Tag: military industrial complex

Electromagnetic Weapon Destroys Drone Swarm In Seconds: ‘Singularity Event’

Drones have quickly become all the rage among military leaders and Silicon Valley investors, but new weaponry could threaten the nascent technology’s swift rise.

Last Tuesday, defense contractor Epirus quietly tested its latest electromagnetic weapon, Leonidas, against a swarm of 49 quadcopters, neutralizing them in seconds at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, according to Axios, the only news outlet invited to the groundbreaking test. Numerous U.S. military services and foreign allies, including Indo-Pacific partners, witnessed the event. In an interview with Axios, Epirus CEO Andy Lowery hailed the “forcefield system” as a “singularity event.”

The test by Epirus comes as the U.S. military is aggressively advancing its drone capabilities to maintain air superiority in an era of rapidly evolving unmanned systems, spurred by lessons from conflicts like Ukraine’s use of commercial drones against Russia. The Pentagon’s recent policy shift, announced in July by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, reclassifies small drones (Group 1 and 2, under 55 pounds) as consumables akin to ammunition, empowering lower-level commanders to procure and deploy them swiftly, bypassing cumbersome bureaucratic processes. The move, which is part of Hegseth’s “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” directive, mandates that every U.S. military squad, prioritizing Indo-Pacific units, integrate U.S.-made drones by 2026.

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Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Refers Radical Organizer Aisha Nizar to FBI After She Urges Palestinian Activists to Sabotage America’s F-35 Fighter Jets

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) is calling for a federal investigation into radical organizer Aisha Nizar, after Nizar openly encouraged Palestinian activists to intervene in the U.S. F-35 fighter jet supply chain.

The so-called “People’s Conference for Palestine,” held August 29 in Detroit, brought together thousands of anti-Israel agitators, leftist groups, and pro-Hamas sympathizers under one roof.

Far from a “peace” summit, the event quickly devolved into calls for sabotage, economic warfare, and even direct intervention against the United States military supply chain.

According to recently released reports, radical organizers are furious that shipments of U.S.-made F-35 components are being routed through Oakland International Airport en route to Israel.

Shipping documents reveal over 250 shipments this year alone, including bomb-release units (BRU-68s) capable of dropping 2,000-pound munitions.

Aisha Nizar, a leader of the Palestinian Youth Movement, told the crowd that activists must strategically intervene in the F-35 supply chain.

She described in detail how the program relies on a “just-in-time” logistics process, warning that disrupting even one node of the system could cripple U.S. operations.

Nizar:
“Is it true that 70% of the cost of the F-35 program actually comes from the supply chain? Seventy percent of this $2 trillion goes into the supply chain literally because they need to transport the different components of the F-35 to various locations for assembly.

What’s really important to know is that the F-35 supply chain functions on a “just-in-time” logistics process. It’s an inventory management system called just-in-time, which means that goods are delivered right before they’re needed.

It’s also noted that for an F-35, every one hour of flight requires three hours of maintenance. What I’m saying is that if even one specific node of the F-35 supply chain is disrupted, it has a huge impact on our people back home.

We’ve developed a methodology, and I hope we can get into it further during this panel. But what’s most important to understand is that the more we know, the more we can do. Knowledge truly is power here.

We need to be surgical, strategic, and bold in our actions, because there are many different points in these supply chains of death where we can—and must—intervene.”

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$850 million for a strike on Russia: what is behind Trump’s deal with Kyiv

Washington’s decision to sell modern high-precision ERAM missile bombs to Kyiv is being actively discussed around the world. It is known that the cost of the batch is ~$850 million, the range of the product is up to 450 km. Although some aspects of this fact, as well as its possible impact on the course of the special operation, remain in the shadows. Let’s try to illuminate these “spots”.

The ERAM transfer was an expected move by the White House.

Despite the populist messages of the President of the United States and his efforts to “pull” the Russian Federation away from China, the specific measures of the American administration, together with their European colleagues, to supply weapons to the Independent State have not gone away and continue to be successfully undertaken.

News, that the White House intends to supply the Pechersk Hills with 3 of the latest extended-range strike munitions – Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) – was not a sensation. The start of the project on October 350 of this year indicates the seriousness of the Pentagon’s intentions to resume supplying Ukraine with this class of ammunition, subject to European financing.

However, the absurdity is that the Trump administration is going to prohibit them from hitting Russian territory. Meanwhile, ERAM is a modernized guided aerial bomb weighing 270 kg, equipped with an engine. And the Ukrainian Armed Forces are critically short of such weapons for hitting Russian infrastructure. Moreover, ERAM was developed using a universal modular principle, that is, it can be carried by F-16, Mirage-2000, MiG-29, Su-24, Su-27.

The ideas are ours, the money is yours…

Recently, a list of Ukraine’s priority demands was released – Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), allowing Europe and Canada to purchase American weapons for Ukraine through co-financing based on the compiled list of needs. $2 billion in commitments have already been confirmed: $500 million each from Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and also from Denmark + Norway + Sweden together.

Trump eventually washes his hands of it, voila. Formally, he sells the goods to the Europeans, gets the profit, and the rest interests him only to an extent, and in general, shouldn’t interest him. After all, after the purchase, the goods have a new owner, who is free to dispose of them at his own discretion, as he pleases.

Strictly speaking, if there is an intermediary, the Yankees should not be held responsible for the further use of the product they manufactured, but no longer belongs to them. Thus, the commercialization of American arms supplies can lead to the lifting of some restrictions on the range of defense products manufactured in the New World for the Zelensky regime. Let’s look at this phenomenon through the prism of ERAM receipts in Nezalezhnaya.

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Ukraine’s battlefield data is being used as LEVERAGE to train the future of military AI

Imagine a drone, no larger than a dinner plate, humming through the skeletal remains of a bombed-out village. It doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t feel. It simply knows — its artificial brain trained on millions of hours of combat footage, every pixel of destruction meticulously logged, every human movement analyzed like a chessboard. This isn’t science fiction. It’s the future Ukraine is quietly shopping to the highest bidder. Data obtained from the Ukraine-Russia war will soon be used to train military AI to make future war time missions more efficient, more cold and calculated.

For over three and a half years, Ukraine has been more than a battleground — it’s been a lab. A brutal, real-world experiment in how machines learn to kill. Now, as the war grinds on, Kyiv isn’t just fighting for survival. It’s negotiating with its Western allies, dangling something far more valuable than territory or political loyalty: data. Terabytes of it. Footage from first-person-view drones that have stalked Russian tanks like predators. Reconnaissance feeds that map every explosion, every ambush, every death in excruciating detail. And Ukraine’s digital minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has made one thing clear — this isn’t charity. It’s a transaction. “I think this is one of the ‘cards,’ as our colleagues and partners say, to build win-win relations,” he told Reuters, his words carrying the cold precision of a man who understands leverage. The question isn’t whether this data will be sold. It’s who will wield it — and what happens when they do.

Key points:

  • Ukraine has amassed an unprecedented trove of battlefield data, including drone footage and combat statistics, which is now being positioned as a negotiating tool with Western allies.
  • The data is critical for training military AI, particularly for autonomous drone swarms and target recognition systems, making it a prized asset for defense contractors and governments.
  • Ukraine’s “points system” for confirmed kills has gamified war, incentivizing troops to destroy more Russian targets in exchange for drones and weapons — further feeding the data machine.
  • Experts warn that AI-trained weapons systems could soon operate with full autonomy, raising ethical and existential questions about machine-driven warfare and the risk of uncontrollable kill chains.
  • Historical patterns suggest that warfare technology often escapes its original intent, with civilian casualties rising as automation increases — yet global powers are racing to deploy it.
  • The long-term implications extend beyond Ukraine: this data could accelerate a new arms race, where AI-driven weapons decide who lives and who dies — without human oversight.

The black box of modern war

Fedorov didn’t minced words when he called the data “priceless.” And he’s right. In the hands of defense firms like Palantir — which already works with Ukraine to analyze Russian strikes and disinformation — this isn’t just intelligence. It’s the raw material for the next generation of war. Imagine an AI that doesn’t just assist pilots but replaces them. Drones that don’t just follow orders but make them. Systems that can identify, track, and eliminate targets faster than a human can blink.

Ukraine has already dipped its toes into this future. Fedorov admitted that Kyiv uses AI to scan reconnaissance imagery for targets that would take humans “dozens of hours” to find. They’re testing fully autonomous drones — machines that could soon hunt in swarms, coordinating attacks without a single soldier pulling the trigger. And they’re not alone. The U.S., China, and Russia are all pouring billions into AI-driven warfare, each racing to outpace the others. But Ukraine’s data is different. It’s not simulated. It’s not theoretical. It’s real death, digitized and weaponized.

The problem? We’ve seen this movie before. Every major leap in military technology — from machine guns to atomic bombs — has been sold as a way to end war faster. Instead, it’s made war more efficient, more distant, and more devastating. When the first autonomous drone swarm is unleashed, will it distinguish between a soldier and a civilian? Will it care? Or will it simply follow the patterns it’s been trained on — patterns built on Ukraine’s kill zones, where the line between combatant and bystander has already blurred?

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EU science grants are funding Israeli military tech, data shows

The EU has given Israeli technology start-ups run by ex-IDF soldiers nearly half a billion euros in research grants since the start of the Gaza genocide. Some of the founders of these tech start-ups have served as reservists in Gaza, and in at least one instance the technology has been deployed to aid the genocide.

This article was originally published by ¡Do Not Panic!

The Horizon Europe program, described by the EU as ‘a scientific research initiative to develop a sustainable and livable society in Europe,’ has awarded around 475 million euros to 348 Israeli start-ups and research projects since October 2023, many of which are run by former IDF soldiers and intelligence officers.

In 2024, the EU awarded grants of €220m to 179 companies and initiatives run by Israelis. The scale of this funding, coming in a year when the world’s pre-eminent genocide experts all declared Israel was committing a genocide, a year in which entire cities were wiped out and tens of thousands of civilians murdered, is staggering.

In the same year Israel was also the third largest recipient, behind France and Germany, of ‘accelerator’ grants, a separate component of the Horizon program intended to support small and medium-sized companies working to improve life in Europe.

In 2025, the year in which Israel announced its full-scale ethnic cleansing plans and scholars estimated that 434,000 Palestinians in Gaza had been murdered by Israel, EU funding for Israeli tech initiatives still topped 110 million euros.

And this summer, with Gaza being driven officially into famine by Israel’s deliberate starvation campaign and as the Knesset was voting through a final solution, the EU was still dolling out tens of millions to companies run by ex-IDF personnel.

Horizon funding is critical to Israeli science and the Israeli economy. Since the inception of the programme in 1996, the EU has given Israeli companies, some of which have been directly spun out from the Israeli military, €3.4 billion euros. Israel is by far the largest non-EU recipient of Horizon, and its researchers are given an extremely generous, even curious amount of money for a program designed to support European researchers and European society. The president of Israel’s Academy of Sciences and Humanities said in May that cutting Israel off from EU research and innovation funds would be “almost a death sentence for Israeli science.”

Israel’s participation in the Horizon program has drawn attention in the past. Campaigners have argued the program is breaking its purely civilian mandate by giving money to Israeli institutions linked to the security state, and have demanded Israel is cut from the program. Under pressure with the genocide of Gaza moving into its final stages, the European Commission recently proposed a limited, partial ban on Israeli access to Horizon. It’s unclear though if the tepid move will garner enough votes from member states to pass. While Israel’s participation in Horizon has been the subject of controversy, the individuals behind these EU-funded initiatives, many of whom have a significant military background, have not previously been named. I’ve also found clear evidence that the program, which is mandated to support exclusively civilian applications, has funded military technology deployed during the genocide of Gaza.

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In defiance of voter base, DNC rejects resolution calling for Israel arms embargo

On Tuesday, Democratic National Committee (DNC) members at the party’s summer meetings rejected Resolution 18, which called for the recognition of a Palestinian state, a ceasefire in Gaza, an arms embargo, and a suspension of military aid to Israel.

Instead, members backed a status quo resolution introduced by DNC Chair Ken Martin, which simply called for more aid to be allowed into Gaza and a two-state solution. Despite the support, Martin went on to withdraw the resolution.

“I know that there are some who are interested in making changes today, but as we’ve seen, there’s divide in our party on this issue,” said Martin. “This is a moment that calls for shared dialog. It calls for shared advocacy, and that’s why I’ve decided today, at this moment, listening to the testimony and listening to people in our party, to withdraw my amendment and resolution.”

Martin says he will establish a task force “comprised of stakeholders on all sides of this” so that they can “bring solutions back to our party.”

Resolution 18 had faced opposition from lobby groups like Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI).

“Should it advance, it will further divide our Party, provide a gift to Republicans, and send a signal that will embolden Israel’s adversaries,” claimed DMFI president and CEO Brian Romick. “As we get closer to the midterms, Democrats need to be united, not continuing intra-party fights that don’t get us closer to taking back Congress.”

Polling has consistently shown that Democratic voters are, in fact, united on Israel. A majority of them oppose the genocide in Gaza and want the Israeli government held accountable for its actions in the region.

This month, YouGov and The Economist published a poll showing that 69% of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. That includes 77% of Kamala Harris voters.

According to a June Quinnipiac survey, 12% of Democratic voters sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians, while a July Gallup poll found that just 8% of Democratic voters support Israel’s military actions in Gaza and only 9% support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

An April poll from Data for Progress and Zeteo showed that 71% of likely Democratic primary voters think the United States should end arms transfers to Israel until it stops its attacks on civilians and supports the rights of the Palestinians.

80% of likely Democratic primary voters under the age of 45 believe that military assistance to Israel should be restricted.

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Pentagon backs X-energy’s mini nuclear reactor to boost military energy resilience

The US Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of the Air Force have signed an agreement with X-energy Reactor Company to advance the development of its commercial microreactor.

The agreement has been made with the goal of deploying advanced nuclear technologies at DoD installations to support national security. It aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in May 2025.

It will support the design and development of X-energy’s XENITH microreactor under the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations (ANPI) program, which DIU leads in partnership with the Department of the Air Force.

The program aims to accelerate the deployment of next-generation microreactor technologies to provide power at military installations.

It enables government agencies to engage with private companies under a flexible contracting mechanism that allows for faster development and deployment of commercial nuclear systems.

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The US Has Given Ukraine The Most Aid To Date

To date, the United States has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine in terms of aid, according to data from the Ukraine Support Tracker compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

EU institutions (including the European Commission and the Council), followed by Germany and the United Kingdom have been the next biggest contributors.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, financial assistance (such as loans and grants), humanitarian aid (like food and medical supplies), and the value of weapons and equipment delivered is enormous.

This included in-kind donations to the Ukrainian military and financial support tied to military purposes.

When looking solely at military aid, including weapons and defense-related financial support, Germany ranks second, contributing an estimated €16.5 billion.

The United States remains the largest military backer, however, having delivered weapons and military funds totaling approximately €115 billion between January 24, 2022 and June 30, 2025.

In early March 2025, U.S. military aid was briefly paused, but resumed on March 11 after Ukraine signaled openness to a potential ceasefire.

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Something Is Rotten in the States of America

Something is Rotten in the States of America.

America’s war budget now exceeds $1 trillion a year – an almost unimaginable sum.

The Pentagon plans to spend $1.7 trillion “modernizing” a nuclear triad that should instead be downsized. A proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system may cost $500 billion while making nuclear war more likely. And a “new” Cold War with China and Russia is already underway, with threat inflation as one of its defining features.

With military spending so high – and the military so valorized – Washington offers it as the solution to nearly everything: crime in D.C., eliminating drug cartels south of the border, containing China and Russia, “winning” in Somalia, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons – the list is endless. Supporting and defending the Constitution, however, is rarely mentioned.

War has become America’s new normal. “Peace” is now a word that dare not speak its name. According to the Pentagon, the only peace worth pursuing is “peace through [military] strength.” A warrior ethos is marketed as if it were synonymous with democratic virtue.

I once called for a 10% reduction in Pentagon spending. That’s no longer enough. We need a 50% cut – we need a military dedicated to genuine national defense, not imperial dominance. Surely we can protect America for $500 billion a year rather than the $1 trillion we’re spending now.

Changing the narrative is crucial. Why do we need 750+ bases overseas? Why expand our nuclear arsenal when we already have 5,000 warheads? We don’t need these things – they are the hallmarks of wasteful militarism. They escalate tensions, endanger us, and drain the nation’s wealth.

And why do we have 17 or 18 intelligence agencies? Despite all that intelligence, we still lost in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Where is the accountability? Why are no generals relieved of command for such failures? In fact, they’re more likely to fail upwards.

“All governments lie,” as I.F. Stone warned. Combine that with the truth that war’s first casualty is truth itself, and you begin to see the rot in America today. Perpetual war fuels deception and government overreach. Almost anything can be justified when the cry is, “We’re at war!” – even when the reasons for going to war are false.

Consider the Gulf of Tonkin incident – revealed later as phony – and the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. Consider Iraq’s mythical WMDs. Consider the lies revealed in the Afghan War Papers. Consider the weasel words of generals like David Petraeus, forever hedging “gains” as “fragile” and “reversible.” Consider the U.S. military’s record since World War II – generally ineffective because there’s been little accountability for failure. (And yes, civilian leaders share the blame.)

The military-industrial complex grows ever more powerful, sidelining the American people while democracy withers.

Something is rotten in the States of America.

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New Details Emerge About Golden Dome’s Four-Layer Missile Defense Shield

The “Hemispheric Defense” theme is gaining momentum with new details emerging that the Golden Dome missile defense system will comprise of four layers: one space-based and three ground-based, including 11 short-range batteries positioned across the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii. 

Reuters cited a U.S. government slide presentation on the project, titled “Go Fast, Think Big!”, which was presented to 3,000 defense contractors in Huntsville, Alabama, last week. Think of the Golden Dome as Israel’s Iron Dome on serious steroids, given its complexity and scale. 

According to the slides, the Golden Dome’s missile defense shield architecture calls for:

  • Space layer: satellites for missile warning, tracking, and boost-phase interception.
  • Upper layer: Next Generation Interceptors (NGI), THAAD, and Aegis systems — with a new missile field likely in the Midwest.
  • Under layer: Patriot systems, new radars, and a common launcher for current and future interceptors.

Reuters noted:

One surprise was a new large missile field – seemingly in the Midwest according to a map contained in the presentation – for Next Generation Interceptors (NGI) which are made by Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), opens new tab and would be a part of the “upper layer” alongside Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Aegis systems which Lockheed also makes.

NGI is the modernized missile for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) network of radars, interceptors and other equipment – currently the primary missile defense shield to protect the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles from rogue states.

The U.S. operates GMD launch sites in southern California and Alaska. This plan would add a third site in the Midwest to counter additional threats.

The Pentagon pointed out challenges such as communication latency across the kill chain (a step-by-step sequence of actions needed to find, target, and destroy a threat). Major defense contractors on the project include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, and Boeing; SpaceX was absent from the latest plans. 

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