Best of LinkedIn: Defense Tech CW 18/ 19

00:00:00: Provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, based on the most relevant posts on LinkedIn about defense tech in CW-Eighteen to Nineteen.

00:00:07: Frenness is a BW market research company that supports ICT providers with a structured Defense Market Entry Framework designed to move them from European defense opportunity landscape to qualified ministry conversations within six to eight weeks.

00:00:19: you can find more info

00:00:21: Right, so for this deep dive we are basically extracting the absolute top defense tech trends that we've seen across LinkedIn during calendar weeks eighteen and nineteen.

00:00:30: Yeah!

00:00:31: And the overarching narrative here...the one really pulling from your sources today is just massive.

00:00:35: It really does.

00:00:36: Defense Tech has you know officially left the experimentation phase.

00:00:39: We're now dealing with actual The friction of scalable deployment right

00:00:44: the messy reality

00:00:45: exactly.

00:00:46: Yeah, so today we are going to explore this push for true software in our operability.

00:00:51: They're really urgent race to secure our skies against drones the you know sudden acceleration Of defense AI and then finally the really harsh bureaucratic realities have actually producing this stuff.

00:01:03: yeah It's a fascinating transition for you to see honestly because we're moving away from these theoretical concepts into the actual real-world execution of these systems, which is never as clean as The Pitch Deck.

00:01:15: Never!

00:01:16: And I mean to understand where were going... We really have to look at the biggest paradigm shift in modern defense architecture right now.

00:01:23: Right.

00:01:23: We are moving completely away from this standalone isolated hardware platforms and moving toward well connected software driven ecosystems.

00:01:33: Yeah

00:01:33: totally

00:01:34: There was this brilliant insight from Alexander D on LinkedIn that I think frames this perfectly.

00:01:39: He basically compares modern defense architecture to... uh, the smartphone sitting in your pocket right now.

00:01:45: Which

00:01:45: is just a perfect lens to view this through.

00:01:47: honestly Right Because if you think about your phone I mean hardware's obviously essential.

00:01:50: You need the glass screen and the silicon chips.

00:01:53: The lithium battery Sure But if you like strip away the operating system updates And cellular connectivity and... Uh..the app ecosystem That physical piece of glass and metal Yeah Just loses almost all its value.

00:02:07: Yeah, it basically becomes a very expensive paperweight.

00:02:10: Exactly!

00:02:10: A paperweight.

00:02:11: and Alexander points out that militaries are.

00:02:14: you know they're finally waking up to the fact they operate the exact same way.

00:02:20: Right!

00:02:21: The physical product alone matters far less than the digital ecosystem that actually connects it to everything else,

00:02:27: right?

00:02:27: It's about building like...the IOS of the battlefield and we are seeing the military establishment take some pretty aggressive steps to force this integration.

00:02:37: Yeah

00:02:37: They have too.

00:02:38: Glenn McCartan posted about this fascinating initiative from the US Army right to integrate

00:02:44: hackathon.

00:02:45: Oh, yeah?

00:02:46: And the stated goal of this initiative is to kill something they call swivel chair ops

00:02:51: Swivel Chair Ops which I mean those are just the absolute bane of modern command center Swivel chair

00:02:57: like literally

00:02:58: Literally To understand this picture a military operator Right sitting in a tactical operation Center.

00:03:05: Historically They're surrounded by...I don't know multiple screens running totally proprietary software from different defense contractors.

00:03:14: Okay, and none of those systems are allowed to actually talk to each other

00:03:17: so the human literally becomes The API.

00:03:20: they are physically swiveling their chair looking at like a radar feed on their left And then spinning around to manually type those exact coordinates into a weapons terminal on there right.

00:03:32: yes it is agonizingly slow and you know it is highly prone to human error.

00:03:38: In modern high-intensity warfare, that latency just the time It takes a type gets people killed.

00:03:44: Wow So the military is desperately trying to mandate these open architecture standards so that sensors and drones And weapons can integrate at the speed of digital information rather than you know, the speed of human typing.

00:03:57: I mean i understand the theory there obviously but i have to push back a little.

00:04:00: so sure if you are building this highly connected software first ecosystem?

00:04:04: If You Are Putting All Your Chips On Network Connectivity doesn't that just create A massive single point Of Failure?

00:04:11: What Happens When An Adversary Gems The Network ?

00:04:13: You Can't Exactly Just Call IT Support In A Trench Right ?

00:04:18: If The Network Goes Down Doesn'T Your Whole Interconnected Military Suddenly Go Blind?

00:04:22: Well, that is the exact vulnerability adversaries are targeting and you know It's what companies operating in real-world combat environments.

00:04:31: They're trying to solve right now

00:04:32: Right?

00:04:33: Tim DeZitter shared this really great analysis of a Ukrainian company called Himera That is tackling this exact issue head on.

00:04:40: okay?

00:04:40: What do they doing

00:04:41: there?

00:04:41: building a secure jam resistant mesh network And it's designed to connect military radios drones an unmanned ground robots all together.

00:04:51: Okay, for those who might not be deep in the weeds on networking what exactly makes a mesh network different from like traditional military comms?

00:04:58: Right.

00:04:59: So in a traditional network you have a central hub or like a main cell tower.

00:05:03: right if the enemy jams that tower we're just blows it up.

00:05:06: everyone loses comms instantly.

00:05:08: but in a mesh Network every single radio Every drone every soldier acts as their own mini cell Tower.

00:05:15: they all talk to each other directly.

00:05:17: Oh, wow.

00:05:18: So if Himera's network encounters say heavy Russian electronic warfare and one node gets jammed or destroyed the Network just dynamically routes the signal around the damage in real time.

00:05:30: That's incredibly resilient

00:05:32: it is.

00:05:32: they are basically building the connective tissue for a robotic war.

00:05:37: They realize that victory goes to the side.

00:05:40: Whose digital ecosystem actually survives when the electromagnetic spectrum?

00:05:45: Is you know heavily contested?

00:05:47: And when you successfully build that software connective tissue, I mean the financial markets definitely take notice.

00:05:52: Oh absolutely.

00:05:53: Dhammendu Jayawara broke down this massive valuation of the European defense company Helsing.

00:05:58: they just hit uh one point two billion euros.

00:06:01: Yeah

00:06:01: a unicorn

00:06:02: Right.

00:06:02: and his core takeaway was that Helsing succeeded precisely because they built a Software First AI operating system for militaries.

00:06:09: Exactly They treat the actual hardware The physical drones in sensors simply as distribution vectors For their software.

00:06:16: Because hardware degrades the second it leaves the factory.

00:06:18: Right, but software scales?

00:06:20: It updates in the field and compounds in capability?

00:06:23: Yeah!

00:06:24: But look building a flawless jam-resistant digital network doesn't matter at all if physical nodes like servers or soldiers can be taken out by a five hundred dollar piece of plastic flying overhead.

00:06:36: Oh yeah...the

00:06:37: drones.

00:06:38: That digital ecosystem is completely exposed to most urgent physical threat we face today

00:06:44: which brings us right into our next major theme, counter drone defense.

00:06:49: And this is no longer just like a battlefield problem confined to Eastern Europe.

00:06:54: it deeply, deeply concerning.

00:06:59: It's terrifying.

00:07:00: honestly

00:07:00: Angus Bean reported on a very recent incident involving United Flight in nineteen eighty On approach to the San Diego airport.

00:07:06: at three thousand feet In the air.

00:07:08: The crew reported A possible drone strike.

00:07:11: Three thousand feet I mean.

00:07:12: thankfully no damage was found And the plane landed safely.

00:07:15: But if you are a commercial pilot?

00:07:17: The absolute last thing You expect that three thousand Feet is a consumer quadcopter.

00:07:22: it highlights a really terrifying gap.

00:07:25: Our detection and response infrastructure at civilian airports, And frankly most domestic infrastructure has completely lagged behind the capabilities of consumer drones.

00:07:34: And Washington is clearly feeling that urgency right now.

00:07:38: Tom Adams highlighted a new Senate bill That's aiming to expand counter drone authorities To protect US critical infrastructure nationwide

00:07:46: Which makes sense

00:07:47: Because realistically, local law enforcement cannot maintain two hundred and forty seven air defense over every single power plant water facility or stadium in the country.

00:07:55: No they can't.

00:07:56: But I keep wondering about the physical mechanics of this like how do we actually detect these things?

00:08:02: Traditional Air Defense radar is built to spot a massive fighter jet made of metal right not A small plastic quadcopter hovering Like a few hundred feet off The ground exactly.

00:08:12: it requires an entirely new approach To detection And Elk Andrewl shared an incredibly clever solution being developed by Deutsche Telekom and Rheinmetall.

00:08:21: Okay They're building what they call a drone shield, but they aren't relying on classic radar at all.

00:08:27: So what are the using?

00:08:28: Here's how it works.

00:08:30: Modern commercial drones Are increasingly controlled via standard mobile networks like for G and five g rather than you know dedicated radio frequencies.

00:08:38: right.

00:08:39: so Deutsche telecom is actually utilizing its existing cellular network infrastructure to act as a massive sensor grid.

00:08:46: Wait,

00:08:46: so they are turning commercial cell towers into an active defense shield?

00:08:50: Yes But how does the network distinguish a drone from like... ...a guy streaming video on his phone in high-rise apartment?

00:08:57: That's exactly where AI comes in.

00:08:59: The system analyzes telemetry data and the cellular noise To triangulate anomalies in signal footprint.

00:09:06: Oh that smart!

00:09:07: Right, the AI recognizes the specific network behavior of a flying drone, tracks its location using the cell towers and then feeds that data directly to Ryan Metals command systems.

00:09:18: Wow!

00:09:19: It's just a brilliant example of dual use technology.

00:09:22: And meanwhile on the military side Joseph Rank noted that Lockheed Martin is deploying system called Sanctum.

00:09:28: What's sanctum?

00:09:29: Sanctom relies on advanced AI and cloud computing to detect and track coordinated drone swarms.

00:09:35: So it allows the system to learn and adapt To totally new flight patterns in real time.

00:09:40: I mean, i love The sophistication of that cloud computing approach But i have to share a battlefield update from jamie hanson.

00:09:46: That is just well its pure gritty ingenuity.

00:09:50: let's hear right now us marines are deploying what Are called smesh hash?

00:09:55: Two thousand l smart scopes yeah And they're mounting them directly onto standard infantry m-four carbines.

00:10:03: wow That completely flips the concept of air defense on its head.

00:10:06: Exactly!

00:10:07: We are so used to thinking about air defense as these massive billion dollar Patriot missile batteries, but when threat is a five hundred dollars commercial drone you just cannot fire a million-dollar missile at it?

00:10:18: The math doesn't work...

00:10:19: It really doesn't.

00:10:20: So these smart scopes basically turn every single rifleman into a precision anti-aircraft asset and the mechanics are incredible, it's not just a fancy crosshair.

00:10:30: The scope actually uses computer vision to acquire and track the drone in the sky.

00:10:35: It calculates the laid require to hit a moving target And get this physically blocks the trigger of the rifle from firing Until the soldier has the barrel.

00:10:44: perfectly aligned with algorithms firing solution.

00:10:47: That is wild.

00:10:49: It basically democratizes precision air defense.

00:10:52: Yes,

00:10:53: but you know if we are giving individual human riflemen computer vision to shoot down drones it is really only a matter of time before the computers just take over The Rifle entirely

00:11:03: which is terrifying?

00:11:05: We're rapidly entering an era of algorithmic warfare where machines or fighting machines

00:11:10: and that transition has already happening.

00:11:13: Aviv Barzohar shared an update that sounds honestly straight out of a sci-fi novel.

00:11:18: He posted about a confirmed instance of robot versus robot warfare.

00:11:22: in the skies over Ukraine, A Ukrainian interceptor drone successfully collided with a Russian scalpel loitering.

00:11:28: new issue midair.

00:11:29: Wow no human pilot dog fighting No massive explosive payloads just two autonomous machines hunting each other and taking each other out In the sky.

00:11:39: The acceleration of that autonomy is Staggering.

00:11:42: I mean, Mikhail Fedorov who's Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation.

00:11:47: he shared that Ukraine has successfully combat tested an AI powered autonomous turret.

00:11:52: Oh

00:11:52: and Autonomous Turret?

00:11:53: Yeah

00:11:54: The operator just presses one button to confirm the engagement And the AI handles the detection tracking and firing all by itself And

00:12:02: mechanism behind is key.

00:12:03: right because they're specifically using these two intercept fiber optic drones Precisely

00:12:09: And this is fascinating.

00:12:10: Fiber optic drones spool out a physical wire behind them as they fly,

00:12:14: right?

00:12:14: Like a fishing line

00:12:15: exactly making them completely immune to traditional electronic jamming because you can't sever their connection with radio waves

00:12:22: So you have to physically destroy it.

00:12:24: Yes You need a localized system that physically sees the threat and shoots it down instantly.

00:12:28: Wow The turrets onboard.

00:12:30: AI provides that localized optical targeting without relying on a remote signal.

00:12:34: That could be janned...and delivery systems are evolving too.

00:12:38: How so?

00:12:39: Predictor Mukherjee pointed out the rise of what are called carrier drones.

00:12:43: Okay,

00:12:43: these are essentially large unmanned mother ships that fly deep behind enemy lines just to deploy smaller FPV strike drones.

00:12:54: The delivery architecture itself is becoming fully autonomous.

00:12:58: I mean That sounds incredibly advanced but i have to throw some cold water on this whole algorithmic gold rush based on a fantastic piece of insight from Eva Sula.

00:13:07: Okay,

00:13:07: what did she say?

00:13:08: She argues that the defense industry treats autonomy like it's a fixed capability—like you just buy a software package install it on a drone and you are good to go

00:13:17: Right!

00:13:18: Like buying Microsoft Word

00:13:19: Exactly.

00:13:20: but it isn't.

00:13:20: It is continuous exhaustive adaptation race.

00:13:23: Yeah If you deploy brilliant AI-driven smart system today The adversary will capture it.

00:13:29: study algorithm figure out how spoofed by tomorrow.

00:13:32: That's true.

00:13:33: Technology has life here, our military is just pouring billions of dollars into incredibly expensive temporary tech that becomes obsolete the moment.

00:13:40: The enemy figures out

00:14:03: assessed a fifty-five year old F four phantom flying over Iran.

00:14:08: Okay, the system didn't just see a hostile target.

00:14:11: The AI actually ran a real time calculation weighed the tactical value of the Target against the financial cost of launching the interceptor missile and simply decided the old jet was not worth the missile.

00:14:21: Wait really that is astonishing.

00:14:23: isn it pure algorithmic ROI dictating a firing solution?

00:14:27: It literally did a cost benefit analysis on shooting down exactly.

00:14:30: And despite the constant need for these algorithmic updates militaries are relentlessly pushing to remove the human bottleneck entirely.

00:14:37: Right.

00:14:38: Alina Krishaniska reported that a Ukrainian company named Swarmer has explicitly stated their goal is to completely replace UAV operators with autonomous drone swarms that coordinate themselves.

00:14:48: and looking at larger platforms, John Bradshaw highlighted Australia's MQ-twenty eight ghostbap program.

00:14:54: I've heard of that one.

00:14:55: yeah

00:14:55: this isn't AI driven loyal wingman drone but it's and is designed to fly alongside crewed aircraft like the F- Thirty Five, conduct surveillance or air-to-air combat.

00:15:09: Completely autonomously.

00:15:10: Okay, so we have AI determining the financial value of targets loyal wingman fighter debts and autonomous mother ships.

00:15:17: Yep But here is the massive unavoidable reality check for all this.

00:15:22: All these brilliant algorithms a network architectures are completely one hundred percent useless if We cannot physically build The hardware right or get it onto the battlefield which leads us to the harsh realities of geopolitics supply chains and bureaucracy.

00:15:37: This

00:15:37: is exactly where the digital ambition violently collides with a physical world.

00:15:41: Yes, Perry Boyle highlighted a massive critical supply chain vulnerability.

00:15:46: China currently controls eighty percent of the global market for germanium.

00:15:49: germanium

00:15:50: Germanium is absolutely vital from manufacturing The fiber optic cables used in those unjamable drones we just discussed.

00:15:58: Oh wow and right now china Is actively restricting exports Of this critical material to Ukraine

00:16:05: which devastating bottleneck for them.

00:16:07: It is, and Boyle points out an even more frustrating dynamic because NATO countries are simultaneously trying to ramp up their own domestic drone production right?

00:16:17: Sure And Because the global supply chain it's so heavily concentrated in China NATO countries Are accidentally competing against Ukraine

00:16:24: Right what?

00:16:25: Yes They're bidding up the prices for the exact same Chinese drone components.

00:16:29: So Ukraine is literally having to outbid its own allies on the open market, just to acquire the parts they need for their existential defense.

00:16:36: That's

00:16:36: just I mean.

00:16:36: that highlights a staggering geopolitical shift and make A noted that we are basically watching China Iran in Russia actively construct a parallel financial and military architecture.

00:16:46: Their long-term goal isn't just to win a localized conflict.

00:16:50: it is to fundamentally bypass US leadership and create an ecosystem where Western sanctions, and a western supply chain controls simply do not matter to them.

00:17:00: Exactly And Gaspar Tardy explains how China has actually weaponized its manufacturing base to support this.

00:17:07: They have turned reverse engineering into a highly efficient state strategy.

00:17:11: They're very good at it

00:17:12: Extremely.

00:17:13: they don't waste time reinventing the wheel.

00:17:15: They buy the tech take it apart and rebuild it cheaper and faster at state scale.

00:17:19: He notes they've cloned everything from the Russian Su-II fighter jet to Western cars and French helicopters,

00:17:26: which is exactly why Europe is scrambling right now.

00:17:28: To build sovereign industrial capacity?

00:17:30: They have

00:17:30: to

00:17:31: realize that cannot be dependent on external potentially hostile supply chains anymore.

00:17:36: Right.

00:17:36: Kasper Steenberg shared a really optimistic model for how this sovereign capacity can be built actually by The Netherlands.

00:17:43: in Ukraine are now actively co producing drones specifically the Baton and K-IV

00:17:49: models.

00:17:49: Oh, nice!

00:17:50: Yeah

00:17:50: The Netherlands brings the capital in the industrial manufacturing scale while Ukraine brings the real time combat data innovation.

00:17:58: It's a really compelling new model for European defense collaboration.

00:18:02: That makes a lot of sense.

00:18:03: And furthermore Christian Meyer emphasized that Europe to truly succeed they have to start building bespoke artisanal hardware.

00:18:11: Yes

00:18:12: They most established standardized platforms.

00:18:14: You need systems that can be manufactured cost-effectively in massive volumes and That is only possible if the industry agrees on common standards.

00:18:24: Well speaking of the friction between innovation And reality I have to share one last story from Matthew Halaba.

00:18:29: Oh, please

00:18:29: do.

00:18:29: it perfectly captures the absurdity of military procurement.

00:18:33: He posted a highly frustrating Reality check for Poland noting that Poland has accidentally developed The most effective anti drone system in the world.

00:18:41: yeah he calls it procedural concrete.

00:18:44: Procedural concrete?

00:18:45: That sounds like a contradiction in term!

00:18:47: It is

00:18:47: brilliantly tragic, the Polish military spent huge budgets buying these highly advanced cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicles.

00:18:55: and what did they do with

00:18:56: them?!

00:18:56: They locked them safely inside armored cabinets...in warehouses.

00:19:00: Wait

00:19:01: really!?

00:19:01: In cabinets?

00:19:02: Yes Because under peacetime bureaucracy, you need mouties of paperwork flight zone approvals and official certificates just to run a basic training exercise in an empty field.

00:19:13: Wow!

00:19:13: Commanders are absolutely terrified of damaging the expensive equipment because the paperwork to replace it is total nightmare.

00:19:21: So they don't fly them?

00:19:22: They do not fly them.

00:19:23: so while adversaries sitting in muddy trenches soldering FPD drones together for fifteen minutes destroying multi-million dollar tanks Poland's state-of-the art drones are perfectly safe, generating zero emissions locked in a box.

00:19:37: That is just... that's insane!

00:19:39: As Halaba jokes.

00:19:40: the safest drone is one never leaves the warehouse but it completely useless and a fight.

00:19:45: Yeah You can have best AI The Best Mesh Network And the best hardware in world But if peacetime bureaucracy grounds you've already lost the war before its starts.

00:19:53: It is stark reminder that military innovation isn't about software cone or supply chains.

00:20:00: I mean fundamentally about doctrine, policy and the institutional willingness to actually deploy.

00:20:30: We've talked today about autonomous turrets intercepting targets instantly.