Liberal Forum

Blackvegetable » 01 Jan 2026, 11:05 am » wrote: ↑

01 Jan 2026, 11:05 am

Commanders badly want autonomous weapons now. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape,” Pacific Commander Admiral Paparo told The Washington Post. New American defense companies, founded mostly in California, like Anduril, Neros, and Skydio, are producing drones approaching the cost and lethality of those made in Ukraine. But the Pentagon is still buying the vast majority of its weapons systems from traditional defense companies who build large, expensive systems slowly. Nimble, venture-backed defense startups account for less than 1 percent of the Defense Department spend.

ibid.