Weekly News Update: Feb 9, 2024

3 - 9 Feb 2024

Good morning,

This week's news roll-up paints a dynamic picture of innovation and geopolitical maneuvering. Highlights include:

Congress remains broken, unable to pass important legislation to help our allies and secure our borders. Further, their reliance on continuing resolutions (instead of actually passing a budget) is starting to threaten the Pentagon’s modernization efforts and our future force. The Defense Innovation Board has made a recommendation that would stifle industry’s willingness to to support innovation. Russian president Putin has shown that he’s an expert in misconstruing and misrepresenting history, as he sat down with Tucker Carlson for an interview—read, propaganda session. We now have an idea of how much Russia was paying for Iranian drones, as they look to ramp their own domestic production to 10,000 for use as munitions in Ukraine. Wargames have demonstrated that cheaper is better for autonomous systems, although we continue to focus on exquisite solutions…