Douglas A. Macgregor's Blog, page 2

With royal push, Sweden pitches Canada on economic benefits of buying Gripen

STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s Defence Minister Pål Jonson said Wednesday that Canada’s “strong avionics sector” and skilled workforce make it the perfect partner to help Saab rapidly expand Gripen production — capacity urgently needed to supply Ukraine with the 100–150 Gripen fighters it seeks.

In a Canadian public broadcaster interview, Jonson made clear that Sweden cannot ramp up production alone if a Western coalition green-lights a major Gripen transfer to Ukraine. Hence, Sweden is on the hunt for another industrial partner to handle the potential jump in production.

“We are looking for increased production,” Jonson said. “To produce 100 to 150 additional Gripen fighters on top of what we’re doing right now in Sweden — and with Brazil, Colombia, and others already in the queue — might be challenging to do it all in Sweden. That’s why I am talking about partnership.”

Jonson highlighted the existing Saab–Bombardier partnership on the GlobalEye AEW&C program as proof the two countries can successfully coproduce advanced aircraft.

“If we can reach an agreement to provide Ukraine with the Gripen-E as the backbone of their air-defence system, then the components of all of this align very broadly,” Jonson noted, pointing to Canada’s strong Ukrainian diaspora and Ottawa’s role in Kyiv’s military support.

Jonson’s comments sit against the backdrop of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to reexamine Canada’s troubled F-35 procurement in light of the escalating US trade war under President Donald Trump. 

A high-level delegation — led by the Swedish king and queen, alongside Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch — traveled to Canada this week to promote the Gripen as a viable alternative to the Lockheed Martin-produced F-35, while also pushing for coproduction deals and potential Canadian sales of the Saab GlobalEye AEW&C aircraft and the Saab-Kockums A26 fifth-generation submarine currently built for the Swedish Navy.

Saab and the Swedish government are offering as many as 10,000 new jobs in Canada, potential production-line expansion in partnership with companies such as Bombardier, and full technology transfer — incentives Canada’s Industry Minister Mélanie Joly described as “very interesting.”

“Of course, we’re very much interested in the offer by Saab on the Gripen and the creation of jobs in Canada and working together regarding Ukraine,” Joly told Busch Wednesday at a joint business event. “We need to have more details … but we’ll continue the conversations for sure.”

However, the clock is ticking fast on Canada’s fighter jet replacement. The last major overhaul of the current CF-18 fleet only extends their safe operational life. With the first Canadian F-35s scheduled to arrive 2028 and full operational capability of F-35s in 2032-2034, the margin for further delays or a protracted new competition is razor-thin.

Saab is slowly expanding the Gripen’s global footprint. In August, Thailand signed a $550 million deal for four jets. Last week, Colombia officially joined neighbor Brazil as a Gripen operator. Brazil already has 36 on order and hosts a domestic final-assembly line; it remains unclear whether Colombia’s 17 aircraft will also be built there. Talks with Peru continue. 

And perhaps most notably, last month Ukraine and Sweden signed a letter of intent for Kyiv to potentially acquire 100–150 Saab Gripen E fighter jets. 

Addressing the perennial Canadian concern about operating a “mixed fleet” alongside the F-35, Jonson pointed to a successful Nordic air-power integration.

“In the Nordic cooperation, Finland, Denmark, and Norway are using the F-35; we’re using Gripens, but we still have a common Nordic air-power concept and we work very, very closely together,” he said. “From a strategic perspective, it actually creates more dilemmas for Russia because they have to diversify their air defense systems.” He also stressed that Gripen is fully compatible with NATO’s data communication links 16 and 22.

Space Force must define acceptable risks of rapid acquisition push: Senior official

WASHINGTON — As the Space Force doubles down on its efforts to further speed acquisition cycles to implement the Pentagon’s reform push, it needs to figure out how to define what minimum capability is good enough for any new kit to be operationally useful, according to the service’s top acquisition official.

The Space Force hasn’t yet “gotten the work done on test and operational acceptance,” needed to hash out the issues that “center around risk and operational risk,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration at the Department of the Air Force, said today at a conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Hudson Institute.

Reducing testing requirements, and cutting the time the testing and validation process takes, will be key elements of the Space Force’s acquisition reform efforts that will focus on rapid delivery of systems with “minimum viable capability” that can be incrementally improved, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told the conference in his opening remarks.

“The goal is not to chase perfection in requirements or performance, but rather to deliver some capability incrementally, improving on what we have that can be ready quickly, and then we improve on that continually and use it operationally. … [T]his new mindset requires an evolution of our test and fielding framework,” he said.

Saltzman said the goal is “continuous, streamline test approaches, shifting our test mindset to validate only what is required to ensure the minimum viable capability is effective for the users and no more. Streamlining test documentation and execution with a focus on acceptance, not assurance, will ensure testing is integrated, focused and does not unnecessarily slow down fielding of capability.”

The rub, Purdy cautioned, is how to ensure that those minimum viable products are actually useful and beneficial to warfighters — with the unspoken implication being that getting something out the door at top speed won’t matter if it’s not fit for purpose.

“We’re really set for some really interesting discussions. Because I can go ramp up the acquisition system … I can start low, and I can pump things out fast. But we need to have a real discussion on the operator side and the requirements side, because … these are war fighting systems, and there’s a joint warfighting force that has to produce guaranteed results,” he said.

[W]hat is the appetite for fast, rapid delivery of capability? Because that capability will not be the 100 percent capability. It probably won’t even be the 80 percent; it might be the 40 percent. It might have issues. It might have some bugs. It might cause you [the operators] to be down a little bit,” he said. “I want to deliver as fast as possible … but there’ll be risks there; there’ll be operational risk there. And there’s not a good answer to that question yet. So, that’s going to be a hot moment of debate here going forward over the next few months,” he said.

The time to move ICBMs from the Air Force to the Army is now

In his first message to airmen, new Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said it plainly: “At our core, we fly and fix aircraft. It is the heart of who we are and what we do.” He’s right — and yet, for decades, the land-based leg of America’s nuclear triad has sat within a military service fundamentally mismatched to the mission.

Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ended up in the Air Force in the early days of the space age when missile and rocket technology were deeply intertwined. The architects who championed ICBMs — figures like Gen. Bernard Schriever — have long since passed. What remains is an ICBM force sliding into disrepair and a troubled modernization program that is 81 percent over budget and risks undermining the credibility of America’s nuclear deterrent.

With the ICBM enterprise at a crossroads, Congress and the administration should move this critical mission to the Army, where it logically belongs today.

The moment is right for decisive change: The Sentinel program is already being restructured, and new missiles, silos, and support facilities will begin to take shape in the coming years. The question is whether we use this opportunity to fix a long simmering structural mismatch, or whether we pour new systems and even more funding into an outdated structure that continues down the failed path of the past 30 years.

There are three fundamental reasons why the Air Force is no longer a fit for the ICBM mission, and why the Army is.

First, as Wilsbach’s message indicates, silo-based missiles are simply not core to the Air Force identity or mission, and they never will be. With a fleet of aircraft that is the oldest and smallest it has ever been, the nation needs an Air Force that is laser-focused on restoring and expanding US airpower — not managing a missile force.

Second, the missileer career field has no natural synergy with the rest of the Air Force and is increasingly orphaned and disconnected. Missile operators and maintainers train and work separately from the rest of the service, and gain experience that does not translate well to airborne missions or most senior leadership roles in the Air Force. Combined with an ICBM force that has been shrinking since the end of the Cold War, the missileer career field has chronic morale problems, limited promotion opportunities, and an unsustainable size — issues documented repeatedly over the past 30 years.

Third, because its missile fields are widely dispersed, the Air Force currently sustains a fleet of utility helicopters it does not otherwise need to fly crews between silos — along with helicopter pilots, maintainers, security forces, and training pipelines unique to the ICBM mission. At a time of shrinking force structure and financial pressures, maintaining a separate fleet of aircraft and supporting career fields just to protect the ICBMs seems wasteful.

In contrast, the Army already operates all of the nation’s other land-based missiles, including the military’s only other silo-based missiles — the ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Long-range fires is a growing and highly valued Army mission, and Army personnel in ICBM jobs would build skills better aligned with other jobs in the Army. Moreover, the Army already has the utility helicopters and force structure needed to take on the ICBM security mission more effectively and efficiently than the Air Force. The ICBM mission is a natural fit for the Army.

Certainly, this idea will find kneejerk opposition inside the Air Force. After all, no one wants to lose the prestige, history nor budget associated with this vital mission. But we hear again and again from Air Force advocates how this is the oldest, most brittle air service the US has ever had, and how that could cost American lives in a future conflict. If that’s the case, then the service needs to be free of extraneous mission sets and able to focus on what Wilsbach termed the “core” of the US Air Force. 

The nuclear deterrence mission is too important to be a secondary responsibility within any service, and the Air Force simply does not have the bandwidth to modernize its fighters, bombers, tankers, and ICBMs simultaneously.

Reassigning the ICBM mission to the Army would give each military department responsibility for one leg of the nuclear triad, relieve the Air Force of an unsustainable modernization burden, and reinforce the Army’s growing emphasis on long-range fires. Importantly, the transfer can and would be conducted with the upmost attention to nuclear safety and assurance — something that can never be compromised.

Now is the best time for a clean transfer of the entire ICBM enterprise — people, programs, facilities, and funding — from the Air Force to the Army.

Todd Harrison is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on defense strategy, defense budgeting, and space policy.

Chinese use of Claude AI for hacking will drive demand for AI cyber defense, say experts

WASHINGTON — In the wake of a report accusing China of using publicly available AI tech to launch cyberattacks, experts are warning cyber defenders they’re going to need some AI help of their own.

“Last week, we had the first revelation that there is a capability here that our adversaries can use that can get us to a speed and a scale [of attacks] we haven’t seen before,” said Paul Nakasone, the former four-star chief of the NSA and Cyber Command, at Tuesday’s Aspen Cyber Summit here in Washington. “The question becomes, what are we going to do about it?

“I think what we are going to do about it, and what you will see in the next six months, truly, is how does AI come on the cyber defense [side],” Nakasone continued. “I think we’re going to see tremendous, tremendous advances with regards to what we can do with artificial intelligence in a defensive mindset.”

A “Chinese state-sponsored group,” posing as legitimate cybersecurity testers, recently tricked Anthropic’s Claude Code AI into hacking roughly 30 government and industry targets on their behalf, the company reported.

While AI isn’t replacing human hackers, yet, it can multiply the number and speed of attacks one moderately well-trained human can conduct, experts agreed. In essence, it’s the cyberspace equivalent of unmanned “loyal wingmen” drones directed by a single fighter pilot. But there is, so far, no matching force multiplier for defense.

“We’re now going to see agentic cyber defenses deployed against agentic cyber attacks,” said Jack Shanahan, founder of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.

Pitting algorithm against algorithm at superhuman speeds, however, could lead to results no human on either side expected, let alone desired.

“Algorithmic warfare at the speed of agents is enticing for any military. Yet if executed in this kind of slap-dash way, we’re in for a bit of a wild ride,” Shanahan told Breaking Defense. “In this case, the known limitations of these LLMs highlighted themselves in a way that suggests humans would be crazy to trust agentic AI to operate without human involvement and oversight.”

There are “all sorts of risks to consider,” Shanahan said. “One that should be at the top of the list in global conversations between nuclear states right now is the potential implications of allowing these kinds of automated agentic cyber attacks against NC3 [nuclear command, control, and communications]. That doesn’t end well.”

RELATED: ChatNC3: Can the US trust AI in nuclear command, control and communications?

Silver Bullets Or Shotgun Blasts

What’s unprecedented about the Claude Code attack, Anthropic’s report and the experts noted, is that it’s the first reported case of hackers using publicly available AI tools to conduct cyber attacks autonomously, with minimal human oversight.

These AI “agents” still required humans to make some key strategic choices, doublecheck AI-generated reports for hallucinations, and hand-code the most exquisite forms of malware to penetrate the hardest targets, experts told Breaking Defense. But the AI took a virtual buzzsaw to what’s normally time-consuming grunt work: scouting out potential weak points to stealing passwords, writing custom malware, exfiltrating data, analyzing it, even tidily documenting the results.  

Overall, Anthropic estimated Claude Code performed “80-90 percent of tactical operations independently” and at speeds “physically impossible” for humans to match.

“Two of the most time-intensive aspects of cyber operations are [first] assessing the networks, and then, once you penetrate the network and export the files that you’re targeting, sifting through all those files and assessing what has actual intelligence value to it,” said David Lin, a senior advisor at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP). “Getting Gen AI and chatbots and LLMs to do [those] things, like the report says, increases optimization by 80 to 90 percent.”

What’s especially impressive is that the hackers were able to use Claude Code in every stage of their campaign, from initial reconnaissance to after-action analysis, argued Jason Healey, a senior research scholar at Columbia.

Until now, Healey told Breaking Defense, “whenever there are stories about AI helping some part of offense or defense, it has ever only applied to one or a few parts of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (if it helps defense) or MITRE ATT&CK or Kill Chain (if offense). [But] Claude seems to have automated substantially the entire chain.”

That doesn’t mean Claude Code or other agents can perform all those actions against all targets. “I can imagine this being great to hit the smaller DIB [Defense Industrial Base] companies but not the majors,” Healey said. “Likewise for federal agencies.”

In fact, all the experts who spoke to Breaking Defense agreed that the AI agents aren’t up to hacking the hardest targets, at least for now. In particular, top-priority national security systems like nuclear command and control — or the Iranian nuclear sites famously attacked by the Stuxnet virus —  are often “air-gapped,” with no connection (whether physical or wireless) to the global internet, making it hard for commercially available tools to even find them in the first place.

“I can’t imagine Claude would be super useful for a very bespoke, very intricate attack, which also required physical penetration, à la Stuxnet, but would be useful for attacks at scale,” said Joshua Wallin, a defense program fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “My read from the Anthropic report [PDF] is that the speed and automation were of value, even to an otherwise highly capable actor.

“The use of open-source cybersecurity tools [like Claude Code] also helps a high-end actor avoid exposing their more bespoke tooling,” Wallin told Breaking Defense. “They can save the ‘special sauce’ for later.”

Agentic AI “won’t necessarily make it any easier to crack into well-secured government networks,” Shanahan agreed. “[But] one bad actor working with LLMs can act like a dozen or more human actors operating solo, [so] it offers a cheap, easy leg up — and those whose networks are not well-secured will learn the hard way.”

In other words, while AI agents aren’t a silver bullet that can kill even the toughest target, they’re still a digital shotgun blast, and many networks are as fragile as clay pigeons.

So even highly sophisticated nation-states with elite cyber teams will still want to leverage legions of AI assistants, the experts agreed. In cyber war, as on the physical battlefield, quantity has a quality all its own.

“If Chinese APTs [Advanced Persistent Threats] are using AI to automate an entire incident, it means their weakest teams will be far more productive,” Healey said. “This means more targets are hit for less cost and saving their higher performing teams for the hardest targets.”

“If an AI startup achieved this on the defensive side — success across almost the entire NIST Cybersecurity Framework — they would have a $5 billion valuation, and it would be widely touted as a gamechanger,” he added.

Unfortunately, it seems no one has gotten agentic AI defenses up and running yet.

“We know that there are bevy of new companies that sprouted up in the last year or so to do this sort of thing, but this incident should lend momentum to those efforts,” said Chip Usher, senior director for intelligence at SCSP. “This points up the importance for defenders to get cracking and using AI-enabled systems for defense. … If you’re going to defend against these AI enabled attacks, you need to have AI on your side to counter it, just because of the speed and scale.”

Golden Dome implementation plan under review, Congress may get look this week

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s Golden Dome implementation plan is nearing final approval and may soon be briefed to members of Congress, but the Defense Department is making it clear that they intend to “rigorously” avoid sharing details on the program.

“The baseline architecture has been established, and the implementation plan is currently undergoing review,” a Pentagon spokesperson told Breaking Defense via email today. “The Department continues to keep our focus on creating peace through strength, by meeting the goals laid out for [the] Golden Dome for America program to protect our Nation.”

In late May, Gen. Michael Guetlein was given 60 days to complete Golden Dome’s baseline architecture, expected to influence everything from the interceptors used to down incoming threats to fire control integration. That architecture was delivered to Pentagon leaders in mid-September, and the next step was inking out an implementation plan that was first expected to be first signed off by Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg before making its way to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk.

The Pentagon spokesperson did not disclose when Hegseth may sign off on the plan. Inside Defense was the first to report that the baseline architecture is set.

While the timing is up in the air, according to one Capitol Hill source, the department is poised to brief members of the House Armed Services Committee this week to talk details in a classified setting. After publication, a House source said that the briefing could happen as soon as today.

Dome of Secrecy

Days after taking the oath of office, President Donald Trump inked an executive order for greater investments for a multilayered homeland air defense system, including a requirement for the development of space-based interceptors. That was later rebranded as Golden Dome and handed over to Guetlein to manage, with much fanfare.

But since then, the department has been putting the brakes on the flow of public information around the program, cancelling events and limiting public statements on the topic.

“Recognizing adversaries’ intent to exploit Golden Dome’s breakthroughs, we are rigorously protecting America’s strategic advantages inherent in this program,” the spokesperson said today.

Not everyone agrees that secrecy is the best path. Tom Karako, a missile defense expert with Center for Strategic and International Studies, argued in a Monday oped with Breaking Defense that if the Pentagon does not start explaining Golden Dome, it will never be built. Contractors, he argued, are wasting time “guessing instead of building” on a concept Trump wants fully operational by January 2029.

“The main problem is that a gag order precludes virtually any discussion of the initiative, even to Congress,” he wrote. “A security and classification guide has still not been finalized. Despite its presidential mandate, ‘Golden Dome’ are words that must not be spoken.”

During a Wednesday CSIS event, Karako said that when baseline architecture details actually become public, he anticipates Golden Dome will be less ambitious than expected.

“I predict that what you’re going to see is something that is far more… limited, both in terms of the number of threats that are feasibly able to be stopped, and also in terms of the area that [can be] defended against…especially aerial threats,” he said.

Theresa Hitchens contributed to this report.

Updated 11/20/25 at 12:28 pm with new information from a House source.

Ukrainian drone-maker Skyfall shows off tech at Dubai Airshow, eyes US, NATO market

DUBAI AIRSHOW — As smaller unmanned systems have come to define the conflict in Ukraine, one Ukrainian drone maker has its wares on display here in Dubai, hoping to garner international attention and opportunities to build platforms for one of the biggest customers in the world: the US military.

“So the US government and the armed forces, they are waiting for our drones to appear in the American market, actually,” a representative for Skyfall said Wednesday in an interview with Breaking Defense on the sidelines of the Dubai Airshow here. Company officials requested anonymity for security reasons. 

Founded in the wake of Russia’s invasion in 2022, Skyfall has quickly emerged as a producer of key unmanned systems like the Vampire — allegedly dubbed the Baba Yaga by Russian forces — and Shrike, a first-person-view drone.

But for the company’s products to find their way into the international market, the representative said, a regulatory framework needs to be established to clear the way for drone exports. Ukraine has recently expressed interest in selling its drones abroad, and the person said compacts must first be reached between Kyiv and potential customers like Washington. 

RELATED: Ukraine’s startups want to export to the West, but Kyiv is standing in the way

In the meantime, they told Breaking Defense that Skyfall has been in contact with Western defense companies to be ready to go with arrangements like partnerships once government-to-government agreements are reached. A chief reason for Skyfall’s presence here, the person said, is actually to meet with NATO-aligned contractors, not necessarily those based in the Middle East, though they emphasized global interest is largely welcome. 

One of many colorful patches made by the Ukrainian dronemaker Skyfall. (Breaking Defense)

Should those agreements come to pass, Skyfall could play a role in helping the US military ramp up its acquisition of unmanned systems, a top priority of the Trump administration. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, for example, has now set a goal of buying one million drones over the next two-to-three years.

Skyfall is no stranger to the American drone industry, either. The company’s Vampire bomber drone is a member of the Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue UAS List, and the company representative said that the Skyfall participated in the DIU’s Artemis project aimed at fielding long-range, one-way unmanned systems. (When the Artemis participants were announced in March, DIU only said two unnamed Ukrainian teams had been involved.) The representative said manufacturing within America may also be on the table, regulations permitting.

“That would be nice for us to have a safer area for operating but … only according to the rules that our governments agree [to],” they said.

Beyond its signature attack drone offerings, Skyfall has developed an interceptor dubbed the P1-Sun and debuted it on an international stage in Dubai. The representative said the counter-drone system can take on targets like Iranian-made Shaheds, a class of unmanned systems that Russia has used in mass in Ukraine and that the US Army finds a particularly vexing challenge. 

Ukrainian firm Skyfall displays the P-1 Sun drone interceptor at the Dubai Airshow on Nov. 19, 2025. (Daniel Woolfolk / BreakingDefense)

NATO countries are now racing to catch up with Ukrainian companies on the cutting edge of drone tech, whose systems are regarded among the best in the West due in large part to real-time feedback. The need to prevail on the battlefield, the representative said, is why companies like Skyfall have been able to find relative success with their tech.

“We are in different environments,” the person said. “We don’t have Friday pizza and days off.”

For Ukrainian firms like Skyfall, the Dubai Airshow can be a strange forum, where Russian armsmakers are in attendance too. Asked what it’s like to attend the show alongside Russian officials and defense companies, the representative said that Russian attendees will try to “provoke” them with propaganda, arguments and insults. 

“We pay no attention towards them,” the representative said. “We just silently do effective work. Silently protect residential buildings, our people, kids, our families, and support our armed forces. That’s the priority for us.”

A patch by Ukrainian drone-maker Skyfall, shown at the Dubai Airshow on Nov. 19, 2025. (Breaking Defense)

Russian official claims ‘huge demand’ for Su-57 fighter, as jet makes debut at Dubai Airshow

DUBAI AIRSHOW — Russian defense firms didn’t only bring models of their platforms, but made a splash here at the Dubai Airshow this year by displaying some full-sized military hardware, including the debut of an export variant of the Sukhoi Su-57 Felon fighter.

The Su-57 was parked along the flightline here, attracting visitors eager to get a closer look, including, at one point, some American servicemembers. The plane also took part in an aerial demonstration, which a Russian industry official said would highlight the jet’s “super-manueverability.”

The Su-57, also known internally as the T-50 and billed as Moscow’s answer to the F-35, is Russia’s first fighter to use stealth technology and was developed to replace Russia’s aging MiG-29 and Su-27, according to a US government profile of the plane. Russian officials have lauded the jet, but it’s seen its share of skepticism in Western news reports.

As such the jet has reportedly had a hard time enticing international customers. But this week Sergey Chemezov, CEO of the state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec, claimed there is actually “huge demand.” (Another Russian official reportedly said this week the Su-75 had already been delivered to an unnamed export customer.)

“I will not confirm any contract number or any of our partners, but I can definitely highlight that we have a very huge demand from many countries for this particular aircraft [Su-57E], and we are hoping to even expand this demand,” Chemezov told reporters through a translator on Tuesday.

As for going up against the F-35 — and as to whether the Su-57E could find a home here in the Emirates as a long-awaited F-35 deal continues to stall — Chemezov told reporters, “If you talk about F-35, it’s much more expensive than the SU-57, but SU-57 is not in any case worse or less capable than the F-35.”

RELATED: F-35, tank sales part of new US-Saudi Strategic Defense Agreement

Lancet On Display

Beyond the Felon, Russian defense firms also made the pitch to international customers for their unmanned platforms. For instance, at the Russian display the company Zala Aero unveiled Lancet-E loitering munition, the latest evolution in tech that’s proved deadly in Ukraine.

“The upgraded Lancet-E reconnaissance can engage targets equally effectively during daylight and nighttime hours using television or thermal imaging guidance systems,” officials at Russian stand told Breaking Defense.

Russia’s Zala Lancet drone acts as a loitering munition as well as a surveillance tool. (Daniel Woolfolk/Breaking Defense)

They pointed that the company has expanded the number of warhead types for the Lancet, “increasing the range of targets it can engage.”

The officials at the stand signaled that the firm is interested in exporting the loitering munition, specifically to Middle Eastern buyers.

Elsewhere at the static display in the desert heat, Russia also unveiled YAK-130 M trainer and light attack aircraft produced by United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), featuring a number of integrated armament.  

Just beside it was armed Ka-52 helicopter, and farther beyond the military transport Ilyushin IL-76 MD-90A occupied a large space.

The Effect Of Sanctions

Broadly speaking, Chemezov acknowledged that international sanctions had “made our [Rostec’s] life a little more difficult, and we had to switch to an independent style of production of different systems, but we have been under sanctions within the last 10 years and I can with full assurance say that our company has not even grown weaker.”

Chemezov pointed that the company’s exports have decreased since 2022, the year Russia invaded Ukraine, but was ambitious the future.

“Since 2022, the export has gone down a little bit, but this is due to the certain reasons that you may witness, we have to concentrate more on our domestic defense order and to satisfy the needs of our Russian army, but we have enhanced the production capabilities, which are going to be enhanced even further more, and you will see that pretty soon we will be able to not just maintain the current level of export, but even to broaden and expand more,” he said.

“I can assure you that in about two or three years we will go back to the, to take the second place in the world [in defense exports],” he said.

L3Harris F-16 EW system cleared for low-rate production, company says

DUBAI AIRSHOW — L3Harris’ electronic warfare system for the F-16 fighter has been approved by the US Air Force to begin low-rate production, the company revealed this week, teeing up first deliveries of the system by the end of next year.

Travis Ruhl, the company’s lead for Viper Shield, told Breaking Defense on the sidelines of the Dubai Airshow here that the EW suite recently cleared what’s known as production readiness review, transitioning the program into low-rate production. Next the company plans to ramp up to full-rate production by the first quarter of next year.

“The hardware is not going to change; it is set at this moment for the customer,” Ruhl said on Tuesday, underscoring that production processes are all in place. “So we’re super excited, because that means, it’s getting close to the end where we start to deliver the systems.”

L3Harris plans to hand over the initial batch of Viper Shield kits in December 2026, Ruhl continued, the first of 219 systems on order for the company that will be delivered through the foreign military sales process to seven customers, including Bahrain, which will receive new jets, while Poland will upgrade existing ones. A total of 168 kits will equip new-build Block 70/72 fighters set for export manufactured by Lockheed Martin, while 51 will be retrofitted on existing aircraft, a delivery profile Ruhl said will play out over “a period of about a year and a half.”

The Viper Shield system, like other EW suites, provides self-protection for fighters against threats in the electromagnetic spectrum, with features like a radar warning receiver and the ability to jam enemy radars. The kit is a modernized version of legacy EW systems, updated to more adequately address quickly evolving threats in the spectrum that have dominated the battlefield in places like Ukraine.

Ruhl said L3Harris also plans to offer Viper Shield in a podded configuration first for the F-16 and then explore opportunities for other aircraft. He added that L3Harris has held talks with companies manufacturing drone wingmen to offer Viper Shield either as an internal system or a pod.

“We’ve built it with upgrade space in it,” Ruhl said, highlighting discussions with Lockheed about incorporating new features like “operationally relevant direction finding and geolocation,” among other features. “You’d just be able to add capabilities over time, so low-risk now and then you build capabilities, as opposed to trying to do one thing all at the same time, which can be a challenge in the EW world.”

While the newest development directly affects foreign air forces, L3Harris and Ruhl himself are hardly shy about pursuing a key ambition: supplanting Northrop Grumman as the supplier of EW kits to upgrade US Air Force F-16s.

Ruhl claimed that L3Harris has a leg up over Northrop since the service could leverage dollars spent by other countries to develop the system, while also being able to move faster since Viper Shield is now in production. Northrop, for its part, has reportedly said it’s ready to start producing its F-16 EW system dubbed IVEWS with funding from the fiscal 2026 budget once it passes.

Pressed on the point, Ruhl conceded that the Air Force would have to join a queue of countries already in line for Viper Shield, saying “you’d have to balance that.” Still, he said that now that the manufacturing process is sorted out, all that’s left to do is scale up. 

“So would it be instantaneous? No, but in short order, before the end of ’27, you could have systems for the US Air Force. And even sooner than that, depending on how we balance all of the needs,” he said.

Shortly after Ruhl spoke with Breaking Defense, L3Harris announced the company signed a memorandum of understanding for collaborating with EDGE Group to explore defense technology solutions in the UAE. The agreement, according to a press release, includes “a framework for joint research and development in artificial intelligence and autonomy and for deploying these technologies.”

Lockheed, Germany’s Diehl team up to combine maritime air defense tech

LONDON and BELFAST — Lockheed Martin and Diehl Defence have joined forces to cooperate on maritime air defense capabilities for surface vessels, in hopes of enticing “navies around the world.”

The US and German defense giants sat down to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Tuesday at the Berlin Security Conference, in which the firms said they would aim to explore how the partners can fuse together Diehl’s guided missile and ground-based air defense systems, like its IRIS-T family of air defenses, and Lockheed’s integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) capabilities, including its Aegis Weapon System and MK41 Vertical Launch System (VLS).

Speaking to Breaking Defense from Berlin, a spokesperson for Diehl said the MoU was at a “starting point,” with both partners in the process of defining “next steps as of now.”

But the spokesperson did confirm the partnership was “looking at two separate projects” to kick off the cooperation, although he was unable to provide further details.

“We are addressing a significant market of several potential customers,” the spokesperson said.

Lockheed Chief Executive and Vice President for Europe Dennis Goge described the setup as a “win-win situation for both companies.”

“I would argue for Diehl to get into the Aegis Weapon System and into the Mk41 and Mk70 vertical launchers, that’s a big deal for them,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s good for us, because we diversify the portfolio there.”

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When asked about a possible launch customer for the cooperation, Goge suggested the German military could be interested. Current users of IRIS-T in the maritime environment include the German Navy, which is integrated IRIS-T SLM surface to air missiles on board its F125 frigate, the Baden-Württemberg.

“They’re using [IRIS-T] in the [IAMD] environment, all the way through and across the board. So it just makes sense, also from an interoperability point of view,” he said. “So clearly, that is a vision, that is crystal clear and makes a lot of sense.”

The MoU was signed in Berlin by Helmut Rauch, CEO of Diehl Defence, and Chandra Marshall, Vice President at Lockheed Martin.

“With Diehl Defence and Lockheed Martin linking up their expertise and capabilities, navies around the globe can benefit from the optimum for air defense systems on their surface Weapon vessels. We are proud to intensify our collaboration with Lockheed Martin in the field of guided missiles and the air defense applications,” Rauch said.

Marshall added: “This strategic collaboration continues to showcase the scalability and increased capacity of our programs, which bring next‑generation IAMD capability and 21st century security worldwide.”

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