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00:00China versus China on the high seas. See what happens when ships collide.
00:05Plus, forced from the service and denied early retirement.
00:09A difficult choice for some soon-to-be veterans.
00:12And drones armed with anti-personnel mines in the skies over Alabama.
00:17Why they're making history.
00:24Hello and welcome to Weapons and Warfare, a show made for people who want to know more about our national defense.
00:30Our goal is to help you have an informed conversation about what's happening with America's military.
00:35So, for Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Ryan Robertson.
00:39And we start this week with a visit with an Air Force veteran and co-founder slash CEO of a company called Defense Unicorns.
00:48Officially, they're navigating air-gapped environments and cybersecurity challenges to mitigate security risks from foreign applications.
00:57Translation, they're working to bring a U.S.-based software solution to the DOD's defense systems.
01:04All right, Rob Slaughter, thank you so much for joining us with Defense Unicorns.
01:12I know that I was just told your title, but just to make sure I get it right, can you just CEO, founder, co-founder?
01:19Yeah, CEO, co-founder of Defense Unicorns.
01:22All right.
01:23All right.
01:24You all are focused on software-driven solutions and creating a software that can be across any system, any device, which, you know, when you read about it, it's like, oh, that sounds like I know what that means.
01:41But from your perspective, what does that really mean to have a system agnostic, device agnostic software that, you know, the entire Department of Defense can be able to use?
01:53Yeah.
01:54Well, it really starts to really frame what we build from a solution perspective.
01:58It's really good to talk about the problem because it's really in understanding the problem that you start to understand, oh, wow, like that's that's ultimately like, oh, wow, you know, it makes sense.
02:09Everybody kind of knows that a lot of the defense systems, they're they're best in the world at what they do.
02:16The United States government makes the best stealth technology.
02:20We make the best submarines.
02:22We make the best hypersonics.
02:24We make the best, you know, insert word here.
02:27But what people also realize is that on the software end, a lot of these systems struggle, especially because they tend to live for decades at a time.
02:36So even like our newest fighters, like take the F-22, for example, you know, it's already been fielded for decades.
02:43And so even though we build this amazing technology, what what inadvertently happens is the software that's used on these systems is many times very outdated.
02:53And the entire world has gone through so much changes in the software world and so much modernization that really the DoD has really struggled to catch up.
03:03And part of the fundamental issue is that a lot of the software solutions and software platforms that were built for the commercial world.
03:10It's not that they're 100 percent incompatible, but they just weren't designed for defense customers in mind.
03:16So there's some of these challenges that are very, very common in the defense world that are just not at all really experienced in the commercial world to the same extent.
03:25So to kind of talk about, you know, really three of the challenges, first and foremost, in the DoD, you have a ton of air gapped software systems.
03:34You have a lot of environments that are either semi disconnected or fully disconnected from the Internet.
03:39Ryan, in your life, I'm sure you're plugged into the Internet 24 seven.
03:43The rest of my life, everybody's life, you don't even know what it means to not be connected to the Internet.
03:48Yet most of our defense systems are disconnected and for very, very good reason.
03:52The next thing is there's a ridiculously complex cybersecurity stack.
03:57And so like everybody is, you know, is tracking the news, is tracking everything that China and Russia is doing to our infrastructure, is doing to our defense systems.
04:06And for very good reason, these the tech stacks that are deployed in defense are built and designed, assuming that somebody is going to try to penetrate them.
04:15And how do you monitor that? How do you actually run within those systems? How do you detect and eliminate them?
04:20And the third thing is that the person, the people who are operating these systems don't have the same experience as everybody else.
04:28And so they're they're hard because they're disconnected.
04:31They're complex because of this, you know, complicated cybersecurity stack.
04:35And then the people operating them, the young airmen, the soldier, the prime contractor, they're not a Google engineer.
04:44And it turns out the Googles of the world built systems that favor and cater to, you know, Google type engineers.
04:51And that's not to discredit it. The technology is amazing.
04:54But you actually have to build something from the ground up that takes care of the air gap situation that actually has all the cybersecurity aspects and considerations in by default.
05:03And then thirdly, is actually built by design to support that soldier, to support that airman.
05:09And nothing else other than what defense unicorns offers does that today.
05:12And where, I mean, where is this operating system going to go? Right.
05:16Is it, is it going to go into operating the Sentinel threes and the B-21s and, you know, the stinger missile, you know, remote control thing that I have?
05:28Like what, like all of those things?
05:30Yeah. So don't want to list specific systems, but everything from fighter jets to nuclear submarines to, you know, everything that's a tank or plane or a cloud system.
05:44The smallest systems we work on is like small tactical drones.
05:48And then the largest systems that we work on are like enterprise platform solutions that are, you know, contributing and working with, you know, tens of thousands of users.
05:57One of the things kind of holding back the integration of this is a lot of the tech is based on Chinese specifications and as Chinese components in it.
06:07And so that there's no way can ever be, you know, accredited as being going into the DOD stuff because it's Chinese based.
06:15Is that accurate?
06:16Absolutely. A lot of people, when they think about supply chain security, they're looking at things like chips and suppliers that are feeding these hardware systems.
06:25On the software side, there's also as big of, if not a greater concern, which is who's actually writing this code.
06:32And so, of course, on the commercial side, you have some closed source solutions.
06:36But even on the open source side, you have open source solutions that could be 40, 50, 60 percent owned and maintained by by by people who are from and currently residing in nations that are not friendly to the US.
06:49And what's terrifying to us and has been really one of the motivators for some of the technologies we built, including our latest release of UDS registry, which literally just released a week ago, is building technology that is US based, that is US sourced, that has the ability to not just secure software, but under the hood is owned and maintained by US and US friendly allies.
07:13Right now that that's becoming a more and more greater concern.
07:17And what you see, you know, you brought up Sentinel as a good example.
07:20A lot of these programs are leveraging open source and those open source solutions.
07:24But they're finding out is under the hood.
07:26They might be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 percent Chinese maintained.
07:31Do we really want our nuclear arsenal 40, 50, 60 percent maintained by China?
07:37Absolutely not.
07:38Why is it taking so long for this kind of for you and defense unicorn?
07:44Like, why wasn't this happening 10 years ago, 20 years ago when, you know, when Al Gore invented the Internet?
07:51How come this wasn't a part of everything when when weapons were being developed?
07:56Yeah, I think I'll actually go back to the first problem we solved, which was an air gapped environment.
08:0330 years ago, every environment was air gapped.
08:07This wasn't a problem, you know.
08:09And if you look at society, like I said, you know, Netflix wasn't Netflix.
08:14They were mailing DVDs.
08:16And so the the persona of who manages your software, you know, 30 years ago, you did.
08:23You you bought it.
08:24You went to the store.
08:25You bought a CD.
08:26You plugged it into the device.
08:28You manage your own software.
08:30Right now we're we're running on software.
08:33There's, you know, a recording of us running on some platform.
08:36You don't run that.
08:37I don't run that.
08:38Somebody else is running that because the entire world has adopted a SaaS, you know, software type of experience to where somebody else is actually managing the IT operations of the system because it's more efficient.
08:51You don't have to worry about it.
08:52You don't have to do the updates yourself.
08:53Somebody else is doing that.
08:55When you go into the fence, you have an air gap network.
08:59You are running that yourself.
09:00Sometimes that's a soldier.
09:02Sometimes as a soldier deployed overseas, and sometimes they have a vulnerability in their system.
09:06Sometimes they have a latest software update that they have to manage and go through the rest of the world's not doing that there.
09:13They have centralized systems.
09:15You know, you obviously cover a ton of the, you know, defense news.
09:19You know, it is the centralized command and control and decentralized execution on software.
09:25It is all centrally managed.
09:27Everything is central and everything in defense is highly decentralized and highly distributable.
09:31So it's just fundamentally apples and oranges.
09:35And 30 years ago, this wasn't a problem because software, like you said, it was air gapped.
09:40It was highly distributable.
09:42Fast forward a couple of decades and the DoD is still treating software like it's a Microsoft operating system and like you're going to install it on a disk.
09:51And because of that, there's this huge mismatch between the technology that the smartest people in the world has developed and how the DoD actually needs to run its software.
10:03And in defense unicorns exists to make that amazing best in class world class software actually work in these environments.
10:13What's the risk if if you fail?
10:15What's the risk if this if if this kind of software, if this kind of initiative does not get adopted by the DoD?
10:22What's what's at stake?
10:24Yeah, I think I think it goes back to global competition.
10:27I think we continue to spend a ton of money in the defense budget and you're overall going to have to spend more for your software.
10:35You're going to have to spend more for the same results.
10:38If we are successful, you're going to have to spend less quote per unit of software, which allows you to become more mission effective.
10:46So I think it goes back to global competition.
10:48I think it becomes harder to compete with China.
10:50China doesn't have a problem integrating, you know, their tech startups that are making AI capabilities.
10:56Those are direct injecting into the military pretty quickly.
10:59If we're successful, the entire nation can inject technology into the defense systems.
11:04If we're not, then there's going to be this one or two or three year delay.
11:08If you follow how rapidly AI has changed in the last three years.
11:12Imagine going to combat to where, you know, somebody is running with the latest version of AI from their latest LLM and you're still running on something three years old.
11:21That's, you know, in our opinion, that's a losing proposition.
11:25A big thank you to Rob and his team for making some time for us.
11:30As we were wrapping things up, Rob told me ultimately it comes down to this.
11:34To effectively compete with China, the Department of Defense needs to adopt uniform data systems or something similar,
11:42putting an emphasis on the need for a cohesive strategy that will allow senior military leadership to respond effectively to those external threats.
11:52All right, joined now by senior producer and Air Force veteran Brett Baker for some headlines that you may have missed.
12:00All right, Brett, before we dive into all of this stuff, I want to kind of harken back a little bit to your time in the Air Force.
12:06And obviously, we just got done watching that story about all the tech that the Air Force and military as a whole is needed.
12:13Back in your time, did you or your, you know, your fellow airmen ever foresee the military getting so techie?
12:20You know, I can remember the day when I was at Air Force Television News and we all got our first pagers.
12:28And that was like a big deal. Like we got pagers. This is pretty cool.
12:32I was raised to think only drug dealers had pagers, but whatever.
12:36Well, so did the American military.
12:39And, you know, when we went to non-linear editing, digital editing, it was a big deal.
12:45So you could see the path.
12:47I don't think any of us could have predicted what the world was going to be like in that regard.
12:53I mean, I was I got at 99 so that you're still talking before wide access to cell phones and Wi-Fi and all that cool stuff.
13:01Yeah.
13:02So I, you know, I couldn't have predicted it for sure.
13:05I'm sure others could have.
13:07But like I said, we were just stoked to get pagers.
13:09Good times.
13:11All right. Well, this is the headline segment.
13:13So let's go ahead and get to it.
13:15Earlier this month, the United States deployed the USS Higgins, a guided missile destroyer and USS Cincinnati, a littoral combat ship to uphold freedom of navigation in a disputed South China Sea shoal, where two Chinese Navy and Coast Guard ships collided while trying to drive away a smaller Philippine ship in a high seas accident that was all captured on camera.
13:43Video made available by the Philippine Coast Guard shows the Chinese Coast Guard ship blasting its water cannon shortly before it was hit by the speeding Chinese Navy vessel.
13:55The Chinese Navy ship sustained deep dents and what appeared to be linear gashes on its hull.
14:02The bow of the Coast Guard craft was smashed in as the world's largest Navy in terms of hull count.
14:10But they might not hold that title for too much longer if they keep doing stuff like this.
14:15You know, it's kind of a wonder this hasn't happened before.
14:19If you've watched any of these videos, they are extremely aggressive, which is part of the point when you're a bully trying to bully a smaller force.
14:29And this time it bit them. Yeah.
14:32And, you know, I can't say I'm sorry to see it.
14:35I have to think those guys in the Philippine ship that were trying to steam out of their way.
14:39We're very glad to see it.
14:41But yeah, it's it's just recklessness for the sake of intimidation.
14:46And, you know, we may see more of it.
14:50I'm sure somebody got in a lot of trouble for that or somebody's.
14:55I would imagine the captains of both the Chinese Coast Guard vessel and the Chinese Navy vessel probably maybe never heard from again.
15:05But yeah, you're right. It's it's aggressiveness.
15:08And when a bully, you know, takes a swing and falls down, everybody laughs.
15:12The US Air Force has decided to deny early retirement options for transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of service.
15:24Instead, they are being separated without retirement benefits.
15:28The decision means transgender service members must choose between a lump sum separation payment or leaving the service without benefits.
15:37An Air Force spokesperson confirmed that no exceptions to this policy were approved despite previous notifications to some members.
15:46All transgender members are being separated under the Trump administration's policies.
15:52Right. You were in the Air Force.
15:54You still have some friends that are probably still serving.
15:57Have you ever heard of anything like this active duty service members being forced out potentially without the benefits that they spent, you know, almost two decades earning?
16:07For sure.
16:08No, nothing.
16:09I've never heard of anything like this.
16:11I mean, an early retirement is usually something that comes along because maybe the position gets eliminated, you know, that particular skill set or what have you is no longer needed.
16:21Divorcing ourselves from from the policy itself.
16:26I think it's a real disservice to to the folks who have served honorably for 15 years or more who likely would have gone because at a certain point you have to make that decision.
16:36Am I going to make this a career or I'm going to, you know, get in nine, 10 years?
16:40I got out a little less than 10 years.
16:42I think that's kind of like when you probably make that decision.
16:45So for these folks who have served honorably, obviously, to get to 15 years and we're talking about the numbers here, point two percent of America's military force, that's lower than the national average of point six percent folks who identify as transgender.
17:02So we're not we're talking about four thousand two hundred some odd people across the military, not just in the Air Force.
17:09So you're not talking about a lot of money that's going to be going out in terms of relative spending.
17:15So I think this is a stick in the eye when there's already a stick in another eye that they didn't need to pull the trigger on.
17:23Obviously, I have thoughts and feelings on why they probably did it, but I do think it's a real disservice to to those folks who have served honorably because you don't get to 15 years by being a schmuck.
17:37Right. You know, schmucks are usually out by then.
17:40So, yeah, this is this is not a good look.
17:44And I think it's a real a real poor decision.
17:46Regardless of how anybody feels about whether or not transgender people, you know, regardless of that argument, let's just put all of that aside.
17:57Some of these, you know, some of these members by taking the lump sum payment and not having the benefits, you know, if if they had an injury or they have some kind of medical thing that stems out of their service and they aren't able to get the treatment for that because they don't have their benefits.
18:14That lump sum payment probably is not going to be enough to cover a lot of medical costs.
18:22I know how expensive medical procedures are in the United States, so I have not served in the military, but I have to imagine that for the folks who have put in that time, it's this is a hard pill for them to swallow.
18:35The U.S. military achieved its first ever air to air drone kill using an armed first person view or FPV system marking a milestone in U.S. unmanned aerial combat.
18:50A Skyraider drone equipped with a Claymore mine intercepted and destroyed another unmanned aircraft in a simulated engagement at Fort Rucker, Alabama in early August.
19:01Brett, when you look at the conflicts in Ukraine or Gaza, it's obvious drone warfare, it's a major component.
19:08The U.S. military is trying to incorporate some new drone doctrine across the joint force.
19:13So this this is a good step along that path.
19:17For sure. And when when I saw the story originally, I shot a note to you and I'm like, is the first person view the thing that makes this history making?
19:25Yeah. And it is because obviously we have seen other drones.
19:30The Paladin comes to mind from the Air Force Research Lab.
19:32We've seen that take out other drones. And obviously we've seen other drones take out other drones and training exercises, what have you.
19:39Right. But to the first person view is is a big step.
19:43But also, this is something Ukraine's been doing now for more than two years, probably.
19:48So you can see how far behind the power curve we kind of are in this regard.
19:53So as long as we're moving forward, I think that's a good thing.
19:58It's crazy to think of a Claymore landmine being or a Claymore mine being taken along in the air.
20:06But hey, you know, if it works, it works.
20:08But yeah, that was that was interesting. And like I said, though, I think it does kind of show like we've got some ground that needs to be made up in a short time.
20:17That's true. That's true. I remember reporting, doing stories for Straight Arrow News when Ukraine first started putting Claymores on top of their FPV drones and like the the dragon's breath,
20:27like the drone that drops burning thermite on on positions.
20:32So Ukraine definitely doing a lot of drone innovation for sure.
20:36And they have the I forget the name of it off the top of my head, but there's like a drone innovation hub that Ukraine is operating to kind of teach the NATO allies.
20:46But it's not really a NATO ally, you know, teach Western countries all the drone doctrine that they've learned.
20:53But you're right. The U.S., they have some catching up to do.
20:56One thing that I found interesting when we were doing some of the research on this story, there was an officer who said, you know,
21:03the guys who make the best drone pilots are the ones who go play video games on the weekend.
21:08Like, yes, that makes perfect sense.
21:11Clearly, that is a transferable skill in this regard for sure.
21:14So, you know, the the the militaries of tomorrow, like if you're playing a bunch of Call of Duty right now,
21:21you might not know it, but you're, you know, could potentially be training for a career in the military.
21:27You don't know.
21:30Drones, they are everywhere, which means everyone in the U.S. military needs to find out ways to counter them.
21:36Joining me now to talk a little bit more about that is Matt McCran with Drone Shield U.S.
21:40Matt, thank you so much for joining us today for having me.
21:43So we have a couple of different pieces of equipment here.
21:46Radio, screen, a fancy looking rifle there.
21:50Kind of talk to me about how these help one, detect drones and then two, defeat drones.
21:55Sure.
21:56So what we do at Drone Shield, we do detection and defeat capabilities,
22:00and we tailor that for different missions or different use cases.
22:04What we have on display here is our dismounted or handheld solutions.
22:08So think about these capabilities is going to that tactical edge
22:11and providing situational awareness for the end user.
22:15What we have here is our RF patrol.
22:18It's completely passive RF detection, which means you detect and classify all the signals in your area
22:23without being detected yourself.
22:25With this information, you can identify if there are rogue drones
22:31or potential adversary drones in your area and then move into a response posture.
22:36So, and that's where the drone gun, Mark IV, comes into play.
22:40So it's a familiar form factor for many tactical operators.
22:45And it's really meant to be a point-and-shoot capability that's highly accurate up to one kilometer of range.
22:52So it allows soldiers and operators to be completely self-sufficient with situational awareness
22:58and defense capabilities at the tactical edge.
23:01And, Matt, when we're talking about the tactical edge, oftentimes that means putting something on a vehicle and being mobile, right?
23:08And this does both of that?
23:10Yes.
23:10So this is our Drone Century X Mark II.
23:13And this is meant to be mounted to commercial vehicles, military vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, and even vessels.
23:20And what it provides is that situational awareness that we saw for the dismounted equipment for a broader area and for on-the-move capabilities.
23:29So now we're seeing potentially out to 10 kilometers, 360 degrees, hemispheric, wherever the operators go.
23:37So it detects out to 10 kilometers.
23:39We were talking a little bit earlier.
23:41It's part of the secret sauce about where it's effective to, though, right?
23:44Yes.
23:45So we're pretty conservative in what we publish as far as ranges for OPSEC reasons.
23:52As far as, you know, the weight of this thing, is this – I mean, I'm not going to pick it up right now,
23:57but when you say it can be installed on vehicles, is it something that requires a crane,
24:01or can a couple of guys in an expeditionary role, you know, install us on whatever vehicle they need?
24:06Yeah, so one to two guys can take this from a vehicle and then pop it up in the configuration that we have here.
24:12So that's really important because this is a capability that moves and adapts with the operators as they move and adapt with the mission.
24:20So something that can go on-the-move on a vehicle can now be a stationary or rapid-deployable system providing fixed-site capabilities in the field.
24:30All right. Matt, I want to thank you for your time today.
24:32Thank you so much for joining us on Weapons and Warfare.
24:36Time for Coms Check, and this week we're doing what you're never supposed to do.
24:40We are reading the comments, specifically from a story from YouTube that we had done a little while ago
24:47about the Army modernizing its sea lift capacity.
24:50Hindi 475 writes,
24:53I saw in a previous report from one of the military manufacturer shows,
24:58there's a company looking to repurpose self-propelled drill platforms.
25:02These things are being offered up on a hospital platform submarine tender,
25:07rather, ship maintenance and replenishment.
25:09I just wanted to see if it was something that you could look into, possibly do a story on it.
25:13I found it very interesting, and I'd like to know if there is any actual movement.
25:17Well, Hindi 475, this is a great question.
25:21For those unfamiliar, the project Hindi is referring to is the Mobile Defense Depot Platform, or MoDEP.
25:28It's a concept created by Gibbs & Cox, a subsidiary of the defense and aviation group Leidos.
25:35It was a pretty popular topic coming out of the Navy League's Sea Airspace 2024 event,
25:41and was covered by a number of industry media outlets.
25:45Since then, though, there hasn't been a lot said about it.
25:48That's not necessarily uncommon.
25:50Sometimes these things can take years to get momentum.
25:54In fact, this video about the project was uploaded to the Leidos YouTube channel just this past June.
26:00So it's possible there is some traction to this.
26:02Unfortunately, as we are recording this segment, we don't have any more of an update than that.
26:08We do have questions out to Leidos Naval Systems Command and Gibbs & Cox.
26:13And as soon as we hear something, we will let you know.
26:20All opinions expressed in this segment are solely the opinions of the contributors.
26:24All right, that's going to just about do it for us this week at Weapons & Warfare.
26:28Hopefully you learned something, and hey, maybe your friends can too, right?
26:32So be sure to like and subscribe to our social media feeds,
26:35download the Straight Arrow News app, and share our content today.
26:40For my wrap this week, I want to talk about the potential dangers of outdated thinking.
26:45And sticking with the viewer comments theme from the last segment,
26:49the idea for this wrap came to me after I saw a recurring critique
26:53in a story we recently turned for Straight Arrow News.
26:56It's about a new unmanned surface vessel the U.S. Navy is getting called Defiant.
27:02I started the story off by saying,
27:04The United States Navy is not the world's largest maritime force.
27:08China's People's Liberation Army Navy now holds that honor.
27:12Which is a fact.
27:14By whole count, China has more boats than the U.S.
27:17Does it mean all of the Chinese boats are as big and bad as the U.S. Navy's?
27:21No, but China has more boats.
27:25A lot of folks take that as some kind of personal indictment on the U.S. Navy's power.
27:30It's not.
27:31It has more supercarriers than anyone by a long shot.
27:35America's nuclear-powered submarines are the envy of the world.
27:38The power of Aegis combat destroyers is mind-boggling.
27:42But this is 2025, not 2005.
27:46And modern tech means the Navy, and the U.S. DoD as a whole,
27:52cannot afford to be hamstrung by outdated thinking.
27:56Russia has a good-sized Navy.
27:58It used to be a lot bigger three and a half years ago,
28:01before Ukraine, a country with no Navy,
28:05took out around a third of Russia's Black Sea fleet with smaller drone boats,
28:10forcing the Kremlin to relocate what was left.
28:13The U.S. Navy saw that, and it just confirmed what they already knew.
28:18It's best to not put too many eggs in one basket.
28:23Supercarriers are amazing,
28:25but they can't launch any planes from the bottom of the ocean.
28:29Cheap weapons can and do destroy much more powerful and expensive systems in modern combat.
28:35So, when I read comments that say things like,
28:39Yeah, but China says every fishing vessel is a part of its Navy.
28:44Okay, does that fishing vessel carry missiles?
28:47Can those missiles sink our boats?
28:50Because if 100 crappy boats can shoot 10 missiles apiece,
28:54suddenly there's a thousand high-powered dilemmas flying our way.
28:58And even if our boats stop most of those missiles,
29:03if any get through,
29:05someone on our side is going to have a bad day.
29:09So, do you see where this is going?
29:12Dear viewers, yes,
29:13the U.S. Navy might have more powerful ships,
29:16but in a high-end fight with China,
29:18it won't be enough.
29:20And you don't even have to take my word for it.
29:22Just look at the billions Congress approved
29:24to fund even more development of smaller, unmanned systems like the Defiant.
29:31For senior producer Brett Baker,
29:33video editor Brian Spencer,
29:34and motion designer Dakota Patio,
29:36I'm Ryan Robertson with Straight Arrow News, signing off.
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