Douglas A. Macgregor's Blog, page 6

From gridlock to greener pastures: How a full-year CR could empower warfighters

Every autumn, Pentagon and Congressional leaders sound the alarm over continuing resolutions (CRs). A CR, they insist, is catastrophic, blocking new starts, freezing budgets, and endangering readiness.

But last year, when Congress actually delivered a full-year CR, the sky did not fall. In fact, something remarkable happened: the Department of Defense gained more budgetary freedom than it has seen in decades.

Why? Because the full-year CR cuts appropriators out of their favorite pastime, line-item micromanagement. Instead of Congress dictating thousands of budget line items in exquisite detail, the department received several large lump-sums, akin to the structure of this year’s authorizer-written reconciliation bill. That gave the Pentagon far more flexibility to shift money within accounts to meet real-world demands and some of the findings in the PPBE Commission. The only thing missing was the Pentagon’s readiness to exploit it.

Let’s be clear: Last year’s year-long CR compromise was no disaster. Troops got paid, operations continued, and modernization didn’t collapse.

But appropriators weren’t ready to let go. They dutifully handed DoD the detailed line-item instructions they would have passed if a normal bill had cleared. And here’s the disappointment: DoD, it appears, mostly honored them. Instead of seizing the chance to realign money with strategy, the Pentagon treated the appropriators’ “wish list” as binding law.

In other words, Congressional appropriators clung to micromanagement through new means and DoD voluntarily obliged itself. The flexibility of a full-year CR was wasted.

There’s no excuse for a repeat. Everyone knows another full-year CR is a live possibility. This time, DoD must plan ahead. Instead of defaulting to appropriators’ shadow line items, the department should build a disciplined strategy for reallocating funds in line with the needs of the warfighter, akin to what it now has to do with the reconciliation bill.

The real advantage of a full-year CR is not the anomaly process; it’s liberation from congressional earmarks and parochial dictates. Appropriators carve the defense budget into thousands of specified slices every year. These mandates tie the Pentagon’s hands and consume resources that should be directed against real threats.

Under a full-year CR, those impediments fall away. DoD receives funding at some new pre-determined level, but with greater latitude to move money within accounts. That means the services can finally prioritize based on the development timeline of industry rather than the artificial clock tied to the political process.

A full-year CR this year is not a crisis, it’s an opportunity — if Pentagon leaders prepare. Consider a three-part opportunity:

No restrictions on new starts or accelerating procurement quantities enabling leaders to exploit success as it happens. The restrictions on new starts had in the past been limited only to partial year-CRs, but the Congress last year in the Full Year CR enabled the Pentagon to move forward seamlessly.Funding capability areas rather than programs.  The 2026 appropriation was built by the Pentagon back in 2024 and a lot has changed in the meantime.The big winner is emerging tech. Funds could flow into AI-enabled decision tools and electronic warfare prototypes, not low-payoff science projects that happened to make it into the budget tables two years ago.

The normal appropriation process leads to line-item micromanagement and prevents DoD from exploiting accelerated acquisition often leading to the “valley of death” for new defense entrants.

Gridlock is usually a dirty word in Washington. But for defense budgeting, gridlock may mean salvation. When Congress deadlocks and passes a full-year CR, it accidentally delivers something better than over-engineered appropriations bills: a large, flexible pot of money that the Department can align with the needs of the warfighter today.

Last year, the Pentagon squandered that opportunity by being surprised and by mostly deferring to appropriators’ unofficial instructions. This year, it must do the opposite: expect a full-year CR, plan for it, and be ready to act strategically.

Sometimes Washington’s dysfunction delivers more than its best-laid plans. Gridlock may be just what the Pentagon needs.

Ret. Maj. Gen. John G. Ferrari is a senior nonresident fellow at AEI. He previously served as a director of program analysis and evaluation for the service.

Wilsbach expected to become next Air Force chief of staff: Sources

WASHINGTON — Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach is expected to be named as the Trump administration’s official choice for Air Force chief of staff, three sources told Breaking Defense.

If confirmed, Wilsbach will replace Gen. David Allvin, who unexpectedly announced last month that he would retire in November, halfway through his four-year term. 

The Air Force declined to comment on the status of the nomination. The White House did not respond to an after-hours request for comment by press time. 

President Donald Trump has been known to change his mind, so a switch is always possible until the decision is formally sent to the Senate and announced by the Defense Department. But two of the sources who spoke with Breaking Defense say they expect Congress to be notified in the coming days that Wilsbach is the choice.

Wilsbach’s path to the top uniformed Air Force post has been unusual compared to the typically rote and bureaucratic nomination process. 

On Aug. 11, the Air Force four-star stepped down from his position as head of Air Combat Command, ahead of his intended retirement. But seven days later, Allvin’s early exit was announced, and shortly thereafter multiple sources told Breaking Defense that Wilsbach had emerged as the frontrunner for the chief of staff job, in part due to his prior assignment as commander of Pacific Air Forces. 

However, Wilsbach’s potential nomination appeared to be stalled after social media accounts mounted a campaign calling out his previous statements supporting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. That campaign instead promoted Air Force Global Strike Command head Gen. Thomas Bussiere, then nominated for the vice chief of staff, as a potential contender for the chief of staff job. (Bussiere’s nomination for vice chief has since been pulled, Aviation Week reported earlier this month.) 

The unprecedented campaigning for the service’s top military role became the talk of the Air Force community, and was a hot topic among attendees at the Air and Space Forces Association conference this week. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink in a briefing with reporters on Monday downplayed concerns that the service would be left leaderless in its top uniformed position.

While noting that the Trump administration ultimately has to select a nominee, “the bottom line is we will not not have a chief. Gen. Allvin and I will make sure that we have a chief,” he said.

Wilsbach is a fighter pilot by craft, having flown aircraft like the F-22 Raptor, F-15 and F-16. If selected, he would guide the service during a critical window, as fears mount that China could invade Taiwan and invoke a US response. In his own right, Wilsbach has commanded forces amid what he called “completely unprofessional and totally unsafe” intercepts by Chinese pilots.

“What’s disturbing is … their typical response is, ‘This is your fault, because this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t here,’” Wilsbach told reporters in September 2023, regarding cases where American officials have been able to confront their Chinese counterparts on the intercepts.

“Do it safely, do it professionally and everybody will be okay,” Wilsbach said. “We won’t have a miscalculation. We won’t have a disaster.”

Michael Marrow contributed to this report.

State clears Germany for $1.2 billion worth of AMRAAMs

WASHINGTON — The US State Department greenlit a potential foreign military sale of up to 400 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air (AMRAAM) missiles to Germany, a deal valued at over $1.2 billion, according to a notice published by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. 

The approval paves the way for Berlin to acquire the weapons from defense giant RTX, whose subsidiary Raytheon manufactures the AMRAAM. The approval covers the AIM-120D-3 variant of the weapon and associated equipment, which the DSCA release on Thursday said will “provid[e]increased air-to-air capability for the German F-35 program” and other NATO needs.

The notice from DSCA is a congressional notification and is not final, as quantities and dollar totals often shift during negotiations. Today’s announcement also technically tees up an opportunity for lawmakers to block the deal within a 30-day period, though such a step would be unlikely considering Germany is a key NATO ally. 

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a NATO Ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe,” the DSCA posting says. 

RELATED: Denmark picks Europe’s SAMP/T for long-range air defense, shuns Patriot

The AMRAAM has been in particularly high demand amid modern threats that have highlighted air defense as a key focus of the US military and its allies. Although AMRAAM is an air-to-air missile, it can also be fired from the ground-based NASAMS air defense system that serves NATO customers and has been extensively used in Ukraine. 

RTX has been ramping up production of the missile to meet the need, which company officials have forecast will remain durable in the coming years. The announcement for Germany today is the latest for a European customer, following similar recent approvals of variants of the weapon for the Netherlands (232 missiles and equipment for an estimated $570 million) and Finland (405 missiles and equipment for an estimated $1.1 billion).

The US government, for its part, is working to boost production of the weapon due to the high domestic and international interest in the AMRAAM. A spending plan lawmakers sent the Pentagon for President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill allocates an additional $250 million for procurement of the weapon alongside $225 million to expand its production capacity. Officials aim to eventually double the missile’s annual production from 1,200 to 2,400 units.

“More AMRAAMs are coming off the production line today than ever before. We’re working closely with our supply chain to ensure our customers have the advanced munitions they need at scale,” Brian DeGennaro, vice president of Raytheon’s air dominance portfolio, said in a statement to Breaking Defense.

Is it time to bet on a government shutdown? [Video]

The US government is just a few days away from the end of the fiscal year, with online oddsmakers saying the chances of a government shutdown are high. But if you’re a gambler, where should you put your money?

In the above video, Breaking Defense’s Aaron Mehta walks you through the latest back and forth around the shutdown and makes his prediction for what happens on Oct. 1.

Featuring insights and analysis from our team of reporters, The Congressional Roundup is here to make sure you know what’s going on inside the halls of the Hill as news happens, all wrapped up in a tight package.

To make sure you don’t miss the latest episode — and that you’re getting all of our coverage from the Hill — subscribe to our congressional newsletter below.

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Is it time to bet on a government shutdown?

The US government is just a few days away from the end of the fiscal year, with online oddsmakers saying the chances of a government shutdown are high. But if you’re a gambler, where should you put your money?

In the above video, Breaking Defense’s Aaron Mehta walks you through the latest back and forth around the shutdown and makes his prediction for what happens on Oct. 1.

Featuring insights and analysis from our team of reporters, The Congressional Roundup is here to make sure you know what’s going on inside the halls of the Hill as news happens, all wrapped up in a tight package.

To make sure you don’t miss the latest episode — and that you’re getting all of our coverage from the Hill — subscribe to our congressional newsletter below.

hbspt.forms.create({ portalId: '2097098', formId: '1ae78672-6dbf-4528-ae72-18d629c6b1f4', target: '#hubspot-form-1ae78672-6dbf-4528-ae72-18d629c6b1f4', });

German military to invest $41B in space capabilities

WASHINGTON — German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius today announced that Berlin will invest €35 billion ($41 billion) over the next five years on space security, including improved cybersecurity.

“[W]e are building structures within the Bundeswehr to enable us to effectively defend and deter in space in the medium and long term,” he told the Federation of German Industries’ annual Space Congress in Berlin, according to an online translation of an MoD press release.

“We plan to acquire new satellite constellations — for early warning, reconnaissance, and communications. We will also utilize dual-use systems, meaning technologies that can be deployed for both civilian and military purposes,” Pistorius added.

That plan, according to the release, includes spending on:

hardening systems against disruptions and attacksimproved situational awareness through radars, telescopes and the future use of sentinel satellitesthe creation of redundancies through several networked satellite constellationssecured, also on-demand available, transport capacities into spacea dedicated military satellite operations center in the Bundeswehr Space Command

Pistorius specifically called out the need for improved cybersecurity for “all space systems” — and back in May Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, commander of German Space Command, said “self-protection measures [or] built-in self-protection” for satellites was on his “Christmas list.”

As for the motivating factor, Pistorius cited increasing threats to Western space assets from Russia and China as the impetus for the new spending plan.

“Satellite networks today are an Achilles’ heel of modern societies. Whoever attacks them paralyzes entire nations,” Pistorius said.

For example, he noted the February 2023 Russian cyberattack on Viasat’s communication satellite network in the run up to the invasion of Ukraine that also shut down German wind turbines, according to a report in Defense News.

Pistorius also alleged that Russian Luch/Olymp satellites have been shadowing two communications satellites operated by US firm Intelsat that are used by the Bundeswehr.

The Luch/Olymp birds, characterized by Moscow as “inspector satellites,” have been making close passes around a number of US and Western nation satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit since at least 2015.

The MoD is reaching out to German and European industry for assistance in making its space plans a reality, Pistorius stressed.

He explained that Berlin wants to “promote innovations from small and medium-sized enterprises in the future in a non-bureaucratic and early stage — and use larger companies as system integrators to integrate small businesses and startups,” according to the MoD press release.

Europe’s major launch company, Arianespace, announced today that it has been awarded a contract by the Bundeswehr to launch two SATCOMBw Stufe 3 satellites on heavy-lift Ariane 6 rockets. The new satellites are to replace the COMSATBw 1 and 2 military communications birds.

At the same time, Pitorius said, MoD is “also currently looking at market-available solutions. Specifically where this technological shortcut makes sense.”

While the company didn’t cite the specific agency involved due to security concerns, Planet Labs Germany GmbH, the American firm’s European headquarters, announced on July 1 that it had received a “multi-year €240 million agreement, funded by the German government, in support of European peace and security” for “high-resolution imagery and timely intelligence.”

Today in Berlin, the company announced plans “to begin production of next-generation, high-resolution Pelican satellites in Germany” under a deal “expected to exceed 8 figures” in capital investment.

Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space, told Breaking Defense that one big winner from the MoD’s plan will be OHB, headquartered in Bremen, which Henry described as Germany’s “biggest space prime.”

OHB operates five aging SAR-Lupe synthetic aperture radar satellites that provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the German military. In 2023, the company launched two replacements, called SARah, but were moribund until a recovery maneuver to deploy their jammed antennas this spring brought them into service, according to a May 27 report by market analysis firm Seradata.

Henry said he would also “be watching to see if this proposal has any impact on Germany’s emerging launch providers, notably Isar Aerospace and RFA.”

“Germany has discussed its own MEO [medium Earth orbit] constellation as well, which would be a notable investment in sovereign space systems,” Henry added.

He noted that the move may be the start of a trend away from France being the only big player in European space.

“What’s interesting to me is that for a long time, when looking at where Europe, if you kind of ask the the old Henry Kissinger question, ‘when I call Europe, who do I call?’ for the space industry that has always been France. But in recent years, we’ve started to see more of a pendulum swing towards Germany,” he said.

“And so to me, it’s the culmination of a … growing desire in Germany for greater space autonomy, and a willingness to pursue that, if necessary, on an independent basis,” Henry said.

Amid strike, Boeing taking rare step of hiring permanent replacements for union workers

AFA 2025 — With Boeing still at an impasse with its St. Louis-based union almost two months into a strike, the company is in the process of making an unusual move: bringing on permanent nonunion hires to replace them.  

About 3,200 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) went on strike on Aug. 4, and on Sept. 12 rejected a subsequent contract offer from Boeing. With no date set for Boeing and IAM to come back to the negotiating table, Boeing is interviewing prospective candidates to start taking what were once union jobs, said Dan Gillian, Boeing’s vice president of Air Dominance and senior executive at the St. Louis site.

“We’ve had our first hiring event. We’ve received hundreds of qualified applicants. We’re working through that now,” he said in a Tuesday interview at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber conference.  

Gillian declined to provide specifics on how many permanent workers it intends to bring on and what jobs it will try to fill first, but said that “we certainly have some areas where we think we can more rapidly bring people online than in other areas.”

“I won’t comment on specific job codes,” he added, “but we do think that based on the protracted nature of the strike, and per our contingency plans, now is the time to be making some of these decisions to begin bringing on additional staff.”

Boeing’s IAM workforce in St. Louis is overwhelmingly focused on its defense business, producing legacy fighters, several aircraft still in their development stages and a portion of its weapons portfolio. Those workers will also build the sixth-generation F-47 fighter, the first of which is currently being manufactured, according to the Air Force’s top general. 

Any new hires to the company’s defense unit will join the business at a pivotal moment. Boeing’s defense division has started to show signs of recovery from supply chain and technical challenges that’s cost billions in losses across numerous fixed-price aircraft development programs. At the same time, the company is ramping up production of the F-15EX, sunsetting the Super Hornet line, and standing up production of the F-47, with a sixth-generation Navy fighter contract potentially looming.

The strike also comes as Boeing’s commercial arm refocuses on production quality following a 2024 incident where a door plug blew off the fuselage of a 737 MAX in mid-flight. The National Transportation Safety Board in its investigation found that “Boeing’s failure to provide adequate training, guidance and oversight” of its factory staff ultimately led to the incident, according to an executive summary of the report published in June. (Boeing responded at the time that it regretted the accident and was focusing on improving its safety culture.)

Gillian said that Boeing’s current offer, which includes a 24 percent general wage increase and 45 percent average wage growth, is a “compelling” deal that “represents a lot of respect” for the workers in St. Louis. However, he added that the company’s previous two-tier wage structure allowed wages to become “out of control relative to the market.”

“I think my teammates should be paid at the very top of the scale. They build airplanes and weapon systems and all kinds of complex things that make sense for them to be paid at the very top of the scale,” he said. At the same time, “I have to balance that with the needs that our customers have and the economics of our business, and I think we’ve done that. And I remain open to talking about how to move things around, but the answer cannot be more.”

Just an hour after the interview, the union held a press conference to discuss the ongoing strike. Informed of Gillian’s comments, Jody Bennett, IAM’s lead negotiator, didn’t mince words.

“Why don’t you ask Dan if they’ve ever presented a deal to a union that they didn’t say was a very good deal? Obviously, anything the company slides across, they’re going to say it’s a very good deal,” he said. “Our membership doesn’t think it’s a very good deal. Matter of fact, they rejected it. … So please feel free to ask him if he’s ever given a final offer in which he said, ‘Hey, you ought to turn this down because it’s not worth a shit.’” 

Boeing’s plans to hire permanent workers is damaging its relationship with its workforce, he said, adding that many machinists were considered essential personnel during the COVID pandemic and have years of experience that cannot be replaced by new hires.

“What’s going to happen is they continue to push forward with replacement workers, they’re going to put their product at risk, in my estimation. … It’s hard to find people that can do this work, and when you do get people in and you get them trained, you certainly want to retain their expertise, because they’re very high skilled,” Bennett said. “They’re going to damage the reputation, plus they’re already sending a statement out to our folks by even talking about permanent replacement workers, that a lot of these folks are already talking about looking for other jobs elsewhere, because it’s pretty clear to them that Boeing doesn’t care about them.”

Gillian said that any new employees hired permanently to take over union roles either already have aerospace manufacturing experience or will be trained by Boeing in the skills needed to successfully do the job.

“We won’t compromise on that,” he said. “I also appreciate our partnership with the Defense Contract Management Agency, who is helping with their second set of eyes to make sure that we’re doing things the right way, and I am very confident that the product we’re delivering to our customer meets the highest standard that we have.”

Although both Gillian and Bennett indicated that they are willing to restart negotiations to work out a contract agreement, the path forward remains unclear.

Last week, IAM members ratified their own proposed deal, which was developed without Boeing’s input.

According to Bennett, the union proposal differs from Boeing’s offer in three ways. The proposal keeps wage increases the same as Boeing’s offer, but makes some changes to allow for growth at the top of the pay scale. It increases Boeing’s match on St. Louis workers’ retirement accounts to be at the same level as its union employees in the Pacific Northwest, and it bumps the ratification bonus from $4,000 to $10,000.

Gillian said that from Boeing’s perspective, the union’s proposal is “way beyond the economics of what we put on the table” and “isn’t real” because it was not a result of collective bargaining between the company and IAM leadership.

Impacts To Aircraft Production

During a July earnings call, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg downplayed the impacts of a potential strike, saying that one wouldn’t reach the magnitude of last year’s machinist strike in Seattle, which lasted about two months and cost Boeing, its suppliers and its customers about $9.6 billion.

“The order of magnitude of this is much, much less than what we saw last fall. That was roughly 30,000 machinists,” he said. “So we’ll manage through this. I wouldn’t worry too much about the implications of the strike.”

Steve Parker, the chief executive of Boeing’s defense unit, declined to comment Tuesday when asked whether the strike could lead to additional losses on fixed-price defense contracts in Boeing’s third quarter.

Even with the ongoing strike, Boeing has been able to keep deliveries of its Joint Direct Attack Munitions roughly at the same pace they were prior to the strike and has continued to deliver F-15EXs and F/A-18s, with Gillian stating that from the customer’s perspective, those aircraft deliveries are “coming about as expected.”

As part of its contingency plan, Boeing has qualified some of its managers to perform work on the production line and brought on temporary workers “to add capacity,” he said. Nonetheless, the production pace for programs like the F-15EX has slowed.

“Definitely not having everybody at work every day has an impact down throughout the production system on something like an F-15, and through our contingency plans, we’re working to mitigate that as much as possible, and we are able to continue delivering airplanes. I’d say we are slowing our rate ramp increase a bit as a result of that.”

Boeing planned to increase F-15EX production from one to two aircraft a month by the end of 2026, Flight Global reported earlier this year. Asked whether Boeing would be able to keep to that timeline, Gillian said the company would not be able to forecast the timing for the ramp up until the end of the strike. 

However, he added that the company has been working to incorporate additional process and engineering improvements during the strike in the hopes of increasing efficiency when workers do return.

“I’m optimistic that those improvements will help me meet those rate ramp requirements in front of me,” he said. 

Updated at 9/25/2025 at 3:37pm EST to provide more information about wage increases in Boeing’s proposed contract.

DoD issues replacement for risk management framework

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense unveiled a new five-phased framework for assessing cyber risks on its networks, dubbed the Cybersecurity Risk Management Construct, to replace its old risk management system.

“The previous Risk Management Framework was overly reliant on static checklists and manual processes that failed to account for operational needs and cyber survivability requirements. These limitations left defense systems vulnerable to sophisticated adversaries and slowed the delivery of secure capabilities to the field,” a statement from the department said. “The CSRMC addresses these gaps by shifting from ‘snapshot in time’ assessments to dynamic, automated, and continuous risk management, enabling cyber defense at the speed of relevance required for modern warfare.”

According to the statement, the new framework involves a five-phase lifecycle aligned to system development and operations with an additional ten foundational tenets.

The five-phased lifecycle includes:

a design phase where security is embedded at the outset, ensuring resilience is built into system architectures;a build phase where secure designs are implemented as systems achieve Initial Operating Capability;a test phase where comprehensive validation and stress testing are performed prior to Full Operating Capability;an onboard phase where automated continuous monitoring is activated at deployment to sustain system visibility; andan operations phase where real-time dashboards and alerting mechanisms provide immediate threat detection and rapid response.

Among the ten core principles, the DoD listed automation to drive efficiency; continuous monitoring and authority to operate to enable real-time situational awareness; DevSecOps to support secure and agile development; cyber survivability to enable operations in contested environments; and cybersecurity assessment to integrate threat informed testing to validate security.

“This construct represents a cultural fundamental shift in how the Department approaches cybersecurity,” Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of the DoD chief information officer said. “With automation, continuous monitoring, and resilience at its core, the CSRMC empowers the DoW [Department of War] to defend against today’s adversaries while preparing for tomorrow’s challenges,” she added, using the Trump administration’s new moniker for the DoD.

Arrington has derided the old process, on several occasions vowing to blow up the old RMF, describing it as outdated and not operationally effective.

The DoD notes in its statement that by institutionalizing the new construct, it is ensuring cyber survivability and mission assurance in every domain.

But one expert isn’t so sure the new process differs much from the previous.

“Overall, I am not seeing how this process will expedite the risk management framework process or how it addresses the supply chain vulnerabilities,” Georgianna Shea, chief technologist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, said. “It seems more like a rearranging of current processes under a new name without substantial change.” 

For example, she noted the first phase, design, could be stronger on cyber-informed engineering and adding penetration testing to identify design vulnerabilities. As it currently stands, it keeps cybersecurity as an add on to the design.

Phase two, build, doesn’t articulate quantifiable metrics yet. Instead, she noted, it should include measurable survivability parameters.

On phase five, operation, Shea raised concerns with empowering cybersecurity service providers as watch officers that can disconnect systems in real time is the potential for unintended mission disruption.

A disconnect action could remove critical capabilities at a key moment.

US, Western allies should look to ‘friendshoring’ defense production in the Middle East: Report

BEIRUT — To ease the burden on US and Western defense industrial bases and fill supply chain gaps, officials should look to “friendshoring” some defense production to allies in the Middle East, according to a new report.

“[T]here is a unique opportunity now to enhance the capacity of our partners in the Middle East, and thus our collective capacity as well,” the report states.

The report, published Wednesday by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, says the West should look to Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, in particular, and take “crawl, walk, run” approach to benefit from untapped Middle East potential.

First, partners should take advantage of such low hanging fruit: the raw materials, shells, fuses, propellant charges for 155 mm artillery and unmanned aerial systems UAS, that can be coproduced with these states, benefiting from their national strategy for localization of defense production. (Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have launched ambitious initiatives to produce 50 percent of defense articles in-country by 2030.)

For example, by “pairing Israel’s high-technology defense sector and its growing DIB [defense industrial base] capacity with our Gulf partners’ massive capital and demonstrated ambitions to diversify global supply chains that support national security needs, the United States could expedite production of directed energy systems to counter, at sustainable cost, shared asymmetric threats from attritable drones, rockets, and missiles like those used in abundance by Iran’s proxy axis and by Russian forces attacking Ukraine,” the report says.

Those kinds of projects would build toward longer-term efforts like coproducing air/missile defense interceptor components and codeveloping new systems and technologies.

The report says that working closely with the Middle Eastern states will help boost security in the region and “contribute to solving the aggregate global DIB [Defense Industrial Base] challenge.” The report also highlighted the need to streamline and simply the US Foreign Military Sales process to help in technology transfer to these states.

“Our Middle East partners have all expressed the need to bolster their capabilities to defend themselves. They have also significantly increased their defense spending. The United States can help accelerate these positive trends by supporting our partners in developing and maintaining sufficient defense production capacity, resilient supply chains, and access to technology,” the report says.

From a strategic perspective, the report highlights the significance of coproduction with these countries to face shared adversaries.

“Iran’s capacity and willingness to endanger the regional order is abetted by China, Russia, and North Korea, each of whom wants to divert U.S. attention and assets back into the Middle East and away from its own doorstep. By the same token, stoking conflicts that unleash violent extremism and waves of refugees threatens to undermine America’s partners in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere,” says the report.

It also highlighted that boosting defense coproduction with these states will reinforce US regional role.

Defense coproduction intiatives “are also complementary to our ongoing regional diplomatic efforts, and would build upon the Abraham Accords, support Israel-Saudi normalization, and enhance security and stability while making America’s regional presence more sustainable,” said the report.

Germany’s Helsing unveils AI enabled CA-1 Europa UCAV, targets 2029 entry to service

BELFAST — German AI firm Helsing showcased an autonomous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) dubbed CA-1 Europa for the first time today, with the company eyeing frontline operations for the aircraft in the next four years.

In a statement coinciding with the unveiling of the drone at its subsidiary Grob Aircraft’s facility in Bavaria, Helsing described the vehicle as a “full-size design study” with development of a more mature production platform supported by European suppliers.

CA-1 Europa will be equipped with Helsing’s Centaur AI agent — an autonomous fighter jet pilot — and sits within the three- to five-ton weight class.

“Designed as an autonomous multi-role jet achieving high subsonic speeds, CA-1 Europa is tailored to the requirements of intelligent mass,” added the company statement. “The platform combines a mass-produceable airframe with powerful but affordable payload and world-leading software for situational awareness and mission execution.”

Additionally, Helsing noted the UCAV will be able to operate as a single aircraft or as part of a swarm.

It also stressed that design of the aircraft will “focus on scalability and a resilient European supply and logistics chain.”

CA-1 test and development activities are already taking place at the Grob Aircraft facility. Helsing acquired Grob, a training aircraft manufacturer, in June in a deal aimed at developing “the next generation of capabilities for aerial warfare.”

Helsing’s statement does not include details about an estimated unit cost of the aircraft or which engine will be used to power it.

Development of CA-1 marks the defense technology firm’s entry to the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) market and adds to its growing weapon systems portfolio that includes HX-2 loitering munitions and SG-1 Fathom subsurface autonomous gliders.

Helsing’s decision to move out with an all-European solution comes amid a series of CCA-type partnerships forged between European and US manufacturers.

Earlier this month, Lockheed Martin’s SkunkWorks and BAE Systems’s rapid prototyping division FalconWorks linked arms on development of a family of autonomous drones, due to begin with a platform equipped with electronic attack capabilities.

Other transatlantic tie-ups include a partnership between Germany’s Rheinmetall and Anduril to develop European versions of the US start-ups Barracuda and Fury autonomous systems.