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In 1932, Rear Admiral Harry E. Yarnell led a naval exercise that should have changed history. Commanding aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Saratoga, Yarnell’s planes successfully executed a simulated attack on Pearl Harbor, dropping flour sacks to represent bombs. Despite this clear demonstration of vulnerability, military leadership disqualified the results, deeming them unrealistic. Nine…
Many OODA Network Members also participate in the community of practice created by the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), which convenes this week in Washington, D.C., for the SCSP AI Expo and Ash Carter Exchange 2025. This post is a compilation of OODA Loop research, which includes references to SCSP research, researchers, and events, as…
A fascinating discussion is underway in the Artificial Intelligence channel of our slack workspace.
Amid drone strikes, shifting alliances, and unconventional diplomacy, Ukrainian Economist Alexandra Vacroux recently outlined four core scenarios for Ukraine’s future—each shaped by battlefield realities, global power dynamics, and long-term economic resilience.
apan has been a frequent target of both cybercriminals as well as nation state actors that have targeted its critical infrastructure as well as private sector with a variety of attacks that have ranged from DDoS attacks, data breaches, and state-led cyber espionage campaigns.
The May 2025 OODA Network meeting delivered a comprehensive analysis of the cyber and national security technology landscape, drawing from recent network member attendance at major conferences including RSA, the In-Q-Tel CEO Summit, and SOF Week. OODA Network members on the monthly call surfaced major trends in AI, cybersecurity, defense tech, and geopolitical influence.
Melissa Flagg argues that America’s innovation system, still guided by the frameworks established by Vannevar Bush in 1945, is failing to address the most pressing challenges of the 21st century. She calls for a fundamental reassessment of the research funding landscape, focusing not on nostalgia for past successes but on forging new connections between research,…
Experts on AI and Chinese technology policy, writing for Just Security recently, pulled the string on the AI Diffusion framework we have laid out here at OODA Loop in recent posts. Their discussion points are compelling and worth a review. We provide a summary and analysis here.
The global AI boom has triggered an unprecedented investment wave—nearly $7 trillion by 2030—to scale data centers that fuel artificial intelligence, sparking intense competition, uncertainty, and strategic risk across industries. An April 2025 report from McKinsey quantifies the monumental stakes and capital requirements to meet surging AI compute demands. The insights from the report are…
As reported by the Financial Times, the convergence of trade wars, geopolitical instability, and disruptive technologies is straining traditional scenario planning methods, forcing organizations to rethink their models for an increasingly volatile and ambiguous future. OODA Loop has been grappling with these issues for a while, which we capture in a compilation of our recent…
US chip and IT supply chains face a new era of embedded risk and legislative scrutiny, with the Chip Security Act seeking to secure on-chip supply chains against adversarial threats.
We have been on this beat for a while: as the convergence of AI chip security, zero-trust architectures, and supply chain resilience began to reshape national security imperatives, demanding a shift toward hardware-native, verifiable security models. The following post is a compilation of our tracking and analysis to date.
Late last year, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released the Drone Proliferation Dataset, offering a comprehensive overview of military-grade drone transfers from 1995 to September 2023. This dataset highlights a significant shift in global drone dynamics, with emerging players like Turkey, China, and Iran challenging the longstanding dominance of the U.S. and…
Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic’s yearly revenue has reportedly reached $4 billion. That’s according to a report Tuesday (July 1) from The Information, citing sources familiar with the company’s finances. The report puts it in the context of other developments surrounding the company, namely the news that Anysphere, maker of AI-powered coding app Cursor, had…
Apple Inc. is considering using artificial intelligence technology from Anthropic PBC or OpenAI to power a new version of Siri, sidelining its own in-house models in a potentially blockbuster move aimed at turning around its flailing AI effort. The iPhone maker has talked with both companies about using their large language models for Siri, according…
At least three killed in protests demanding the President’s resignation amid constitutional changes. Protests have arisen in Lomé following constitutional amendments that allow President Faure Gnassingbé to assume a role without term limits. Amnesty International confirmed three protest-related deaths in the Bè neighborhood, while civil society groups reported allegations of excessive force by security personnel.…
Ex-Vice President Glas receives 13-year term in quake-aid corruption case amid embassy raid fallout. Jorge Glas received a 13-year prison sentence for misusing public funds meant for earthquake reconstruction and was barred from holding public office. He had been detained in April 2024 when Ecuadorian police stormed Mexico’s embassy in Quito shortly after he was…
Thailand’s Constitutional Court suspends Paetongtarn Shinawatra over a leaked Cambodia diplomacy call. Thailand’s Constitutional Court suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra pending an investigation into a leaked phone call with Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen. A petition by 36 senators alleges the call breached constitutional and ethical rules, and protest groups have demanded her resignation. Deputy…
Azerbaijan detains seven Sputnik staff amid deepening tensions with Moscow Azerbaijani police raided the Baku offices of Sputnik Azerbaijan and detained seven employees, including the editor-in-chief and editorial director, after accusing the outlet of operating on “illegal financing.” The two face charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, and running an illegal enterprise, and…
Microsens NMP Web+ vulnerabilities allow unauthenticated remote control. CISA alerted that Microsens’s NMP Web+ network management platform in versions 3.2.5 and earlier contains two critical and one high-severity flaw, enabling attackers to forge JSON Web Tokens, bypass authentication, and execute arbitrary code. Researchers demonstrated that chaining the authentication bypass and path-traversal bugs delivers full operating-system…
New policy shift gives website owners greater control over how their content is accessed by AI models. Cloudflare changed its policy to block AI crawlers by default, requiring website owners to grant explicit permission before AI vendors can scrape content. The update lets publishers approve or deny access based on purpose—training, inference, or search—and set…
Esse Health restores systems and provides free identity protection to patients affected by data breaches. In April 2025, Esse Health detected a network breach that took its electronic medical records and phone systems offline, leading to the theft of files containing names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, medical record numbers, health information, and insurance…
Diagnostic Orchestrator surpasses doctors in accuracy while lowering testing expenses. Microsoft’s AI Diagnostic Orchestrator, built on OpenAI’s o3 model, correctly solved 85.5% of 304 challenging NEJM case studies versus 20% accuracy by physicians. The system reduced overall diagnostic costs compared to both doctors and standalone AI models by iteratively generating hypotheses and ordering targeted tests.…
The U.S. Army has confirmed it will move the Blackbeard Ground Launch (GL) hypersonic strike weapon into its Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase, allocating $25 million under Project HX3 in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget. This funding supports continued integration of the missile into the widely deployed High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), marking…
Dozens of militants armed with guns and rockets stormed a police station and set fire to two banks in restive southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing a boy and wounding nine others before fleeing, officials said. The boy died when the attackers fired on civilians indiscriminately during the attacks in Mastung, a district in Balochistan province,…
Food aid to help Sudanese refugees in four neighbouring countries could end within the next couple of months without an urgent injection of new funding, a World Food Programme official said on Tuesday, warning of rising malnutrition levels. Over 4 million refugees have fled Sudan’s more than two-year civil war to seven neighbouring countries where…
Thailand’s Constitutional Court suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Tuesday pending an investigation into a leaked call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen. Paetongtarn’s powers will be suspended from Tuesday while the nine-member court considers a petition by a group of 36 senators accusing her of breaching ethical standards in violation of the constitution. The…
Clashes erupted in Istanbul Monday with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas to break up an angry mob after allegations that a satirical magazine had published a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, an AFP correspondent said. The incident occurred after Istanbul’s chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of the editors at LeMan magazine on grounds…
Five months ago, with a single social media post, United States President Donald Trump put half a million people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at risk when he announced the closure of USAID – the single biggest aid donor in the country. A few days ago in Washington, DC, the same…
For years, Rahim Suleman had reached out repeatedly to automakers and other potential clients to market the rare earth magnets from the plant his company was building in Estonia, one of just a handful outside dominant producer China. But after April 4, when Beijing imposed new restrictions on the super-strong magnets used in electric vehicles…
Genesis AI, a startup that aims to build a foundational model for powering all kinds of robots, has emerged from stealth with a giant $105 million seed round co-led by Eclipse Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Founded last December by Zhou Xian (pictured above, left), who holds a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, and…
Huawei has open-sourced two of its artificial intelligence models — a move tech experts say will help the U.S.-blacklisted firm continue to build its AI ecosystem and expand overseas. The Chinese tech giant announced on Monday the open-sourcing of the AI models under its Pangu series, as well as some of its model reasoning technology.…
The NATO Innovation Fund has made its first investment in a biotechnology company, it said on Monday, seeking to enhance defences against biological threats The fund is co-leading a $35 million fundraising round for Portal Biotech, which uses protein sequencing to detect engineered threats and defend against biological warfare. UK-based Portal Biotech’s capability is essential…
A recent study from Penn State researchers introduces a diffusion-based approach to automatically generate valid quantum circuits—offering a scalable alternative to today’s labor-intensive quantum programming methods. The proposed framework, dubbed Q-Fusion, achieved 100% output validity and demonstrates promise for accelerating progress in quantum machine learning and quantum software development. The study, published on the pre-print…
Surge AI, a data-labeling firm that competes with Scale AI, has hired advisors to raise as much as $1 billion in the first capital raising in the firm’s history, sources told Reuters, as it seeks to capitalize on growing user demand amid Scale AI’s recent customer exodus. The company, founded by former Google and Meta…
As generative AI reshapes the tech landscape, most attention has gone to OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, xAI, and China’s DeepSeek. Their models are powerful, their demos flashy, and their progress rapid. In contrast, Apple—famously secretive and methodical—has drawn skepticism over its perceived AI inertia. Despite announcing “Apple Intelligence” at WWDC in June 2024 and following…
The automation of Amazon.com facilities is approaching a new milestone: There will soon be as many robots as humans. The e-commerce giant, which has spent years automating tasks previously done by humans in its facilities, has deployed more than one million robots in those workplaces, Amazon said. That is the most it has ever had…
Google on Monday announced a partnership with Commonwealth Fusion Systems, or CFS, a private company spun off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which marks the tech giant′s first commercial commitment to fusion. The company unveiled plans to buy 200 megawatts of clean fusion power from what CFS describes as the world’s first grid-scale fusion…
A Russian defense plant has been hit as both sides escalate unmanned warfare. A Ukrainian drone has hit a defense plant in Izhevsk, far from the front line, resulting in fatalities and injuries as both sides expand their use of unmanned systems. The facility is believed to produce air defense components, making it a strategic…
Militants attack police station and banks in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Armed militants stormed a police station and set fire to two banks in Mastung, Balochistan, killing a boy and injuring nine others before fleeing. Officials launched a security operation to pursue the attackers, some of whom were reportedly killed in a shootout. While no group…
Surging cartel feud in Culiacan triggers mass killings and public violence. Rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have carried out a brutal series of attacks in Culiacan, killing 20 people and hanging four decapitated bodies from a highway bridge. Authorities later found 16 more victims with gunshot wounds packed into an abandoned van, accompanied by…
Refugees face dire conditions in Chad border town as humanitarian funding dwindles. In Adre, Chad, tens of thousands of Sudanese displaced by civil war face increasingly limited humanitarian support amid funding reductions from the U.S. and other donors. Aid organizations warn that basic services, such as food, water, and medical care, are under strain. Despite…
U.S. agencies warn of cyber threats to industrial control systems as many devices remain vulnerable. Federal cybersecurity bodies have issued a joint bulletin alerting organizations to possible Iranian retaliation following recent airstrikes, with a focus on attacks against industrial control systems and operational technology. Researchers at Censys scan the internet and identify hundreds to thousands…
DOJ raided laptop farms in 16 states to disrupt a North Korean remote IT fraud network. The Department of Justice conducted coordinated searches of 29 laptop farms across 16 states, targeting a scheme in which North Korean nationals posed as US IT workers. The foreign operation used stolen and fictitious identities, front companies, and proxy…
Hackers claim they stole 250 GB of sensitive naval system data from Russian contractor NPO Mars. Attackers announced on a data-leak forum that they breached NPO Mars, a Russian defense firm responsible for automated control and command systems across the navy, ground forces, and armored vehicles. They say the haul includes technical manuals and software…
Containment measures are in place following a novel attack on the ICC. Last week, the International Criminal Court detected and contained a sophisticated and targeted cyberattack on its networks. A court-wide impact analysis is underway, and steps to mitigate any effects are already in progress. The ICC affirms that business continuity remains assured. This incident…
We have reported in the QCR recently on several research projects to create quantum error correction codes (see here, here, here, and here), but one of the most significant challenges for implementing a full fault tolerant quantum computer is being able to robustly support a complete, universal gate set that could conceivably implement any quantum…
An explosion and fire at a pharmaceutical factory in India’s southern state of Telangana killed at least 12 people and injured several others, authorities said Monday. The fire department recovered the charred bodies of 10 workers in an industrial area about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the state capital Hyderabad (31 miles), the state’s fire…
Seven people were killed during anti-government protests in Togo last week, said human rights activists, who accused security forces of using “shocking violence” against protesters. The protests calling for the resignation of longtime leader Faure Gnassingbe amid what government critics describe as a cost of living crisis began last Thursday. Reuters witnesses saw soldiers use…
The Philippines and Lithuania signed an agreement to build a security alliance resulting from their mutual alarm over what they perceive as growing aggression threatening their regions by countries such as China. The memorandum of understanding signed Monday in Manila by Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and his Lithuanian counterpart, Dovilė Šakalienė, would foster…
Turkiye has evacuated more than 50,000 residents from 41 settlements in and around its western province of Izmir as firefighters battle wildfires for the second day, according to local authorities. Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said on Monday that the blaze was fanned overnight by winds reaching 40-50kmph (25-30mph) in Kuyucak and Doganbey areas of Izmir.…
Nearly 40 people have been killed after a bus and a minibus collided in Tanzania, sparking a fire that engulfed both vehicles. The crash occurred on Saturday evening in Sabasaba in the Kilimanjaro region after one of the bus’s tyres was punctured, causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle. “A total of 38…
Nearly a week of heavy monsoon rains and flash floods across Pakistan have killed at least 46 people and injured dozens as continuing severe weather similar to past emergenicies remains possible, officials said Monday. The fatalities caused by abnormally strong downpours since Tuesday include 22 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 13 in eastern Punjab province, seven in…
China’s state broadcaster has released footage of what appears to be a new type of graphite bomb, a weapon designed to disable electrical infrastructure and potentially cause widespread blackouts across targeted areas. The video, shared Thursday by a social media account linked to China Central Television (CCTV), features an animated sequence showing the weapon being…
When OpenAI and Mattel announced a partnership earlier this month, there was an implicit recognition of the risks. The first toys powered with artificial intelligence would not be for children under 13. Another partnership last week came with seemingly fewer caveats. OpenAI separately revealed that it had won its first Pentagon contract. It would pilot…
On Monday, Chinese technology giant Baidu is making its Ernie generative AI large language model open source, a move by China’s tech sector that could be its biggest in the AI race since the emergence of DeepSeek. The open sourcing of Ernie will be a gradual roll-out, according to the company. Will it be a…
After a chastening crackdown that wiped billions off their value and forced top executives out of the public eye, China’s technology giants are back in favor and on the front foot, making deals and snapping up assets. At the top of the pile are Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., two huge players…
It doesn’t quite have the buzz of artificial intelligence, but quantum computing is having a moment of its own. Some of the most powerful institutions in the world, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM and the U.S. government, are spending many millions of dollars in a race to develop and build the first practical quantum computer.…
Top surgical robotics companies have joined forces to publish technical guidelines for robotic telesurgery. Announced today, the guidelines are published in the World Journal of Surgery and represent a first step of major industry players working together toward eventual industry standards for remote robotic surgery procedures. Co-authors included a coalition of experts from major medtech…
Fifteen years after flipping burgers at a McDonald ’s and teaching himself to code at night in a cramped apartment near the French Riviera, Robinhood crypto chief Johann Kerbrat is back. The last time he lived around Cannes, he was 21 — with no connections, no funding, and no formal business training. But he had…
Microsoft has built an artificial intelligence-powered medical tool it claims is four times more successful than human doctors at diagnosing complex ailments, as the tech giant unveils research it believes could speed up treatment and save money by reducing unnecessary tests. The “Microsoft AI Diagnostic Orchestrator” is the first initiative to come out of an…
With Meta successfully poaching a number of its senior researchers, an OpenAI executive reportedly reassured team members Saturday that company leadership has not “been standing idly by.” “I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Chief Research Officer Mark Chen wrote in a Slack memo…
Starting in summer 2025, Denmark will begin drafting women alongside men through a lottery system, ending the country’s voluntary-only policy for female military service. The change follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is part of Denmark’s broader effort to strengthen its defense posture, including extended service terms and increased defense spending. Officials expect annual conscript…
A severe heat wave has pushed temperatures above 40°C across Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal, prompting wildfire alerts and public health warnings. Authorities in cities such as Rome and Lisbon implemented emergency measures, while record heat disrupted tourism and outdoor activities. Experts link the trend to climate change, noting increased risks for vulnerable populations and…
Guyana is ramping up enforcement against gold smuggling from Venezuela, responding to concerns from the U.S. over illicit trade that may involve sanctioned exports. Officials suspect some Venezuelan gold is mixed with Guyanese supplies and exported under false origins, prompting tighter border patrols and visa suspensions for suspected smugglers. The crackdown comes amid ongoing tensions…
At least 37 people were killed and 30 others injured when two buses collided and caught fire in northern Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro region. President Samia Suluhu Hassan extended condolences and urged stronger adherence to traffic laws, citing continued tragedies despite past safety campaigns. Authorities have not yet confirmed the identities of the victims as investigations continue.…
Hawaiian Airlines disclosed a cybersecurity breach amid growing industry alerts about Scattered Spider, a cybercrime group known for targeting sectors via social engineering and vendor compromise. While it remains unconfirmed whether the group is behind the incident, similar attacks on WestJet and technical disruptions at American Airlines have raised concerns. U.S. authorities and cybersecurity experts…
Security firm ReliaQuest has found signs that CVE-2025–5777, a critical vulnerability in Citrix NetScaler dubbed “CitrixBleed 2,” is being actively exploited to hijack sessions and bypass MFA protections. The flaw allows attackers to extract session tokens through a memory overread, potentially granting long-term, undetected access across systems. Though Citrix has not confirmed exploitation, experts warn…
In response to the 2024 crash caused by a faulty CrowdStrike update, Microsoft has advanced its Windows Resiliency Initiative to prevent future disruptions linked to kernel-level security tools. The company is introducing a new endpoint security model that allows antivirus and EDR software to run outside the operating system kernel, reducing system-wide risks. Alongside this,…
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has warned of likely low-level cyberattacks from Iranian-linked hackers following recent American airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. Though officials highlight the potential for escalating threats, current activity appears limited in scale and sophistication, according to security researchers. Authorities remain concerned that rising regional tensions could also motivate violence against…
Austin-based robotics company Apptronik has announced the launch of a new subsidiary called Elevate Robotics. The new company will focus on industrial automation beyond the human form factor, aiming to tackle heavy-duty tasks that go beyond the capabilities of traditional robots. Elevate Robotics will operate independently from Apptronik and be led by CEO Paul Hvass,…
At least nine people from one extended family died when floodwaters swept away children in a river in northern Pakistan and their relatives jumped into the water to try to save them on Friday, officials said. The family were having a picnic breakfast by the Swat River and the children were in the water taking…
China’s defence ministry has warned the Philippines against “self-inflicted destruction” by hosting US missile systems and denounced Manila’s plan to encourage fishermen to operate in disputed South China Sea waters. Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Manila dismissed drug-smuggling allegations by Philippine military officials as “baseless slander”. The United States has reportedly decided to deploy additional…
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