The intersection of "techcraft" and maneuver warfare
Catch us at LCID and WDI.
Welcome back to the Nexus Newsletter, Applied Intuition Defense’s biweekly newsletter covering the latest in national security, autonomy, and software-defined warfare.
Visit us at booth #355 at Life Cycle Industry Days (LCID) and Wright Dialogue with Industry (WDI) conferences July 29 - Aug. 2 in Dayton, Ohio. In today's newsletter, we share some thoughts on news items that intersect capabilities outlined by the Air Force’s Operational Imperatives with tactics and technology and the DOD’s FY26 budget.
🎉 SVDG NATSEC100
We’re honored to be included once again in the Silicon Valley Defense Group’s NATSEC100 list! Applied Intuition Defense was selected among several other leading dual-use startups this year. Accompanying the list is a report from the Silicon Valley Defense Group that gives a snapshot of the “emergent techno-security ecosystem.”
The big takeaway from the report? Companies included in this year’s list have only been awarded $22 billion in federal funding, with 6% of the funding coming from the Department of Defense. Further, 81% of the total funding – and 65% of the funding awarded by the DOD – went to a single company. While this is obviously a concern, it’s great to see continued innovation and overall increased funding (up almost 20% this year compared to last year’s cohort, according to the report).
🦾 The case for “defense disrupters”
Recently our GM for defense, Jason Brown, was interviewed for the Axios Future of Defense newsletter on “defense disrupters,” or new, scrappy, smaller dual-use companies that are changing the game.
💸 Top of mind: DOD’s FY26 budget
In a recent Breaking Defense op-ed, retired US Army Maj. Gen. John Ferrari, a senior nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, advocates for changes and cuts the military services should make in their fiscal year 2026 budget requests.
Key quote: “The Army should cancel its Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle and Future Vertical Lift. These funds should be reinvested into bullets, tanks, and counter-UAV systems. The Army should learn lessons from Ukraine, where weaponizing commercial items is proving to be more effective in war than trying to develop purely unique defense items. The Army needs to relearn fighting at scale, and that means scaling back on niche weapons. Of course, the Pentagon does not control its budget topline, which is set by the White House. However, it should be obvious that defense spending needs to increase.”
Our take: We strongly agree that this is the moment forward-looking leadership must make courageous decisions about the future of weapons programs that won’t deliver the goods on tomorrow’s battlefield. As a dual-use technology company, we agree the Services should look to ongoing operations in Ukraine, the Red Sea, and Indo-Pacific to inform priorities and program execution.
Clearly, the pressure to invest in drone and counter-drone mission systems is ramping up. They will eventually eat into budgets for the fewer, larger, more expensive weapons systems unless those traditional systems show a new value proposition for that future battlefield. Whatever that is, the foundation of it will be software-defined. We have yet to fully understand the investment required to make the best budget around a manned-autonomous mix strategy for the long term.
However, we do not associate the production of “defense-only items” with programs working with non-traditional tech companies using the latest in digital engineering in a modular, open system. These systems will enable faster mobilization and speed of action on the battlefield. These systems will also integrate with manned and unmanned systems seamlessly because they will be software-defined. But scrapping forward-looking programs that produce software-defined systems for “bullets, tanks, and counter-UAV systems” is a step in the wrong direction and turning a blind eye to recent history.
💡 Three big things that intersect the Air Force’s Operational Imperatives
With the Air Force Materiel Command staff, stakeholders, and industry convening in Dayton this month for LCID and WDI, we had a few thoughts on some news items that intersect capabilities outlined by the Air Force’s Operational Imperatives with tactics and technology. The development of advanced technology to enable sustained combat power regeneration and constant improvement of tactical employment of those capabilities share overlapping themes with the commercial autonomous vehicle industry.
Tactics, technology, and warfare
Story: Techcraft on Display in Ukraine
Key quote: “Tactics are a science, but applying tactics in combat is an art. A military force wins by seeing how general principles apply to a specific situation and being creative with combat solutions.
For two years, Ukrainians have been defending their country with creative combinations of tactics and technology. Ukraine was thrown into a conflict full of juxtaposed old and new tech, but in part because Ukraine’s tech-savvy population volunteered to serve, they were able to survive Russia’s assault and even make gains, especially in 2022. We call these tactical and technical talents of applying modern technology on the battlefield ‘techcraft.’ American soldiers should go into battle with the same advantage. Fieldcraft means using what is available to survive in the field. By techcraft, we mean the field-expedient use of technology in war.”
While this War on the Rocks story focuses primarily on the applications of “techcraft” to the US Army, the principles apply across all branches. The looming near-peer conflict in the South Pacific and active combat in Ukraine has brought forth a sobering reminder that the pursuit of liberty is not free and that simplicity is crucial for mass and maneuver. Autonomous systems are vital for combat power, blending warfare and technological development, or “techcraft.”
There are both positive and negative lessons to be learned from the Ukrainian adoption of “techcraft.” The glue that ties together technology and tactics into “techcraft,” and which has enabled this kind of advancement, is a result of an engineering-forward culture with rapid iteration driven by direct communication. The Air Force has placed significant bets on development, integration, and sustainment of autonomous systems as a significant contributor to combat power. In line with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin’s “Reoptimization for Great Power Competition” initiative, there are specific ways the service can adapt elements of “techcraft” to parallel the sustainability of tactics and technological development to meet the future threat.
The continuous development of autonomous systems is inherently an engineering process. In the commercial automotive industry, data streams daily from fleets of autonomous vehicles and is injected into existing developmental workflows. Meanwhile, acquisition and sustainment of autonomous systems and the application of “techcraft” does not require policy changes, but will be more reliant on flattened communication between the operator, requirements office, and program office. The Ukrainian approach to techcraft at the tactical level, which is what is largely referred to in the article, has been largely reliant on grassroots and unit based relationships and showcases how the adaptation of technology and lessons learned inefficiently feed through the defense base. The identification of this grassroots element stands in contrast to a more formalized process of defense modernization such as Brave1.
A larger shift towards robotics in the military
Key quote: “Ten to fifteen years from now, my guess is a third, maybe 25% to a third of the U.S. military will be robotic.....The character of war, however, involves tactics, technologies, weapons systems and leader training,” retired Army Gen. Mark Milley said at an Axios event.
Milley said that while these dynamics often change, the world is currently experiencing the “biggest fundamental shift in human history in…the character of war” with the rise of AI and robotics.
The rise of robotic systems and automation in the automotive industry, including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), parallels the emphasis described by Gen. Milley. Robotics already play a major role in DoD’s power projection, from things like advanced missiles and integrated weapon systems to unmanned aircraft. However, the presence of robotics doesn’t inherently mean autonomous systems.
Current robotic systems still have large logistical and operational tails which require human support. Advancing combat power depends on developing lower-cost, more capable semi-autonomous systems.A major enabler in unlocking this capability is system architecture for platform development. Primes, integrators, and program contributors need to be able to take advantage of the full capabilities of a system. In the automotive industry, continuous integration of black-box subsystems and increased supplier costs drove the need for platform based systems. Software defined vehicles have two major advantages. On-board software platform to enables custom applications for mission adaptability and lower level autonomy aided system development. Off-board software platform for over-the-air (OTA) software updates, data logging, and maintaining digital twins of all vehicles and variants aids in the developmental workflows key to rapid platform modernization.
There are many readily implementable lower level autonomy solutions that can greatly benefit the warfighter, whether its capabilities such as Automatic or Aided Target Recognition, wide-area search and track, multi-modal sensor fusion, collaborative autonomy, or even platform development. Whether that be in diverse and complex operating conditions such as CENTCOM or vast and expansive areas of operation such as in the Indo-Pacific, the flexibility and versatility of platform based unmanned systems with the integration of semi-autonomous capabilities provides the Department the opportunity to scale effectively and efficiently to gain the “decisive advantages” over the enemy Gen. Milley was referring to.
Black hole and “Echo-1”
Story: New Electronic Warfare Pod Turns Marine MQ-9 Reaper Into “A Black Hole”
Key quote: “So it becomes a hole. A black hole. It becomes mostly undetectable.” - Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric M. Smith.
The MQ-9 has entered a phase of providing combat power while maintaining a low observable signature which has been made possible through a relatively low cost electronic warfare (EW) solution. The utilization of EW, while not new, highlights how modern development practices can enhance low observable technology in rapidly changing battlefields.
The modernization of the MQ-9 and integration of pod improving the capability of the system is a clear enabler for Marine’s Force Design. However, the adaptation of capabilities based on an open framework and the identification that “maneuver must evolve along with the changing character of war” is more interesting.
All-domain, low-observable or stealth technology cannot rely solely upon physical hardware design but must also include dynamic electromagnetic elements that change the evolving nature of war. Harking back to the original stealth fighter, the F-117, the modeling & simulation computer program Echo-1 was largely responsible for helping to generate the architecture and improved design which resulted in the F-117. However, manual signals modulation on the radars with an SA-3 Surface to Air Missile System in the 1999 Kosovo War and subsequent shoot down of an F-117 showcases how signals adaptation can result in the degradation of static low observable technologies throughout the duration of a conflict. Without an ability to rapidly improve, update, and redeploy software to fielded forces, currently deployed and static software is insufficient to ensure combat effectiveness.
The future of warfare is software defined. The future of maneuver and all domain stealth technology is software defined. In order to maintain decision and force superiority, the software backbone of all-domain stealth technology cannot remain static but must adapt to changing battlefield conditions.
The right software development tactics, techniques and procedures are the keys to ensuring that fielded systems can adapt to their environment while still in the area of operation. Whether it be advanced platforms or modernization initiatives such as SOAR, these operational and engineering based capabilities are critical. This problem set is very similar to the development cycle and operational pressures of the automotive industry. Where vehicle manufacturers triage vast amounts of data from fielded vehicles through rapid development and iteration cycles to continuously improve and adapt to changing operational conditions. Applied’s observations are that the core enablers in the advancement of autonomous systems have been the efficient use of big data, efficient software development, and simulation.
Only through software superiority will these capabilities stay a reality for maneuver warfare and enable all-domain stealth technology to stay undetectable.
That’s all for today’s newsletter. Don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn and X/Twitter. See you next time!