Cogs of War

The Pentagon is sending a record demand signal for munitions, but turning it into deliveries depends on suppliers several tiers below the primes, many of which disappeared over the last two decades. Marc Andersen (Army assistant secretary and chief investment officer of the Strategic Capital Initiative), Brandon Daniels (Exiger), and Joseph "Gus" Guastella (Voyager Technologies) join Jonathan in the studio. They debate whether China's control of critical minerals could halt U.S. munitions production and discuss the Army's strategic capital initiative, the Patriot production ramp, and the push for cheaper munitions.

What happens when the military depends on technologies it doesn't own? Sharon Weinberger, the new editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, stops by the studio to discuss her book, Valley of Death: How Big Tech Is Fueling the Future of War. She delves into the Pentagon's disputes with SpaceX and Anthropic, why the tech industry's split from the military was about money more than ideology, and how a new generation of firms could become the next primes.

As the Pentagon races to buy hundreds of thousands of unmanned systems, acquisition professionals have turned to the special operations community to learn about how to buy commercial technologies fast. Cara Teeter, deputy assistant secretary of war for special operations analysis, resources, and capabilities, and chief technology officer for the Special Operations Forces enterprise, and Bonnie Evangelista, who leads acquisition transformation for the direct reporting portfolio manager for unmanned systems, stop by the studio. They share lessons from the competitions and marketplaces they implemented, including last summer's inaugural accelerator event. They also discuss Project Agincourt and the new Autonomous Warfare Command, the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, and what it means to change the department's culture.

For years, ground autonomy lagged well behind its counterparts in the air. That gap is starting to close. Jonathan is joined by Ryan Hartman (Ondas Sentinel) and Scott Philips (Forterra) to examine what it takes to field autonomous ground vehicles in combat. The conversation ranges across what Ukraine and Gaza have taught them, what operating without GPS and resilient communications really looks like, air-ground teaming, and more.

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Adm. Pierre Vandier, returns to the studio to discuss how the alliance is continuously adapting to a new era of warfare driven by software, data, and uncrewed systems, and where it still lags. He explains why NATO is favoring field experimentation, how allies can build sovereign defense tech ecosystems without sacrificing interoperability, and what the right balance between unmanned and legacy platforms might look like.