The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency helped develop some of the technologies that enabled the US to come out on top in the Cold War. Now, DARPA is in the middle of transitioning its effort to better match the “Long War,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports, helping to develop technologies that give US military forces the advantage in non-traditional and irregular combat. DARPA Director Anthony Tether told more than 3,000 scientists, businessmen, and military leaders gathered for the agency’s 50th anniversary conference in Anaheim, Calif., earlier this month that the agency needs to anticipate the challenges and develop the means to beat more adaptive and fluid enemies. Efforts being pushed include new aerial platforms that are designed not only to warn of threats but to destroy them by delivering what scientists called “ultra-precise effects” that could be launched from anywhere in the US with minimal harm to non combatants. (Readers may find copies of presentations here.)
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.