President Donald Trump said Sept. 23 that he believed Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from the U.S. leader’s repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions to end the war. Trump posted on social media soon after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly gathering of world leaders.
A delegation of U.S. House lawmakers visited China for the first time since 2019 this week, in what members described as an effort to push for more communication between the American and Chinese militaries to avert potential conflict.
RTX and Shield AI will supply the software “brains” for the first increment of the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft fleet, sources say. The RTX mission autonomy software suite will be integrated into the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. YFQ-42, and Shield AI’s Hivemind-branded system will control the Anduril YFQ-44, sources tell Aviation Week.
Air & Space Forces Magazine Editor-in-Chief Tobias Naegele visited Elbit America’s exhibit at AFA’s 2025 Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md., to explore the next evolution in helmet-mounted display technology: the Zero-G Helmet.
Kim Jong Un, seizing on his closer ties with Russia, has recently begun signaling a major policy shift: beefing up North Korea’s outdated conventional arms alongside its nuclear arsenal. The strategic pivot faces tall odds for the impoverished country, whose massive conventional military largely relies on Soviet-era equipment. But Kim sees a rare opportunity—and need—to upgrade his battle tanks, rifles, air-defense systems, battleships, and more with Russian assistance.
Boeing and Palantir announced Sept. 23 a partnership to integrate the latter’s artificial intelligence-enabled software system into the former’s factories to speed up defense production. Boeing will utilize Palantir’s Foundry platform, which uses AI to unify complex and disparate systems under a streamlined and intuitive user interface.
An ongoing restructuring of the Sentinel ICBM program is expected to culminate in a new Milestone B decision by mid-2027, a key metric for a troubled program that Brig. Gen. William Rogers said he has “every intention” of having fully operational before 2050.
Venerable aviation supplier GE Aerospace teamed with seven-year-old Merlin Labs to add AI to GE avionics used on a wide range of military and civilian aircraft, the companies told Breaking Defense ahead of an announcement at the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual conference.
U.S. Central Command is setting up a new team and innovation hub to help strategically fast-track the military’s adoption of drones and other cutting-edge combat capabilities, the organization announced Sept. 23.
Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll says he is locked in a “holy war” on Capitol Hill as he works to convince lawmakers to grant the service more flexible funding authority for electronic warfare, unmanned aerial systems, and counter-drone efforts.
As the U.S. military waits for major acquisition reform legislation, Space Force officials say their service is ahead of the curve. “We’re anxious to see [the legislation], but I also feel like we as a Space Force are in front of that. A lot of the concepts and ideas and structure and authorities and processes, we’re already doing. So we’re in a sweet spot there to be able to take advantage of that and go even faster,” Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, leader of Space Systems Command, said.
While a joint partnership between Brazilian aerospace company Embraer and L3Harris Technologies to outfit Embraer’s KC-390 Millennium tanker-transport with U.S. systems and a custom refueling boom was formally declared dead late last year, the company is advancing a fresh effort to sell the Millennium to the Air Force.
The Maryland Air National Guard, based in eastern Baltimore County, deactivated its last remaining A-10 Thunderbolts on Sept. 23, leaving Maryland as the only state without planes to deploy in an emergency.
