VIENNA — The European Union has authorized its naval mission in the Indian Ocean to stop and board Russian shadow fleet tankers suspected of operating under false flags, the bloc announced on Wednesday.
EU member states have authorized Operation Atalanta, the union’s counter-piracy naval mission off the Horn of Africa, to begin conducting flag-verification boardings of vessels suspected of…
Australia whips together a hybrid air defense weapon
July 24, 2026
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Australia successfully tested a “Frankenstein” medium-range air defense system last month, harnessing existing and new capabilities in a way nobody has tried before.
After dawdling over the need to improve its ground-based air defense (GBAD)…
LONDON — An unusually warm London sun beat down on the grey body of an aircraft. Sleek and gently curved, an average onlooker taking a cursory glance at the airframe may have assumed it to be a small fighter jet.
And it may accompany fighter jets, but no pilot will ever…
FARNBOROUGH, England — BAE Systems revealed a new unmanned fighter jet on Wednesday, boosting Britain’s entry into one of the defense industry’s hottest and most fiercely contested markets.
The U.K.’s biggest defense company showcased a model of its new jet, Brontanax, derived from the ancient Greek words for thunder and king, at the Farnborough Airshow. It is about the size of a Hawk…
VIENNA — Nuclear cooperation between France and Germany has moved from words to first actions, with French nuclear-capable bombers visiting a German airfield this month and joint exercises on the calendar.
The leaders in Paris and Berlin had formed a “nuclear steering…
VIENNA — Russia has captured a large number of Ukrainian drones and may be planning to use them against NATO or to stage a false flag attack, Polish defense minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said, adding to earlier warnings of a potential escalation.
The senior…
LONDON — The weapon’s barrel points towards a drone in the sky. It briefly adjusts and then fires, with smoke rising where the round shoots.
But instead of a service member resting a finger on the trigger well in preparation for the next shot, in video footage of the Bullfrog weapons system, a hulking, metal machine tilts the weapon just slightly, refocusing itself.
As the U.S. contends with…
LONDON — Solid rocket motor manufacturer X-Bow Systems is launching what the company hopes will be a much-needed remedy to the ongoing conundrum of combating cheap drones with multimillion-dollar interceptors.
The New Mexico-based firm this week pulled the curtain back on…
LONDON — The U.S. military will soon field a drone wingman that expands well beyond the fixed wing platforms of the Combat Collaborative Aircraft program.
Anduril started the 2026 Farnborough Airshow with a splash on Monday when it unveiled an autonomous attack rotorcraft…
The next step toward further integrating semiautonomous aircraft into the U.S. Air Force and building trust with human operators would be through simulations and training exercises, a former Air Force secretary said.
Frank Kendall, the Air Force’s 26th secretary who served under former President Joe Biden, said in a Thursday roundtable hosted by Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies that…
