Iran’s top diplomat said June 16 that the tentative deal to end the war with the United States would require Israel to withdraw from Lebanon—a condition Israel has already rejected and that could sink the agreement, leading to the resumption of all-out war.
“The U.S. military is right to accelerate the development and fielding of systems that harness autonomy and artificial intelligence. These capabilities will be essential to deterring and, if necessary, defeating advanced adversaries. They can extend reach, complicate enemy targeting, reduce risk to personnel, increase desired effects, and help commanders sense and strike at machine speed. But the Senate Armed Services Committee’s recently announced legislation to create a new combatant command for robotic and autonomous systems gets the problem backward,” writes retired Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula, dean of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
Shield AI’s proposed X-Bat already stands out as an autonomous, jet-powered, vertical-takeoff-and-landing, long-range strike aircraft, but company President Ryan Tseng adds another distinction. The X-Bat is also not a collaborative combat aircraft, Tseng said in an interview with Aviation Week on June 15 at Eurosatory.
Fewer U.S. Air Force tankers are available for aerial refueling missions than official figures suggest, according to a new report.
A House Armed Services Committee member wants the U.S. Air Force to consider retrofitting old aircraft to augment its current testbed fleet. The committee’s fiscal year 2027 defense policy bill includes an amendment submitted by Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.) that directs the service to “develop a plan to regenerate, restore, modify, and use a limited number” of retired aircraft for autonomous testing.
“In the war against Iran, U.S. forces struck over 13,660 targets, but attention has focused on the allegation that one of those strikes hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School, which was located on an active IRGC cruise missile base. Sadly, scores of civilian deaths, many of them children, resulted. This tragedy clearly requires a thorough, objective, and independent investigation. ... The reality is that figuring out the cause of this heartbreaking tragedy may be harder than it evidently appears to those already convinced they have the all answers before all the questions are addressed,” writes retired Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr., the former deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force.
President Trump invoked a Cold War-era law in an effort to increase production of important munitions, according to a memo released June 16, a step that signals the U.S. is concerned about a potential shortfall in weapons after heavy usage in Iran.
OpenAI will bring ChatGPT to GenAI.mil, the Pentagon’s generative-AI platform, in "early July," a company official said June 16. The AI firm is working with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, Mohammed Husain—the company's strategic delivery lead for cyber—said at the Defense One Tech Summit in Arlington, Va.
Virginia-based, data-labeling and AI startup Enabled Intelligence is expanding its repository of curated datasets that government and commercial partners use for model training and deployments to include a new collection of drone footage recorded in Ukraine amid the ongoing war.
Future military satellites may someday receive a command as simple as, "Find the Chinese carrier battle group," and determine for themselves how to complete the mission. For retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Brook Leonard, that future is no longer science fiction.
Congress is considering a proposal that would grant full retirement and disability benefits to combat veterans, while slashing future disability checks for veterans with tinnitus and sleep apnea.
