📦 From Lasers to Logistics: Pentagon CTO Announces Top Six Tech Priorities

📬 In Today’s Defense Brief

✈️ US Will Sell F-35 to Saudi Arabia: Trump — Read More

📦 From Lasers to Logistics: Pentagon CTO Announces Top Six Tech Priorities — Read More

🛩️ Zelenskyy Says Ukraine Could Buy Up to 100 French Rafale Fighters — Read More

🛡️ New Army-Led Task Force Plans Digital Marketplace for Counter-Drone Tech — Read More

🎈 Army Doubles Balloons for Upcoming SWARMS Demo, Adds NORAD to the Mix — Read More

🎱 Plus 14 other news stories you may like

📰 Full Breakdown

✈️ US Will Sell F-35 to Saudi Arabia: Trump — Read More

• Speaking ahead of a White House meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Trump said the U.S. will sell F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to Saudi Arabia, calling the kingdom “a great ally” and noting Riyadh “wants to buy a lot of jets.” The statement signals intent but does not specify timing for a formal agreement.

• Trump’s comments build on earlier remarks that the F-35 was “on the table” for the visit and come as the two sides also discuss a broader security agreement. He emphasized the Saudis are interested not only in F-35s but in “more than that, fighter jets,” underscoring the scale of potential deals.

• Saudi Arabia has pushed to join the “F-35 club” since 2017, following the United Arab Emirates’ earlier effort to acquire the jet. The UAE’s deal was later frozen by the Biden administration over concerns about Chinese tech in Emirati networks, but neither Gulf state has abandoned its pursuit of fifth-gen fighters.

📦 From Lasers to Logistics: Pentagon CTO Announces Top Six Tech Priorities — Read More

• Undersecretary for Research and Engineering Emil Michael has cut the Pentagon’s sprawling list of critical technology areas down to six, arguing these priorities will deliver “the greatest impact, the fastest results and the most decisive advantage on the battlefield.” The streamlined list is meant to sharpen focus and speed for research and acquisition dollars.

• The six categories are Applied Artificial Intelligence, Biomanufacturing, Contested Logistics Technologies, Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance, Scaled Hypersonics, and Scaled Directed Energy. Together they span everything from back-office AI and frontline warfighting tools to resilient comms, mass-produced hypersonic weapons and fieldable high-energy lasers and microwaves for defeating swarms and missile salvos.

• Older buckets like FutureG, Integrated Sensing & Cyber, Microelectronics and Advanced Materials will be folded under the new framework rather than dropped entirely. Michael stresses these areas are “actionable, tangible solutions” designed for near-term sprints, aiming to ensure U.S. forces “never face a fair fight” against high-end adversaries.

🛩️ Zelenskyy Says Ukraine Could Buy Up to 100 French Rafale Fighters — Read More

• At a French air base near Paris, Presidents Zelenskyy and Macron signed a letter of intent for Ukraine to potentially purchase up to 100 Rafale F4 fighters, with delivery stretching to about 2035. The deal could also cover SAMP/T air-defense systems, radars, air-to-air missiles and precision bombs, making it a broad modernization package rather than just a fighter buy.

• The agreement, which Paris described as “historic,” is not yet a firm sales contract and follows a late-October letter of intent for Swedish Gripen fighters. French officials frame the proposal as a decade-long path to regeneration of Ukraine’s air force, pairing long-term industrial cooperation with the urgent need to withstand Russian aggression.

• Zelenskyy said the LOI allows Kyiv to tap France’s defense industrial base for cutting-edge airpower and air defense, calling the package “new aircraft, new reinforcements, new steps to strengthen our army.” Ukraine’s air arm currently mixes Soviet-era platforms with Western jets like F-16s; Rafales would mark a major leap in capability and standardization with NATO air forces.

🛡️ New Army-Led Task Force Plans Digital Marketplace for Counter-Drone Tech — Read More

• Army-led Joint Interagency Task Force 401 is building an online UAS and counter-UAS marketplace so DoD, DHS, FBI and local agencies can shop from a central catalog of vetted systems, complete with performance data under varied conditions. Brig. Gen. Matt Ross says the aim is to match diverse drone threats with tailored tools, rather than a single silver-bullet solution.

• The task force, created by Defense Secretary Hegseth to replace the old Joint Counter-small UAS Office, reports directly to the deputy secretary of defense and wields acquisition authority, including approval of up to $50 million per c-UAS development effort. Funding for the marketplace is expected from operations and maintenance, RDT&E and procurement accounts.

• JIATF 401 is prioritizing Group 1 and 2 drones and envisions offerings ranging from acoustic sensors and radars to RF defeat tools and low-collateral interceptors. The task force is already supporting NORTHCOM’s counter-UAS work along the southern border and plans a c-UAS summit to coordinate with interagency partners and keep the marketplace evolving “at the speed of relevance.”

🎈 Army Doubles Balloons for Upcoming SWARMS Demo, Adds NORAD to the Mix — Read More

• The Army’s 2026 Swarming Worldwide Autonomous Reconnaissance in the Multi-domain System (SWARMS) demo is expanding to about 200 high-altitude balloons in the Indo-Pacific, launched in multiple waves within 1,000 miles of Hawaii from islands and ships. Some platforms will be decoys, others will carry sensors, jammers or notional kinetic payloads to stress adversary defenses.

• Andrew Evans, who leads the Strategy & Transformation Office in Army G-2, says the goal is to “operationalize the stratosphere” for phase-one conflict, using an attritable balloon swarm to quickly blanket a region with sensors after a crisis. The concept relies on achieving volume and “mass disruption” so adversaries cannot easily distinguish decoys from lethal or sensing nodes.

• NORAD and the Coast Guard will use ground-based radars and maritime tracking to study how such a swarm appears from a homeland-defense perspective, informing both offensive and defensive planning. The 2026 event will not yet demonstrate full intel collection and dissemination; the Army expects to use the demo to refine architectures ahead of potential follow-on experiments in 2027.

🌏 Other Important News

✈️ Air

• In a first, F-22 pilot controls wingman drone from cockpit, General Atomics says — Read More

• Japanese forces test deployment of hypersonic missile system — Read More

• Saab to deliver Gripen E/F fighters to Colombia — Read More

• Cubic to supply additional F-35 air combat training subsystems — Read More

• US approves AIM-9X Block II missile sale to Denmark — Read More

🛰️ Space

• IonQ to acquire Skyloom Global to accelerate quantum networking and sensing infrastructure — Read More

🛡️ Land, Sea & Drones

• ASC and Austal partner to advance additive manufacturing support for Australia’s naval capability — Read More

• Iran Strait of Hormuz tanker seizure violates international law, CENTCOM says — Read More

• Autonomy goes portable: India fields smarter underwater threat hunters — Read More

• US SOCOM builds a new kind of drone operator — one who builds FPVs too — Read More

🧠 R&D, Autonomy & Advanced Tech

• Hegseth: DARPA at heart of America’s strategic advantage — Read More

• Flying by fingertip: US defense secretary pilots Black Hawk without leaving the room — Read More

• Joby’s turbine-electric VTOL aircraft flies on hybrid power for first time — Read More

• Palladyne AI establishes “Palladyne Defense” via acquisitions to build a vertically integrated U.S. defense tech platform — Read More

Thanks for reading today’s Defense Brief. If you found it useful, consider forwarding it to a friend or colleague who'd appreciate staying sharp on defense tech and military news.