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The July 2025 OODA Network meeting featured an in-depth discussion of the accelerating convergence of AI, counter-drone defense, cybersecurity, and geopolitical instability, shaped by member insights and real-world operational experience.
The Center for a New American Security’s report “Swarms over the Strait: Drone Warfare in a Future Fight to Defend Taiwan” argues that drones will play a pivotal but insufficient role in a future U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. The United States risks ceding critical battlespace in the Indo-Pacific unless it rapidly fields scalable small drone…
Recent discussions in the network have given rise to an understanding of a significant aspect of the Counter-Drone mission that require solutions not being addressed today.
100% of the topics in America’s AI Action Plan will be familiar to OODA network members. They are issues frequently discussed in our network meetings and issues that have been examined for years in our research and reporting. This should give you an advantage. You are poised to act fast and shift your business strategy…
Russia is advancing a hybrid warfare strategy that fuses the weaponization of displacement, strategic dependencies, and paramilitary proxies in Africa to undermine Western influence, extract resources, and create instability. A new RAND report, Russian Mercenary and Paramilitary Groups in Africa, provides detailed insight into this evolving threat vector—one that fuels regional violence, refugee flows, and…
The AI Futures Project’s “AI 2027” paints a detailed and unsettling forecast for the arrival of artificial superintelligence by the end of the decade. Co-authored by AI forecasters – including ex-OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, and others. It presents two diverging scenario pathways, “Race” and “Slowdown”, each rooted in plausible technological, geopolitical, and institutional…
Emerging technologies like generative AI and machine learning are transforming traditional conflict simulation and peacebuilding processes. By integrating these tools into wargaming and war termination modeling, analysts can generate more inclusive, cost-effective, and dynamic scenarios—reshaping how strategic decisions are made in conflict zones such as Ukraine.
The advent of artificial intelligence has correctly ushered in concerns over its abuse by hostile threat actors to leverage the technology to enhance the speed of their attacks and further advance the efficacy of their operations.
In an era defined by chaotic signals and unprecedented volatility, Steven Weber’s “Scenario Planning Amid Radical Uncertainty” (MIT Sloan Management Review, July 2025) urges decision-makers to abandon false certainty and embrace expansive scenario planning. His guidance is rooted in decades of advising governments and companies facing deeply unpredictable environments.
The term “Post Labor Economy” is used to describe the point where human labor is no longer central to production and value creation.
The many revelations from neuroscience hold promise that organizations that depend on human analysis can take action to improve the cognitive performance of their workforce.
A long running discussion among the OODA Network is how the dynamics around AI job displacement will play out. Thriving in a Post Labor Economy of AI and Automation has been a topic discussed at our annual OODAcon, many of our monthly member sessions and an ongoing thread in our Slack where real practitioners and…
The Secure World Foundation’s 2025 report on global counterspace capabilities reveals a rapidly escalating arms race in orbit, with 12 nations actively developing technologies to disrupt or destroy satellites. This comes as the U.S. accelerates its vision for a “Golden Dome for America”—a proliferated constellation of space-based interceptors discussed in detail at the April 2025…
A soft whirring cut through the still morning air above a quiet corner of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility as a Skydio X10D drone rose into the air, gliding smoothly toward the bright blue Hawaiian sky on June 18, 2025. This marked the beginning of a special project with the Naval Information…
Torrential rains lashed southern Taiwan for a second day on Tuesday forcing some 3,000 people to evacuate and businesses and schools to close, as authorities warned of “intense” rainfall of up to 90 centimetres (35.4 inches) in the coming days. Flooding triggered by a depression has submerged streets and buildings in several towns and villages…
Four people have been killed and more than 500 arrested during two days of protests in the Angolan capital of Luanda sparked by a rise in fuel prices, police said Tuesday. The protests erupted Monday over the government’s decision earlier this month to raise the price of diesel by more than 30%, which resulted in…
Deep in an industrial wasteland on the eastern bank of the Nile stand three unremarkable, half-finished buildings surrounded by a minefield. For months, nearby residents were warned by paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters to stay away from this walled compound. A glance inside reveals why: machines and chemical products that the Sudanese authorities say…
Turkey has developed two of its most advanced aircraft bombs, showcasing significant improvements in its military strike capabilities. The Gazap (Wrath) and Hayalet (Ghost) bombs have been developed by the NATO nation’s National Defence Ministry’s Research and Development (R&D) Centre and were unveiled at the 17th International Defence Industry Fair. The Gazap, which weighs 970…
New talks between North Korea and the United States are possible if Washington drops its demand that Pyongyang rid itself of nuclear weapons, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister suggested in a statement released by state media Tuesday. Kim Yo Jong said the relationship between her brother and US President Donald Trump “is not bad,” according…
Torrential rains in Beijing and surrounding areas led to the deaths of at least 34 people as severe downpours set off flooding and landslides that trapped residents in their villages and prompted China’s leader to order “all-out” rescue efforts. The Chinese state broadcaster, CCTV, said on Tuesday that 28 people had died in Miyun, a…
Nvidia placed orders for 300,000 H20 chipsets with contract manufacturer TSMC last week, two sources said, with one of them adding that strong Chinese demand had led the U.S. firm to change its mind about just relying on its existing stockpile. The Trump administration this month allowed Nvidia to resume sales of H20 graphics processing…
The European Union is the world’s second-largest economy in terms of GDP, but when it comes to its place on the AI market, its position is by far not as strong. To catch up with the U.S. and China, the bloc is launching a $30 billion initiative to build a network of high-capacity data centers…
Cash App is going on the offensive in peer-to-peer payments. The Block-owned payments platform on Tuesday unveiled Pools, a new peer-to-peer feature designed to make group payments simple. It’s the company’s first major P2P product launch in nearly two years. “This is the first time we’re going into out-of-network payments with Pools,” said Owen Jennings,…
Bank of America could be setting a new high bar for bullishness when it comes to quantum computing. Analysts at the financial institution, in a recent note to investors, compared the rising technology to humanity’s very first groundbreaking innovation. “This could be the biggest revolution for humanity since discovering fire,” the financial institution wrote. “A…
Serving craft beer, playing mahjong, stacking shelves and boxing, the dozens of humanoid robots at Shanghai’s World AI Conference (WAIC) this weekend were embodiments of China’s growing AI prowess and ambition. The annual event is primed at showcasing China’s progress in the ever-evolving field of artificial intelligence, with the government aiming to position the country…
Artificial intelligence models can secretly transmit dangerous inclinations to one another like a contagion, a recent study found. Experiments showed that an AI model that’s training other models can pass along everything from innocent preferences — like a love for owls — to harmful ideologies, such as calls for murder or even the elimination of…
What do you hire a 22-year-old college graduate for these days? For a growing number of bosses, the answer is not much—AI can do the work instead. At Chicago recruiting firm Hirewell, marketing agency clients have all but stopped requesting entry-level staff—young grads once in high demand but whose work is now a “home run”…
ADF fighters stormed Komanda church during midnight vigil At 1 a.m. Sunday, Islamic State-aligned ADF rebels attacked a Catholic church in Komanda, killing 38 worshippers and five nearby villagers. Federal and local forces withdrew before the assault, enabling the militants to seize the town. The attack highlights the ADF’s growing influence in the region as…
Three suspected militants killed in Dachigam forest firefight Indian troops killed three suspected militants in a forested area of Dachigam during a joint army, paramilitary, and police operation northeast of Srinagar. Officials provided few details, and the Associated Press was unable to independently confirm their account. Kashmir remains divided between India and Pakistan, with an…
Haiti plans to send 400 police officers for foreign training The government plans to send 400 police officers to Brazil next month for training amid rising gang violence. Fritz Alphonse Jean said Haiti has about 10,000 police and 1,300 soldiers for nearly 12 million people. A total of 700 police and soldiers will undergo foreign…
Houthis to target ships trading with Israeli ports Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they will target merchant vessels of any company trading with Israeli ports as a new operational phase against Israel. They began a Red Sea campaign by disrupting shipping and sinking two bulk carriers earlier this month, causing crew deaths and captives. The group…
Cyberattack grounds Aeroflot flights, hackers claim breach A cyberattack on Russia’s state carrier Aeroflot caused a mass outage in its computer systems, forcing the cancellation of over 100 flights and widespread delays. Ukrainian hacker group Silent Crow and the Belarus Cyber-Partisans claimed responsibility, calling it one of the most disruptive attacks on Russia since early…
Scattered Spider hijacks VMware hypervisors via social engineering Scattered Spider has shifted its operations to target VMware vSphere environments, gaining full control of ESXi hypervisors and the vCenter Server Appliance. Google’s Threat Intelligence Group has outlined a five-phase attack chain that moves from initial access and reconnaissance to hypervisor heist, backup sabotage, and ransomware execution…
Crypto hack losses surpass 2024; laundering in seconds Eight months into 2025, total losses from crypto hacks have already surpassed last year’s total. Global Ledger reports attackers launder stolen funds with unprecedented speed; fund movements occurred in as little as four seconds, one case was fully cleaned in 2 minutes 57 seconds, and nearly a…
Flirty German emails deploy targeted malware payload German speakers have been targeted with emails promising explicit content that use Keitaro TDS to redirect them to malicious domains. The system checks the recipient’s IP address and, if it locates them in Germany, automatically downloads a 300 MB ISO file from a server in Russia. When the…
Every month Neros Inc makes hundreds of drones designed to drop warheads on adversaries. By the end of the year, the company wants its new Southern California factory to crank out 10,000 per month. Never mind that Neros only has orders for 36,000 of them for Ukraine. “If we wait until a buyer comes knocking…
Firefighters battled on Monday to put out wildfires in three separate provinces of Turkey, in Greece and near a tourist resort in Albania, stoked by strong winds after days of searing heat across the Mediterranean region.Smoke billowed over the mountainous Black Sea province of Karabuk, 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the capital Ankara, as…
Islamic State-backed rebels attacked a Catholic church in eastern Congo on Sunday, killing at least 34 people, according to a local civil society leader. Dieudonne Duranthabo, a civil society coordinator in Komanda, in the Ituri province, told The Associated Press that the attackers stormed the church in Komanda town at around 1 a.m. Several houses…
Heavy rain and flooding in northern China have killed four people while several others remain missing, officials said Monday, as the region including the capital, Beijing, braced for more rainfall overnight. The victims were caught in a landslide in a rural part of Luanping county in Hebei province near Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV.…
A gunman shot and killed five people at a popular fresh food market in the Thai capital on Monday before killing himself, police said, attributing the shooting to a personal grudge. The victims included four security guards at the Or Tor Kor market in northern Bangkok, according to a police statement. It said a vendor…
Severe overnight floods in eastern Romania killed three elderly people and damaged thousands of homes, with hundreds of people evacuated and four helicopters searching for stranded villagers, officials said on Monday. Some 25 villages across nine counties were affected by heavy rain and high winds, which tore off roofs and uprooted trees, blocking traffic on…
As Defence Minister Rajnath Singh began the Operation Sindoor debate in Parliament, security forces scored a massive win today by gunning down three Pakistani terrorists in an encounter near Srinagar, two of them involved in the Pahalgam attack in which 26 innocents were murdered in cold blood. Suleiman Shah, a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, was identified as…
Cambodia and Thailand agreed to an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” from midnight (1700 GMT) on Monday, in a bid to halt their deadliest conflict in more than a decade after five days of fierce fighting that has displaced more than 300,000 people. After days of efforts by Malaysia, chair of the ASEAN regional bloc, the…
The US has frozen restrictions on technology exports to China to avoid hurting trade talks with Beijing and help President Donald Trump secure a meeting with President Xi Jinping this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The commerce department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which runs export controls, has been told in recent…
A phase 3 trial of Celcuity’s breast cancer combination has hit its primary endpoints, blasting past the biotech’s bar for success to tee up a filing for FDA approval in the fourth quarter. The study tested doublet and triplet combinations of Celcuity’s gedatolisib, a PI3K and mTOR inhibitor, as second-line treatments for PIK3CA wild-type breast…
From lumbering six-foot machines to nimble back-flipping dogs, robots lorded over China’s most important annual AI conference in Shanghai this week. Thousands turned up to gawk at the antics of a bewildering array of droids at work: dispensing popcorn and drinks (messily), peeling eggs, sparring in a boxing ring, playing mahjong or just wandering around…
Scientists have achieved the lowest quantum computing error rate ever recorded — an important step in solving the fundamental challenges on the way to practical, utility-scale quantum computers. In research published June 12 in the journal APS Physical Review Letters, the scientists demonstrated a quantum error rate of 0.000015%, which equates to one error per…
Imagine a future where we share our world with walking, talking humanoid robots. It’s not hard; we’ve all seen it in science fiction. But could it be just around the corner? Well, a report recently published by Morgan Stanley suggests that it could be less than 10 years before millions of them are working alongside…
PayPal Holdings Inc. will soon allow businesses to accept more than one hundred cryptocurrencies at checkout. The option is going live in the coming weeks and will allow merchants to accept crypto such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, from wallets including Coinbase, OKX, Phantom, MetaMask and Exodus. When a consumer pays with…
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the U.S. automaker had signed a $16.5 billion deal to source chips from Samsung Electronics , a move expected to bolster the South Korean tech giant’s loss-making contract manufacturing business. Samsung shares soared nearly 7% after news of the deal on Monday which comes as the world’s top memory chip…
Wildfires threaten Bursa, Balkans amid record heat. Drought, record heat, and strong winds have created wildfires across Turkey, threatening Bursa’s eastern suburbs, scorching over 3,000 hectares, and closing the Ankara highway. More than 1,900 firefighters battled the flames, evacuating 3,515 residents, resulting in two deaths, including a firefighter’s fatal heart attack. Greece, Bulgaria, and Montenegro…
ASEAN chair hosts US- and China-backed ceasefire bid. Acting Thai PM Phumtham Wechayachai and Cambodian PM Hun Manet will meet on Monday in Kuala Lumpur at Malaysia’s invitation to end border clashes. The talks, co-organized by the U.S. with China’s participation, follow President Trump’s warning to stall trade deals if fighting continued. Both sides say…
Rights groups decry executions amidst torture allegations. Iran hanged two Mujahedeen-e-Khalq members after convicting them of mortar attacks on homes, schools, and government buildings. Rights group Amnesty International and the MEK say both men endured torture, beatings, and prolonged solitary confinement without legal counsel. Officials charged them with waging war against the state, sabotage, and…
Al-Shabab overhauls government defenses in Mahaas. Al-Shabab fighters stormed the central town of Mahaas after detonating suicide bombs and unleashing heavy gunfire. Federal troops and allied Ma’awisley militias withdrew, ceding control to the extremist group. The takeover underscores al-Shabab’s resilience despite sustained Somali offensives and US airstrikes. Its fall raises serious questions about force coordination…
UK student jailed for selling over 1,000 phishing kits. Ollie Holman, a 21-year-old student from Eastcote, was sentenced to seven years for creating and selling 1,052 phishing kits that defrauded victims in 24 countries and caused over £100 million in losses. He used Telegram to distribute the kits, provide technical support, and continue operations after…
LG Cameras Unprotected Against Critical Exploit LG Innotek LNV5110R security cameras suffer a high-severity authentication bypass flaw that permits unauthenticated remote code execution with full administrative privileges. The model is end of life, so no patch will be released, leaving roughly 1,300 internet-exposed units at risk. Attackers can upload reverse shells, hijack live streams, execute…
AI appears to have powered the development of the Koske malware. Koske is a Linux cryptomining threat that leverages AI-generated, modular code and stealthy polyglot JPEG payloads to avoid detection. It spreads via misconfigured JupyterLab instances, installs backdoors, and unpacks shellcode and a rootkit hidden inside Panda images. The malware selects CPU- or GPU-based miners…
User images exposed in a data breach at Tea app. Tea Dating Advice suffered a breach that exposed about 72,000 images, including 13,000 verification selfies and photo IDs, plus 59,000 photos from posts, comments, and direct messages. The incident affected users who registered before February 2024, and the exposed Firebase database was reportedly discovered via…
In an era defined by geopolitical uncertainty and the urgent need to modernize industrial capabilities, Silicon Valley has emerged as an unlikely yet indispensable force in the reimagining of national security. The recent $4 billion surge into defense technology—a figure projected to balloon to $12 billion by year-end—signals a seismic shift in how innovation is…
The Islamist movement toppled in Sudan’s uprising in 2019 could support an extended period of army rule as it eyes a political comeback after deploying fighters in the country’s war, according to some of its leading members. In his first media interview in years, Ahmed Haroun, chairman of the former ruling National Congress Party (NCP)…
Unidentified gunmen in Nigeria’s restive Plateau state killed 14 people in an ambush Thursday as they returned home from a weekly market, local residents and a Red Cross official told AFP. The north-central state has long been gripped by conflicts over dwindling land and attacks by armed gangs known as “bandits”, mostly across rural areas…
The roof of a government middle school building collapsed Friday in India’s western state of Rajasthan, killing seven children and injuring at least 21, a senior police official said. The collapse occurred soon after the students had reached their classrooms and were about to start the school assembly, said police official Amit Kumar. It is…
American forces killed an Islamic State group leader in a raid in Syria’s Aleppo province on Friday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said. The raid resulted “in the death of senior ISIS leader, Dhiya Zawba Muslih al-Hardani, and his two adult ISIS-affiliated sons,” CENTCOM said in a statement, using an acronym for the jihadist…
A tropical storm was blowing across the Philippines’ mountainous north Friday, worsening more than a week of bad weather that has caused at least 25 deaths and prompted evacuations in villages hit by flooding and landslides. The storm was Typhoon Co-may when it blew Thursday night into the town of Agno in Pangasinan province with…
Thailand’s leader has warned that clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, which have killed at least 16 people and displaced tens of thousands in both countries, could “move towards war”. Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai added that the fighting now included heavy weapons and had spread to 12 locations along the border. Thailand also accused Cambodia…
China is experiencing an outbreak of chikungunya, a mosquito-borne infection, with thousands of cases reported in the south. Chikungunya fever cases jumped to 4,014 on Friday, representing a rapid rise in numbers since authorities started tracking cases two weeks ago, according to public records released by health departments in districts in Foshan. The city in…
Earlier this year, I heard that Microsoft engineers were preparing server capacity for OpenAI’s next-generation GPT-5 model, arriving as soon as late May. After some additional testing and delays, sources familiar with OpenAI’s plans tell me that GPT-5 is now expected to launch as early as next month. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed on…
Aidoc, an AI company that helps medical teams make real-time clinical decisions, has raised $150 million at a valuation higher than its previous round, bringing its total funding to $370 million to date. The latest funding round marks a significant milestone for the company, with NVentures, NVIDIA’s investment arm, joining as an investor for the…
Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s AI CEO, has a vision of Copilot that involves it being so highly personalized that “it will age.” Microsoft has been increasingly pushing Copilot to be a personalized AI assistant, with a big redesign last year that included a conversational voice mode. Now, Suleyman’s Microsoft AI team is launching a new Copilot…
In the race toward practical quantum computers and networks, photons — fundamental particles of light — hold intriguing possibilities as fast carriers of information at room temperature. Photons are typically controlled and coaxed into quantum states via waveguides on extended microchips, or through bulky devices built from lenses, mirrors, and beam splitters. The photons become…
Unitree Robotics, which is gearing up for an initial public offering (IPO), unveiled its R1 humanoid model priced from 39,999 yuan (US$5,900), making it affordable for individual developers and consumers. Marketed as “born for sport”, the R1 was seen doing a cartwheel, walking on its “hands”, throwing a punch, lying down then standing up, and…
AI-powered coding tools have become so popular over the past few months that almost every major tech company is either using one or making its own. Makers of these so-called “vibe-coding” tools are a hot commodity at the moment, with startups like Lovable and Cursor fending off buyers and investors keen to tap a hot…
Ever since the discovery of alchemy, or since humans thought gold was a precious object, a worldwide quest to turn common elements into the yellow metal has been ongoing. Folklore and fables sing praises of humans who went on this quest and those who received such blessings. No such claims have yet stood the test…
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