Defense- & Dual-Use Technologies Edition

The Split in the Spear

Warfare's future is being forged at both ends: exquisite capabilities and expendable mass

Aug 01, 2025

Good morning,

Today is August 1st.

We are speeding through 2025 and we're now 60 days from the end of the Fiscal Year. D.C. is already for a bumpy ride. Congress hasn’t passed a traditional appropriations bill for FY25, instead opting for a full-year continuing resolution back in March. While the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a draft for FY26, it's likely to face fierce resistance before October. A government shutdown remains a live threat.

But today, let’s talk about the bifurcation we’re seeing in military technology—a divide shaping the future of warfare.

The Bifurcation of Warfighting Capabilities

On one side, we’re witnessing the rapid emergence of exquisite systems—sensitive, advanced, and highly capable technologies. These include space-based platforms, hypersonic weapons, and proliferated sensors that stretch the boundaries of what’s technologically possible.

On the other, there's a growing demand for inexpensive, expendable materiel—drones, loitering munitions, and mass-manufactured components. Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, Israel’s recent FPV drone swarms, and the Replicator initiative all highlight this trend toward scalable, attritable systems enabled by advanced and even federated manufacturing.

These two poles—exquisite and expendable—are not mutually exclusive. They exist in tension, shaping and being shaped by adversary capabilities. In that friction, five critical imperatives emerge:

1- Decision Dominance

Advances in sensing, communicating, and attacking tremendously increase the tempo of warfare. Think of John Boyd’s OODA loop — Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — which has never moved faster.

Decision making can be a time consuming endeavor. One way of shortening the time required for each OODA loop (or in more modern parlance one way to shorten the kill chain) is to speed up that decision making time.

We may expect our adversaries to be willing to authorize AI to make those decisions (although this notion is contested), which means that the decisions will likely come at a speed that no human can match. If we’re not, how do we empower human decision-makers to keep pace?

We need to build tools that enable instantaneous battlespace visualization and situational understanding. And we need to train leaders to think and act at velocity — even if the decision is to delay a decision to allow the situation to further unfold.

2- Degrade Adversary Knowledge

Speed alone isn’t enough; we must also slow our adversary’s OODA loop. We can accomplish this by injection friction, degrading their trust in what they observe, and in slowing their decision making systems (whether automated or manual).

Future high-tech warfare will see greater use of advanced military deception, all-domain obscuration, jamming, spoofing, and other means of trying to confuse our adversary’s certainty in what they think they know.

There’s a downside. Most of these effects are transient. Adversaries will adapt to better account for, and counter, them.

3- Localized Blackouts

Adversary capabilities will create pockets of denied terrain — zones where sensing and communications fail. These areas won’t just be the exception; they may very well be the norm.

Self-healing, multimodal communications mesh networks can help alleviate these pockets. Think of it like adding the TDRSS space-based communication network that allowed the Space Shuttle to communicate when other spacecraft would experience a communications blackout during reentry. More importantly, we must train and trust tactical leaders to operate autonomously. Mission command will matter. So will weapons with independent terminal guidance that don’t rely on external updates to strike their targets.

4- Mass Matters

Mass is an evergreen principle of war.

At some point in time, the high end capabilities will largely neutralize one another and we’ll be one step above throwing rocks at each other. When this happens, we’ll want to ensure that we have sufficient rocks to throw (munitions, long range attack drones, aircraft, et al).

We’ll also need to ensure that we have the capacity to regenerate losses quickly. Future warfare will be costly in terms of resource consumption. The team that can recover faster will have a marked advantage.

5- Reusability Matters Also

In a contest where the ability to regenerate equipment can determine the outcome, not having to regenerate consumables becomes a force multiplier. The allure of some currently pursued systems — like directed energy weapons — comes largely from their reusability. Their strength lies in the fact that they can be fired over and over without resupply, making them uniquely valuable in a war of attrition.

Systems that reset faster than they deplete will matter immensely.

The Future Will Be Fought At Both Ends

This isn’t an either-or world. Future conflicts will involve exquisite systems clashing with one another while attritable masses swarm below. We need to be prepared for both.

The darkness is coming.

We’re here to guide you through it.

News Headlines

A small Pacific island could be the next contest between the United States and China (WP)
Fed held rates steady and gave no clues on September (RT)
Fed vote sees first 'double dissent' in three decades -- both from people that want JPow's job (TH)
U.S. begins announcing tariffs: 15% on South Korea, 25% on India, 35% on Canada, 50% on Brazil, more (BBG)

HPE-Juniper anti-trust case has embroiled the DoJ, the White House, and the Intelligence Community, and its still unraveling (AX)
Iran demands compensation for U.S. strikes prior to resuming nuclear talks (FT)
Russia expresses over threat of new strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities (RT)

12-day Israel-Iran war revealed alarming gaps in air and missile defense stockpiles (WSJ)
House Defense Modernization Caucus pushes authority and acquisition reforms for FY26 (DS)
Amy Henninger, the nominee to lead the Pentagon's operational test and evaluation, wants more automation (DO)
CISA vows to publish 2022 telecom security report (DO)
Engineers test breakthrough nuclear reactor cooling system at Idaho lab (IE)
Air Force belatedly creates a communications office at the Air Force staff level (AFT)
Navy chief nominee wants to double submarine-building capacity (DO)
Navy rolls out new software policy on containerization tech usage (DS)

Threat Tech

China uses 'dark fleet' to secretly buy Iranian oil and skirt sanctions (CBS)
Chinese researchers propose lasers and sabotage to counter Starlink, pLEO satellites (ABC)
Russian GRU-backed hackers target Russian ISPs to spy on embassies in Moscow (NG)
Russia appears to be using its new R-77M air-to-air missile in Ukraine (TWZ)
Russia has added jet engines to their Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones, creating a far more challenging target (TWZ)
N. Korea lauds Kim-Trump relations but is adamant on keeping its nukes (AP)
U.S., NATO allies warn of increasing Iranian threats in Europe, North America (AP)

Foreign Defense Tech

Germany buys aircraft self-defense systems from Israeli firm Elbit for $260M (DN)
Qatar used layers of U.S. weapons to counter Iranian missiles (DN)
Turkey, Indonesia sign multibillion-dollar warplane, frigate deals (DN)
Turkey claims to have joined hypersonic missile club with locally developed Tayfun missile (NW)
U.S. moved nuclear arms to U.K. for first time since 2008 (BBG)

Defense Industry

Experts warn expiring cyber info-sharing law puts U.S. maritime infrastructure at risk (NG)
Union members reject Boeing contract offer, which included 20% wage hike over 4 years, $5k bonus (RT)
Kelly Ortberg says Boeing's defense business can weather looming worker strike (DN)
Infinity Technology Services to expand ops in Colorado Springs, add 500 jobs (TG)
U.S. Army awards one of its largest ever contracts -- $10B -- to Palantir (WP)
Hanwha is importing Korean shipbuilding techniques to improve Philly Shipyard (NI)
Helion Energy is building the world's first fusion power plant in Washington (IE)

Autonomous Systems

U.K. MoD teams with British Esports to boost troops' drone skills (DN)
Ukraine repeatedly targets key rail line deep inside Russia with drone strikes (TWZ)

Ukraine's original Magura V1 USV finally emerges from secrecy (NN)
The U.S. Navy unmasked its vision for a fleet of uncrewed modular surface attack craft (TWZ)

Finance & Deal Flow

Fund

Hedge fund Point72 is raising $400M for its first client-facing VC fund to back early-stage defense, space, energy, and security startups (BBG)
Vietnam is seeking to raise $100M for a government-backed VC fund (DSA)

VC

Lyten, a manufacturer of lithium-sulfur batteries, raised $200M in funding led by Prime Movers Lab and acquired Northvolt's Battery Energy Storage System product portfolio (BW)
Reveal Technology, a defense technology company, raised a $30M Series B led by Ballistic Ventures (PRN)
Israeli eVTOL startup AIR raised a $23M Series A led by Entree Capital to expand to the U.S. (TC)
ARX Robotics, a European provider of autonomous unmanned ground vehicles, raised an $12.7M Series A extension led by Speedinvest (TEU)
German defense tech platform Project Q raised an $8.7M seed round led by Project A, Expeditions Fund, and Superangel (SUH)

PE / M&A / Exits / Other

Italian aerospace and defense tech firm Leonardo agreed to acquire IVECO's defense business for $1.95B (DN)
Franco-German defense company KNDS agreed to acquire additional shares in gearbox maker Renk from Triton Partners, raising its stake to 15.8% (RT)

Share Building Our Future

Exciting Opportunities

The Army is looking for AI to help manage airspace operations (SAM)
The Missile Defense Agency is looking for electromagnetic protection and threat object discrimination technologies under its ongoing multiple authority announcement (SAM)
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has opened a new topic under a BAA to 'enable effective and integrated WMD deterrence' (SAM)