U.S. and Japan turn to drones to help offset China's military advantages Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System (LUCAS) drones are positioned on the tarmac at a base in the U.S. Central Command operating area in November. Just a few years ago, it would have been almost inconceivable for U.S. forces -- the world's most advanced military -- to operate reverse-engineered Iranian drones. But times are changing fast, and so is the nature of warfare, a fact that is also prompting a shift in Japan. As Washington and its allies scramble for combat-proven and low-cost drones, the U.S. Central Command recently announced the launch of a squadron based on the LUCAS kamikaze drone, a system derived from Iran's Shahed-136 loitering munition, versions of which are being used by Russia in Ukraine. The autonomous LUCAS, which is also being tested by the U.S. Navy and Marines, is part of a broader Pentagon push to fast-track the adoption of various small drones across the military, treating them as "consumable or expendable" capabilities similar to bullets, hand grenades and other munitions.

A new study finds algae, mussels, and starfish flock to munitions dumped in the Baltic Sea. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. As the ink dried on Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8, 1945, celebrations erupted across the world. People cheered, wept, and kissed in the streets as World War II finally came to an end in Europe. A few months later at the Potsdam Conference, Germany agreed to demilitarize and dismantle its once formidable army, leaving the nation with lots and lots of leftover munitions.

While no one knows when or where the next major war will break out, what is becoming clear is that next time the United States engages directly in a conflict, U.S. combat units will be sharing their battle space with a different type of force -- drones, lots of them. In a push for the world's most powerful military to "meet the demands of 21st-century warfighting," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon to fast-track the adoption and boost the number of various small drones deployed across the force, treating them as "consumable or expendable" capabilities similar to bullets, hand grenades and other munitions. The new initiative aims to ramp up the production, experimentation and fielding of small unmanned systems weighing less than 55 pounds (25 kilograms). This includes one-way, "kamikaze" attack drones and loitering munitions to maintain "battlefield superiority" as Washington's geopolitical and technological rivalry with Beijing intensifies.

Russia has tailored its nuclear response doctrine to the specific threat of the long-range attacks it faces from Ukraine, even as Kyiv's forces demonstrated during the past week the devastating effect such attacks can have on Moscow's conventional war effort. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently "outlined the approaches" to a new edition of the Fundamentals of State Policy on nuclear weapons use, wrote his right-hand man, deputy head of the National Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, on Telegram on Wednesday. "A massive launch and crossing of our border with enemy aerospace weapons, including aircraft, missiles and UAVs, can under certain conditions become the basis for the use of nuclear weapons," he wrote. "Aggression against Russia by a non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the support or participation of a nuclear-weapon country, will be considered a joint attack," Medvedev added. These threat profiles are exactly tailored to describe Ukraine, which gave up nuclear weapons in 1994, but is supported by nuclear-armed states the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and which has been forbidden to use Western-supplied weapons to attack deep inside Russia.

Hamas, in a statement, described the Israeli strike on Rafah as "a horrific war crime" and demanded the "immediate and urgent implementation" of the World Court's decision. The group did not refer to the Israeli military's assertions that two Hamas officials had been killed in the strike. The Israeli military said it had taken a number of steps before the strike to reduce the risk of harm to civilians, including conducting aerial surveillance and using munitions characterized as precise. "Based on these measures, it was assessed that there would be no expected harm to uninvolved civilians," it said. But an Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said on Monday that an initial investigation by the military had concluded that the strike, or shrapnel from it, may have unexpectedly ignited a flammable substance at the camp.

Alice Globus, head of Nanotronics, said AI could minimize the damage done by recent malware attacks on hospitals and the Colonial Pipeline shutdown in 2021. Germany has invested heavily into what officials say will help them find the future of combat through an artificial intelligence (AI) virtual training area some have dubbed a military "metaverse." "We compete with the big ones in the industry," GhostPlay project manager Gary Schaal, a professor at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, wrote in a press release. "Our [Unique Selling Point]: agility and the ability to quickly show results." Developer 21strategies pulled together a mix of start-ups and defense academics to create the virtual battlefield GhostPlay, which allows developers to test out different weapons and systems inside a risk-free environment.

A new $2.2 billion US arms package for Ukraine includes a new rocket-propelled precision bomb that could nearly double Kyiv's strike range against the Russians, the Pentagon said Friday. Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said the new package includes the ground-launched small-diameter bombs (GLSDB), a munition that can fly up to 150 kilometers (93 miles), which would threaten Russian positions and depots far behind the front lines. "This gives them a longer-range capability... that will enable them to conduct operations in defense of their country and to take back their sovereign territory," Ryder said. Ukraine had been asking the United States for munitions that can fly farther than the HIMARS rockets with an 80-kilometer (50-mile) range. The GLSDB potentially gives Ukraine forces an ability to strike anywhere in the Russian-occupied Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and the northern part of occupied Crimea.

We've long known that computers can beat us at chess, so does it matter if they have started to beat us at more verbal and collaborative games such as Diplomacy? It certainly does, and suggests a future in which artificial intelligence may begin to play a growing role in the whole spectrum of international affairs, from crafting communiqués to solving disputes and analysing intelligence briefings. Diplomacy, a strategic board game that was a favourite of both Henry Kissinger and John F. Kennedy, is set in Europe before the first world war. The objective is to gain control of at least half the board by negotiating alliances via private one-to-one conversations. There are no binding agreements, so players can misrepresent their plans and double-deal.

A small group of researchers struggle against the stiff wind to set up a pop-up tent for some shade. Nearby a young man opens a heavy Pelican case to reveal a pile of explosives."These are inert," he says, "but we're lucky to be working at a range that has so many different kinds of munitions." The range is an explosive-ordnance-disposal field laboratory maintained by Oklahoma State University, and the researchers are led by Jasper Baur and Gabriel Steinberg, co-founders of the Demining Research Community, a nonprofit organization bridging academic research and humanitarian demining efforts. They have been in Oklahoma for two weeks, setting up grids of mines and munitions to train a drone-based, machine-learning-powered detection system to find and identify dangerous explosives so humans don't have to. The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor reports that at least 7,073 people were killed or injured by mines in 54 countries and areas in 2020.

The US Air Force's AFLCMC Armament Directorate has awarded a one-year contract to Liteye Systems and Unmanned Experts to build Web Weasels (WW) autonomous swarming artificially intelligent munitions. WW is part of Unmanned Experts' parent program Air Commons – Swarm which allows commanders to plan, task, and manage multiple swarming assets through a Swarm ATO and Swarm Engine. According to Liteye, squadrons of autonomous collaborative munitions operating at range, and at risk, need the training, Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) to handle the speed-of-datalink environment that occurs in modern combat. Teamwork, communication, shared mental models, and a robust set of tried and tested strategies are needed to survive and dominate. WW aims to overlay Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML)-trained algorithms onto Air Commons – Swarm's capabilities to provide pre-launch munitions with a series of TTPs in a'Playbook' for a given mission set (i.e., SEAD).