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The Challenge of Cheap Drones: Finding an Even Cheaper Way to Destroy Them
The sudden proliferation of inexpensive drones in Ukraine is a revolution in warfare. While they vary in size and capability, the economics of defense are particularly stressed by the very cheapest ones, those adapted from civilian models or made with commercially available components.
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Hydrogen Power Takes Drones to the Next Level
Most drones run on electric batteries and can stay aloft no more than about 45 minutes when carrying just a few kilograms. HevenDrones has another solution.
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5 Technologies Keeping Cargo Ships Safe in Turbulent Times
Due to Houthi attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea, worldwide shipping is in trouble and the global supply chain faltering. These technologies can help.
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Military AI: New Book Anticipates a World of “Killer Robots” — and the Need to Regulate Them
As artificial intelligence advances, the weapons of war grow evermore capable of killing people without meaningful human oversight, raising troubling questions about the manner today’s and tomorrow’s wars will be carried out, and how autonomous weapons systems could weaken accountability when it comes to the potential violations of international law that attend their deployment.
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Taking Robots and AI to War at Sea
Emphasizing that combination of AI and autonomous systems working in concert with crewed platforms—and with critical human oversight ‘on the loop’—is the logical path to meet a potential challenge of a much more capable and assertive adversary with ambitious plans across the Indo-pacific, and with a potential ability to interfere with Australia’s critical maritime trade.
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Diving into Nuclear Submarines
In 2021, the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia formed a partnership, dubbed AUKUS, which will allow the Royal Australian Navy to purchase several nuclear-powered submarines in an effort to modernize their fleet. Building a nuclear submarine program from scratch is anything but easy, so the MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering has created a course for the Australian Submarine Agency.
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Small, Cheap and Numerous: A Military Revolution Is Upon Us
Only the most hidebound will be ignoring the revolution in military affairs under way in Ukraine and the Red Sea. For want of a better name, call it the cheap-drone revolution. A big change in military affairs has long been predicted, one in which big, costly and scarce weapons would be challenged by things that would be small, cheap and numerous. In the Middle East and especially in Ukraine, the revolution is upon us.
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U.S. Lawmakers Push for Limits on American Investment in China Tech
U.S. lawmakers renewed calls Wednesday to pass bipartisan legislation that would restrict American investment in Chinese technology. A pending bill, H.R. 6349, would target specific technology sectors, like AI and quantum computing, which are empowering China’s military development and surveillance.
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How the Drone War in Ukraine Is Transforming Conflict
From drones that fit in the palm of the hand to drones weighing more than 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms), Ukraine has built and acquired a diverse fleet of remotely piloted aircraft to complicate and frustrate Russia’s advances. The constantly evolving scope of this technology and its ever-growing use signal not only the potential for drones to level the playing field in the Russia-Ukraine war, but also their ability to influence how future conflicts are waged.
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As the World’s Conflicts Spread, Should You Be Digging a Bunker? How to Think About the Future of War
How concerned should we be about the possibility of future global chaos and disorder unlike anything most of us have experienced? If the many warnings currently circulating are to be believed, then the answer looks grim. The world might be in a moment of dramatic and uncertain transformation, congested with new actors, technologies, tactics and terrains. Moreover, there might be one timeless lesson from the history of war and international politics: Politicians and policymakers make strategic errors and miscalculations which can have unforeseen consequences.
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Don’t Bring a Patriot to a Drone Fight—Bring Fighter UAVS Instead
Recent conflicts such as the war in Ukraine and the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh demonstrate the growing importance of unmanned aerial vehicles. Naturally, there have been attempts to defeat this new threat. No matter the defense mechanism chosen, there just are not enough systems to provide sufficient protection against swarms of UAVs. The solution for this dilemma is to take the next step in UAV evolution: air superiority drones.
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Is North Korea Preparing for War in 2024?
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is ratcheting up the war rhetoric against South Korea and the US once again. This time, however, analysts warn the threat goes beyond the usual bluster.
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“Killer Robots” Are Coming, and UN Is Worried
Long the stuff of science fiction, autonomous weapons systems, known as “killer robots,” are poised to become a reality, thanks to the rapid development of artificial intelligence. In response, international organizations have been intensifying calls for limits or even outright bans on their use. Human rights specialist lays out legal, ethical problems of military weapons systems that attack without human guidance.
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The Houthis: Four Things You Will Want to Know About the Yemeni Militia Targeted by U.K. and U.S. Military Strikes
The Houthis’ leadership has been drawn from the Houthi tribe, which is part of one of the three major tribal confederations in Yemen: the Hashid, the Madhaj and the Bakil. The Houthis are part of the Bakil confederation, the largest tribal group in Yemen. As the UK and US launch military strikes on the Yemeni group, after a spate of attacks by the Iran-backed militia on Red Sea shipping, here’s four things that you need to know about them.
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Houthi Attacks: What Happens Next?
The longer the Gaza War goes on the greater the concern that it will escalate into something much larger. The most dramatic escalation has been with the Houthis in Yemen. The threat their actions pose to international shipping led to US and UK strikes early on Friday morning. As the dust settles on these strikes and the Houthis threaten retaliation, has this brought us closer to a wider war?
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