Science
fromThe Cipher Brief
4 hours agoA Wartime Budget Without an Innovation Strategy
Collaboration between the NSF and defense sectors is essential for national security and innovation, despite proposed budget cuts to NSF funding.
"What they're talking about doing is banning certain kinds of shapes," says Kyle Wiens of iFixit, an outspoken opponent of the proposals. "We are starting to really dangerously undermine a lot of assumptions that go into how we make and use technology."
CEO Chris Calio emphasized the urgency of delivering critical products for national security, stating, 'We understand that our products are critical to national security. And I can tell you across the organization, we absolutely feel the responsibility and urgency to deliver more and to deliver it faster.'
Austria's Defense Ministry stated, 'There have indeed been requests and they were refused from the outset.' The refusal is based on the country's neutrality policy, which has been in effect since 1955.
Our war fighters are leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools. These systems help us sift through vast amounts of data in seconds so our leaders can cut through the noise and make smarter decisions faster than the enemy can react. Humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot and when to shoot, but advanced AI tools can turn processes that used to take hours and sometimes even days into seconds.
The January 3rd Operation Absolute Resolve ousted Venezuelan Dictator Nicholas Maduro, marking a significant shift in US policy towards countering adversarial influence in the western hemisphere.
"To accelerate current weapons development timelines, DARPA is considering an alternative development paradigm to increase the nation's magazine depth and breadth."
The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better. He added that the US has a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons, insisting, Wars can be fought forever,' and very successfully, using just these supplies.
We've got no shortage of munitions. Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need. Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation.
For some weapons, the hardest fight wasn't against the enemy, in fact it was more so against wear and time. Advanced technology has delivered decisive advantages but in some cases has imposed relentless upkeep on crews and logistics chains. Here, 24/7 Wall St. is taking a closer look at how these systems became a maintenance nightmare for the U.S. Military.
But logistical consistency, like coherence and gravitas, does not characterize the new NDS. It is a document that supposedly nests within the National Security Strategy, explaining at greater length the implications of overall policy for the armed forces. The 2026 version does not do that. Rather, it restates some of the basic priorities of the Trump administration but for the most part confines itself to flattery of the president, insults, and bombast.
"Frankly, if Congress doesn't codify it, they'll go into court. My sense [is] it's really difficult to justify tax changes because the president wanted to change them,"