Tomorrow’s counter-drone systems will need to fire without human approval, Pentagon’s joint missile defense commander says. “The ability to accurately discriminate the threat, positively ID the threat, and then have the system auto-select the right interceptor or non-kinetic capability to defeat the threat is where we would definitely like to go,” Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey, the head of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense, said Tuesday at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “We will push the boundaries on that, because we have to.”
Drone swarms are getting too large and too smart to be stopped by systems that rely on human command-and-control, Gainey said, noting Russia’s use of autonomous drones to target civilians. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports from Huntsville, Alabama.
Related: the Army wants AI tools to help keep track of increasingly congested skies. The service recently posted a request for information about ways to ease “the cognitive burden faced by commanders in managing complex airspace operations and maintaining situational awareness in a rapidly evolving battlefield environment.” The Army is looking for near-term “fight tonight” gear, and longer-term ideas to integrate AI and ML into next-generation command-and-control systems, reports Nick Wakeman of Washington Technology, here.
Additional reading:
- “Anduril becomes third US supplier of rocket motors, company says” after declaring its production facility in McHenry, Mississippi, ready to go, per Defense One’s Audrey Decker;
- “HII braces for sub slip, but sees growth in drones and mission systems,” reports Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams off the shipbuilder’s 2Q earnings call;
- “Army Deploys Hypersonic Missiles to Indo-Pacific for Australian Drills,” U.S. Naval Institute News reported Tuesday;
- “Lockheed launches hub to prototype Golden Dome command systems,” Defense News reported Tuesday;
- “The US Military Is Raking in Millions From On-Base Slot Machines,” WIRED reported Monday;
- And ICYMI, “USAFE, AMC, AFMC Could Lose 4-Star Commanders,” Air & Space Forces Magazine reported Friday.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1945, the U.S. military dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, killing around 70,000 people instantly.
Russia’s Ukraine invasion, day 1260
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin for about three hours Wednesday at the Kremlin, Putin’s state-run media TASS reports. Witkoff, a real-estate billionaire before Trump tapped him for the diplomatic post, had earlier met with Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for investment and economic cooperation, at Moscow’s Zaryadye Park, TASS reported separately.
Trump set a Friday deadline for some kind of progress in talks over the future of Putin’s Ukraine invasion, which has been ongoing for nearly three and a half years. The U.S. will consider imposing tariffs on Russia and its allies as well as so-called “secondary sanctions” on countries buying Russian exports if no progress is achieved by Friday, Trump has said. “He is exerting particular pressure on India, which along with China is a huge buyer of Russian oil,” Reuters reports, adding, “It was not clear what Russia might offer to Witkoff in order to stave off Trump’s threat.”
Neither side is saying much just yet. “On our part, in particular on the Ukrainian issue, some signals were transmitted,” a top Putin aide told TASS. “The corresponding signals were received from President Trump.” Witkoff has visited Moscow five times since Trump took office in January.
“Western analysts and Ukrainian officials say Putin is stalling for time and avoiding serious negotiations while Russian forces push to capture more Ukraine land,” CBS News reports. “A Russian offensive that started in the spring and is expected to continue through the fall is advancing faster than last year’s push but is making only slow and costly gains and has been unable to take any major cities.”
One offer allegedly under consideration: “A pause on air strikes involving drones and missiles as a deescalation gesture,” but a general ceasefire is off the table for Putin, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Background: “Putin has repeatedly spurned US and European calls to abide by a 30-day ceasefire…In March, Ukraine and Russia said they’d observe a 30-day moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure, following calls with Trump, though each accused the other of breaching the accord.”
One big problem: Putin still thinks he is winning his war to take control of Ukraine, three sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters on Tuesday. What’s more, “The Russian sources told Reuters that Putin was sceptical that yet more U.S. sanctions would have much of an impact after successive waves of economic penalties” since the invasion began in February 2022.
Russian military leaders also think the front line in Ukraine will likely “crumble” in two to three months. However, “The Russian military has a pervasive culture of lying and submitting overly positive reports to superiors,” analysts at the Institute for the Study of War wrote Tuesday. Relatedly, “The Kremlin likely assesses that projecting confidence in Russia’s ability to militarily defeat Ukraine in Western media outlets will generate fear and distrust in Ukrainian and Western society, further degrading Ukraine’s morale to continue defending against Russian aggression.”
Additional reading:
Trump 2.0
Bye-bye, five-things email. Six months after adopting Elon Musk’s “five things” weekly check-in for federal employees, the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management has formally dropped the requirement, Reuters reported Tuesday. “At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement.
Why it matters: “While many federal agencies had already phased out compliance with the weekly email, the move signals the Trump administration is turning the page on one of Musk’s most unpopular initiatives following a falling out between the two men in early June,” Reuters writes.
But the White House could soon resurrect a civil service exam for federal jobs, ending a 44-year hiatus after the procedure was deemed discriminatory, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Amid its aggressive deportation surge, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced cash bonuses for deporting people quickly. But “Less than four hours later, the agency abruptly canceled what was supposed to be a 30-day pilot program,” the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Expert reax: “That is so ungodly unethical,” said Scott Shuchart, a former senior homeland security official. “You can’t incentivize government agents to short circuit people’s procedural rights. Would you pay a bonus to judges for wrapping up trials faster?”
Where the surge stands now: “[T]he number of deportations by ICE reached a new high in July, averaging almost 1,300 daily removals in the two weeks ending July 26,” the Times reports. By comparison, “Removals averaged fewer than 800 per day in the last year of the Biden administration.”
Additional reading:
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