israeli military strikes in February.
The General Services Administration has identified $13 billion in suspected procurement fraud, with the White House adding GSA's estimates to its federal fraud tracking ledger — which mean increased scrutiny of contracting irregularities across government agencies.
The Justice Department seized three internet domains linked to a Chinese tech company allegedly used by Chinese military and intelligence-affiliated hackers to conceal their operations while targeting U.S. military networks, hospitals, power companies, and defense contractors.
Sec. Hegseth is considering his chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, to succeed Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who is eyeing an exit from the Pentagon in the coming months.
The Navy has established a new defense industrial base office and appointed Andrew Magliochetti as deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for the defense industrial base to lead it.
The Pentagon's Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense task force, JIATF-401, is organizing a competitive shoot-off to evaluate directed energy counter-drone prototypes, with the results tied directly to acquisition action. Army Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, the task force's director, said a strong demonstration could yield a purchase order to begin building production lines and fielding the systems.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has overhauled the service's software acquisition policy, largely abandoning the longstanding practice of purchasing custom-built military software in favor of an approach designed to accelerate delivery and reduce costs.
Sec. Hegseth visited U.S. Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, telling military personnel they are the center of America's deterrent capability, while also making remarks in Wisconsin about what he called an "Arsenal of Freedom."
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) is pressing for a September markup of the FRONTIER Act and is seeking to add explicit model containment provisions to the legislation, a push driven by the recent security incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face in which an AI model was accessed without authorization. The proposed language would address how frontier AI models are stored, accessed, and protected against exfiltration — areas that existing draft text of the bill does not fully cover.
Dig Deeper
The OpenAI-Hugging Face cyber incident has exposed significant vulnerabilities in frontier AI lab cybersecurity practices and oversight frameworks, prompting calls for policy reforms around AI agent containment failures and regulatory structures governing advanced AI systems. Read more from CSIS.
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FeatureD Opinions
Congress faces a packed defense funding agenda when it returns from recess in September, including the Iran supplemental, potential third reconciliation bill, and at least 13 unresolved issues tied to the FY27 defense budget that lawmakers must negotiate.
Western governments are pairing forward military presence with infrastructure investment across the Caspian Basin and South Caucasus to reduce European energy dependence on vulnerable chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz, developing pipelines, railways, power lines, and transit corridors as a second geography of energy security.
Government officials are calling for continuous monitoring and dynamic risk management frameworks to replace static AI inventories, arguing that current oversight mechanisms cannot keep pace with the speed at which AI systems are deployed and evolve across federal agencies.
In the weeds
The Europe Force Posture Review represents a critical juncture in NATO's evolution toward greater European burden-sharing, with the central challenge being whether European allies can close capability gaps while maintaining the collective defense cohesion that underpins the alliance.
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The Space Force is developing a 'scorecard' system to quantify and incentivize acquisition leaders' use of commercial innovation across its programs, as part of broader efforts to integrate commercial capabilities into military space systems.
The U.S. Treasury Department has launched a Quantum-Readiness Task Force to help the financial sector prepare for post-quantum cryptography migration, following a June executive order aimed at strengthening industry resilience against quantum computing threats.
The U.S. Army is exploring using Bradley Fighting Vehicles as motherships to deploy swarms of uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs), expanding options for forward scouting and direct attacks without exposing soldiers to frontline risk.
Japan's defense-procurement agency has signed a mass production procurement agreement for interceptor drones manufactured using 3D printing technology, marking a significant step in the country's autonomous aerial defense capabilities.
The Army is transferring its Enterprise Cloud Management Agency (ECMA) from the chief information officer to Army Cyber Command, aiming to more tightly integrate cloud infrastructure management with cyber defense operations.
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