The Drone Ultimatum

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Clayton Swope, Deputy Director of the Aerospace Security Project and Senior Fellow in the Defense and Security Department, joins us to break down the real state of U.S. space and missile defense.

We dig into how the Pentagon is thinking about space resilience, missile warning, and emerging threats from China and Russia.

Clayton explains where policy, budget, and strategy are aligned and where gaps still exist.We also get into the industrial base behind space systems, acquisition friction, and what “resilience” actually means in practice. If you work in defense, space, or national security policy, this conversation connects the dots between strategy and execution.

LINKS
⁠Follow Clayton on LinkedIn⁠
Would Airstrikes Against Iran Work? (article by Clayton Swope)
The Pentagon Should be a Better Customer (article by Clayton Swope)

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Today we’re joined by Charles Acknin and Isaac Roberts from Skyways, the Austin-based aerospace company building long-range autonomous cargo aircraft for real logistics missions.

We dig into why Skyways went defense-first, how they turned early Marine Corps interest into a long-running Navy contract pipeline, and what it takes to fly autonomous VTOL cargo off ships in rough conditions. The conversation gets tactical on the tradeoffs of VTOL and hybrid propulsion, plus what “scale” actually means when you’re building a 1,000+ mile range platform.

We also zoom out into startup execution versus fundraising, the realities of selling into DoD, and how automation is reshaping internal ops across defense tech.

LINKS
Skyways

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Follow Isaac on LinkedIn

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Chandler Luzsicza, Founder and CEO of Galadyne, joins us to break down why he’s betting on liquid propulsion to reinvent long-range missile production. A former SpaceX engineer who started working on liquid rockets as a teenager, Chandler is now building containerized, scalable missile platforms designed to bypass the bottlenecks of traditional solid rocket motors.

We get into supply chain fragility, why ammonium perchlorate is a strategic constraint, and how commercial space engineering culture can modernize missile development. Chandler also explains Galadyne’s 1,000km-class strike platform, recruiting tactics to pull “new space” talent into defense, and why production at scale — tens of thousands per year — is the real deterrent.

It’s a candid conversation about propulsion, venture backing from Andreessen Horowitz, and the ethics of building weapons in a world where “peace through strength” is more than a slogan.

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Heather Armentrout, President and General Manager of Kongsberg US, joins the show for a candid look at how a European defense leader is scaling real production inside the United States.

We cover NASAMS, CROWS, and how lessons from Ukraine are shaping air defense, counter-UAS, and “affordable mass.” Heather breaks down what it actually takes to deliver programs of record: supply chain, manufacturability, and why production is the hard part.

We also talk about Kongsberg’s US expansion, new facilities, and how partners think about China, export controls, and re-industrializing the arsenal of democracy. Practical, inside-baseball, and heavy on execution.

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The war in Ukraine, defense tech, procurement, and private capital are colliding in real time, and most people in the West are missing what matters.

Mentions:
Disinformation by Ion Mihai Pacepa (Wikipedia)
Match in a Haystack (Film Trailer)
Porcelain War (Prime Video)
Winter on Fire (Netflix)

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Follow Perry Boyle
Follow Denys Gurak
MITS Capital Website

In this episode, we sit down with Perry Boyle and Denys Gurak, founding partners of MITS Capital, one of the most active Western capital allocators into Ukraine’s defense and dual-use ecosystem. We break down the on-the-ground state of the war, how Ukrainian buying works across decentralized units, and why cost and scale now decide outcomes. Then we get specific on what tech is actually useful, where NATO approaches break down, and what a “war economy” looks like when innovation has real urgency. We close on the geopolitics: why China’s role is central, why energy infrastructure matters, and what this conflict signals for the future of security in Europe.