Drones, Satellites, Ships, Weapons and War

October 2025
America Doesn’t Have Enough Weapons for a Major Conflict. These Workers Know Why.
This summer, employees at several big defense companies went on strike. Their grievances highlight a much larger problem brewing beneath the surface.
(Politico) … On May 1, about 4,000 workers went on strike. Nearly 1,000 of them worked for Lockheed Martin, both at Tejada’s facility in Orlando and at another complex in Denver. It was the first labor strike at the Orlando factory since 1963. Another 3,000 employees went on strike in Hartford, Conn., against Pratt & Whitney, which makes engines and other critical components of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet. In mid-May, about 2,500 employees of General Dynamics nearly went on a strike at a nuclear submarine factory, before reaching a last-minute deal that kept them on the factory line. Last fall, 33,000 workers went on strike at Boeing, affecting production of both commercial and military aircraft and winning a 38 percent pay raise after seven weeks.
Something is going wrong on the assembly lines of America’s arsenal of democracy, and it’s happening at a moment of crisis. The White House, Pentagon and America’s overseas allies are all demanding that defense companies ramp up production to meet the needs of a dangerous geopolitical moment. America is running short of missiles, munitions and battleships. Allies are waiting years for deliveries. Even the Pentagon has to stand in line and wait for delayed shipments of major weapons, like Hellfire missiles, Javelin rocket launchers and sophisticated air defense interceptors. America is trying to surge its military capacity to produce more munitions, missiles and ships, but to do so, it must rely almost entirely on a group of five Fortune 500 defense companies. And none of these companies seem to be on war footing.
Instead of hiring more workers and paying workers more in an effort to retain them, these companies are far more focused on meeting the demands of Wall Street, trying to entice investors and boost their stock price by cutting costs, as well as using billions of dollars in revenue to pay handsome dividends and buy back shares of stock …

25 August
Has World War III Already Started?
Bret Stephens
(NYT Opinion) … Fourth, we are militarily unprepared.
The war against Iran revealed not just the munitions shortages, which helped bring the war to a premature close, but also America’s acute sensitivity to military fatalities and economic pain, which gave Iran’s leaders an asymmetric advantage given their own tolerance for human suffering. The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that even the most sophisticated U.S. military kit is entering obsolescence thanks to the advent of A.I.-assisted drone warfare. The tanks we and our allies supplied Kyiv during the Biden administration “now mostly sit idle, hidden in forests and collecting cobwebs,” as The Times reported this week.
Yet Pete Hegseth, our testosterone-obsessed defense secretary, last week decided to phase out an Army drone unit, seemingly because it was championed by generals he didn’t like. The travails of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln during the carrier’s long deployment are a national scandal. But they should call attention to the historically small size of the fleet and our depleted industrial base that struggles to build and maintain ships. Democrats blocking the defense appropriations bill aren’t helping things, either.

18-19 August
Trump’s steam obsession risks crippling the U.S. carrier fleet
Steam power was cutting-edge technology in the 19th century. It is the wrong choice for a modern navy.
Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
(WaPo) President Donald Trump’s Aug. 13 executive order directing the U.S. Navy to return to steam power for its catapults, the system used by carriers to launch fixed-wing aircraft, risks crippling fleet readiness — already at its lowest point in decades.
Trump’s Current Naval Fixation
Why is the president obsessed with steam power?
By Will Gottsegen
(The Atlantic) Over the past nine years, Donald Trump has returned again and again to the concept of steam power. He loves the way that steam propels fighter jets off the decks of aircraft carriers, and he laments that the Navy has pivoted to electromagnetic launchers in its new ships. …
… Trump’s recurring fascination with steam reflects his broad interest in how things should look rather than how things should work. He’s reportedly considering asking the Navy to make another design change: shifting the command center on new aircraft carriers farther forward so that the ships can look more like World War II–era vessels. The current placement of the command center at the back of the ships “was done for efficiency and safety,” three current and former U.S. officials told The Washington Post. In December, Trump announced the development of a new class of battleship, to be built according to his own preferences. He wants it bigger and more attractive, and has even given it his own name—the “Trump class.” (Earlier this month, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the new ships could cost Americans about $275 billion in all.) “I am a very aesthetic person,” Trump said at the time.

NPR: Although they’ve been less publicly concerned than Ukraine, many Asian countries are worried about the depletion of the American interceptor missile stockpile, NPR’s Emily Feng says. The U.S. interceptor stockpiles have decreased by approximately two-thirds during the Iran war, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Feng adds that this is one of the few times the U.S. has not had aircraft carriers in the Pacific. The USS Washington was there, but has been sent to relieve the USS Lincoln in the Middle East. Naval experts tell Feng it could be weeks, if not months, before a replacement carrier formation is ready and arrives in the Pacific to replace the Washington.

17 August
How Satellite Advances Are Changing the Game for Ukraine
Ukrainian drone teams have a powerful new tool: near real-time information on troop movements and locations.
(NYT) The rapid delivery of high-quality satellite images to frontline troops is one of the key battlefield advancements of the last year, enabling Ukraine to strike quickly against weapons depots, logistical hubs and troop encampments deep within territory held by Russia, and in Russia itself. …
In one new tool, developed by the Dutch company Bravo1Alpha, images are beamed to a device that looks like a hand-held video game console, from which pilots can search for targets, plot flight paths and even fire weapons from drones.

Trump’s Navy Crisis Deepens as New Ship Failure Exposed
The president and his Pentagon chief have insisted there is no issue.
(Daily Beast) A supposedly formidable guided-missile destroyer spent almost a week floating without power in politically tense waters in the latest Navy failure to hit the Trump administration.
Staff aboard the USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, endured four days without working toilets, galley services, or air conditioning in the sweltering heat of the South China Sea after losing power.
It’s the second Pacific Command destroyer to lose power this year. In May, the USS Higgins lost power and propulsion for several hours in the Indo-Pacific after what the Navy called an “engineering casualty” in its electrical system.

16 August
Trump orders Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea
(AP) — President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon on Sunday to scale back annual joint military exercises with South Korea, saying the ally declined to help with the war against Iran and citing his good relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Trump said in a social media post that the exercises, which began Monday, are not only costly but “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” during his time in the White House.
“Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump wrote. The president added that he recently asked South Korea’s president if they would join the U.S. in the “denuclearization” of Iran, “and they said, ‘No thanks!’”

15 August
US pulls last aircraft carrier in Asia as Trump focuses on Iran and the Western Hemisphere
(AP) — President Donald Trump’s war against Iran is stretching the limits of U.S. aircraft carriers and leaving the western Pacific without one of the key American warships as China shows more signs of aggression.
The USS George Washington is departing the Pacific and expected to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East amid growing concerns about mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed carrier. The Lincoln has had its time at sea extended from its original May return date to support operations against Iran.

14 August
‘Very outdated’: Trump’s directive to revert to steam catapults on new aircraft carrier baffles naval experts
(CNN) President Donald Trump has directed the US Navy to scrap the modern electromagnetic launch system on an upcoming aircraft carrier and instead revert to an older, steam-powered catapult method — potentially adding billions to its price tag and delaying its deployment into the late 2030s.
The directive, outlined in a White House memo and fact sheet released Thursday, orders Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to submit a plan within 60 days to install the catapult systems on on a carrier being built that is slated to take on the name the USS Doris Miller.
While the White House argues the move will “fix critical long-term issues,” naval experts tell CNN the sudden shift is highly unusual.
The newest US aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was built with an electromagnetic launching system known as EMALS. However, the US Navy’s 10 older carriers, the Nimitz class, still rely on steam-powered catapults.
Trump has been fixated on steam vs. electromagnetic catapults for years, claiming at an event last month the more modern technology is harder to repair.

CENTCOM launches multinational attack drone force as US adapts to drone warfare – analysis
(Jerusalem Post) The drone initiative is an important development is harnessing the capabilities of US allies and partners in the region.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced a new “first-ever multi-domain, multinational attack drone force” on August 13, an important development that builds on other initiatives by CENTCOM in utilizing new drone technology. CENTCOM has been at the forefront of dealing with drone threats for years. Now it is taking the steps necessary in a world increasingly dominated by drone warfare.

US Navy 3D prints combat-ready drones and 1,000+ parts aboard aircraft carrier during exercise — containerized factory fabricated 80-mph FPVs and critical spares despite rough seas and 12-foot waves
This was the first maritime deployment of the Firestorm Labs xCell containerized manufacturing platform.
During a two-week transit to RIMPAC 2026 in Hawaii, a containerized factory aboard the USS Essex 3D printed a dozen flight-ready drones, as well as over 1,000 parts including vital spares for Apache helicopters. 3D Printing Industry reports that this was the first maritime run of the xCell expeditionary manufacturing platform from Firestorm Labs. Furthermore, production wasn’t halted by the rough seas and up to 12 ft waves endured during the journey.

13 August
Drone Warfare Comes to Latin America
Battle-tested tech from Ukraine has reached the region’s armed groups—and governments are struggling to catch up.
(Foreign Policy) …armed groups in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America are increasingly using commercial-grade aerial drones to launch attacks, with civilians caught in the crossfire as security forces struggle to catch up. In a region long marred by conflict, drones “have further tilted the scales toward impunity,” said Henry Ziemer, a fellow in the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
…the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED)…has logged a sharp rise in drone attacks in Colombia in recent years, reporting one in 2023, 38 in 2024, and 149 in 2025. This year through July 17, ACLED recorded 137 drone attacks in Colombia. Several strikes in the country have been deadly.
Armed groups in Colombia have learned how to deploy drones from their counterparts in Mexico, where criminal organizations have used them since at least 2015…to smuggle narcotics into the United States and avoid cross-border tunnels targeted by authorities. Groups often use U.S.-manufactured technologies due to the proximity of the two countries. However, more recent innovation on drones has come from Ukraine.

By sky and sea, Ukraine’s drone strikes challenge Russia’s grip on Crimea
(NPR) Crimea was the first place Russian leader Vladimir Putin seized when he initially invaded Ukraine in 2014. An estimated 1 million Russian troops and civilians have poured into the territory to make it more Russian and less Ukrainian. With the Russian influx, and the departure of many Ukrainians, Crimea’s population is now estimated at around 2.5 million.
Ukraine has vowed to get Crimea back and carried out periodic drone strikes in recent years, with limited effect. But the campaign has ramped up dramatically in the past couple months.
Ukraine’s recent drone campaign has included strikes that cut electricity, cell phone service and water for extended periods. The daily attacks have also targeted Russian ships and ferries that deliver food, fuel, and other essential supplies from Russia.
Ukraine’s military says in the past month it’s hit more than 130 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov and more than 80 in the Black Sea.
“Russia overestimated its own naval power and didn’t expect these measures from us,” said Dmytro Pletenchuk, the spokesman for Ukraine’s Navy. “Now they’re trying to catch up with our technology. But it takes them six months and we keep improving. Russia is now at a logistics dead end.”
Russia still controls the entire coastline of the Sea of Azov, which is an inland sea. Yet Russia has effectively lost control of the water — losing it to a country that doesn’t currently have traditional naval ships or sailors at sea.
Mark Montgomery says the Ukrainian Navy has been overachieving throughout the war.
“The Ukraine Navy is the most successful navy in the world without having a ship get underway for a day,” said Montgomery.
Russia wiped out most of Ukraine’s Navy in the initial 2014 incursion. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine intentionally sank its last major ship rather than accept an inevitable takeover by Russia’s large Black Sea fleet.
Yet Ukraine still managed to fight back, damaging or sinking more than two dozen Russian ships and submarines, mostly by firing missiles from the Ukrainian mainland.
Russia then retreated, pulling back most of its warships to Russian ports on the eastern side of the Black Sea.
But Ukraine has gone on the offensive again, becoming the first country in the world to develop and deploy powerful sea drones that operate both on the water’s surface and underwater.
“This is the advent of unmanned undersea vessels, unmanned surface vessels,” said Mark Montgomery. “They’re very small, very hard to track. [Russia] can control the whole coastline and not have visibility to what’s going on in the middle of the inland sea.”
The Russian Navy is striking international cargo ships that go to pick up Ukrainian corn, wheat, and sunflower oil in and around the port of Odessa.
Ukraine, which depends heavily on agriculture, is now at the peak of its harvest season and has lost its main export route, she said. Ukraine is now looking to export by land, though this is a far less efficient alternative, and Ukraine’s beleaguered economy is expected to suffer another hit.
Meanwhile, military analysts say Ukraine’s forces are in no position to launch an offensive to retake Crimea. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently told Fox News that Ukraine isn’t trying to recapture Crimea — at least for now.

12 August
Canadian Armed Forces holds drone testing event with manufacturers in Ottawa Valley
Event at NATO test centre aims to evaluate platforms in real-world scenarios
(CBC) The event, called the Red Cobalt Uncrewed Systems Accelerator, is being held at a NATO test centre in the Ottawa Valley set up for testing cutting-edge technologies.
The federal government is looking to quickly adopt more drones as the technology develops rapidly and becomes more important in modern warfare. Lt.-Gen. Darcy Molstad, commander of the Canadian Joint Forces Command, says this is an example of how the military must do business with industry to innovate swiftly. He says this kind of event puts military drone operators and industry experts developing the platforms in direct contact to discuss how they’re being developed.

11 August
How Iran Adapted Its Attacks as U.S. War Munitions Dwindled
The Iranian strikes that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan show how quickly Iran’s war-fighting skills have evolved, as the Pentagon runs low on interceptors.
(NYT) During five intense days last month, Iran launched waves of drones and missiles at U.S. troops on three bases in Jordan, hoping to break through the formidable American air defenses.
Using advanced missiles that can suddenly change course, Iran pummeled the bases’ defensive systems, forcing the Americans to burn through scarce supplies of Patriot interceptors.
On the fifth day, the Iranians broke through.

10 August
The $2 Million Fly Swatter
(the Rude Awakening) A first-person-view drone costs a few hundred dollars. A workshop of volunteers can build dozens a day. And one of them, flown by a kid who learned on video games, can destroy a tank that costs millions and takes a year to build. … Our generals aren’t fools. The system pays them to build the wrong thing.
Think about who decides what the Pentagon buys. Prime contractors want programs that run for decades, employ thousands, and cost billions. Congress creatures want those jobs in their districts. Officers who manage big platforms get promoted; there’s no admiral’s track for cheap plastic drones.
Every incentive in the building points toward the exquisite: the $13 billion carrier, the $80 million fighter, the $2 million missile. Nothing points toward the $500 drone that any machine shop can make, precisely because any machine shop can make it. There’s no empire to build on top of cheap.
The small-drone supply chain (the motors, the batteries, the flight controllers, and the airframes) lives almost entirely in China. One Shenzhen company, DJI, dominates the world’s commercial drone market.
If a shooting war started tomorrow, the country that invented powered flight would struggle to mass produce a $500 aircraft, while its main rival could turn them out like cell phones.
Ukraine builds drones in garages because it has to. America outsourced its manufacturing might 30 years ago.
The conclusion is that the threat is cheap and infinite, while our defenses are expensive and finite. The industrial base that could’ve, and should’ve, fixed that gap got shipped across the Pacific and down to Mexico when U.S. inventories looked full.

Dragan Fly Inc.
A small drone producer in Saskatoon that produces Dragan Fly drones. Neat and can be deadly little piece of kit. It should get more attention, especially from the Canadian armed forces.
Draganfly, Inc. is a leader in cutting-edge drone solutions and software that are transforming industries and serving stakeholders globally. Its products include quad-copters, fixed wing aircrafts, ground based robots, hand held controllers, and software used for tracking, live streaming, and data collection. The firm also offers custom engineering, training, simulation consulting, as well as data and flight training services.

8 August
The U.S. Is Burning Through Weapons in Iran. Russia and China Are Taking Note.
Bombing Iran burned through thousands of multimillion-dollar missiles that contain precision parts from a global web of suppliers and can take years to produce
The Iran war has depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles, resulting in a significant erosion of firepower. A more drawn-out Iran conflict benefits Moscow and Beijing, some analysts say.
(NYT) The rapidly shrinking supply of air-defense missiles and other critical weaponry in Europe and Asia not only leaves the U.S. military less equipped, but could also leave Russia and China feeling emboldened should they contemplate a potential conflict with the United States, experts said.
… Defending against Iran’s retaliatory barrages has worn down U.S. stocks of air-defense missiles to an extent that has privately alarmed top officials in the Trump administration and has led to the United States’ delaying deliveries to European and Asian customers.

28 July
Recent fighting with Iran further draws down key US air defense stockpiles, analysis says
(AP) — Recent fighting with Iran used up more of the U.S. military’s already diminished stockpiles of advanced missile interceptors, potentially putting American troops at more risk if hostilities resume, a new analysis says.
Shrunken inventories of Patriot and THAAD interceptors may force the U.S. and its Middle Eastern allies to take more risks to conserve those air defenses, according to the analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. For example, it said, American forces may launch fewer missiles against incoming Iranian drones and missiles, raising the chance of one getting through.