May 7, 2026

Defense Tech

China bans dual-use items exports to seven European entities over Taiwan arms sales– www.channelnewsasia.com

pgnewser April 24, 2026 0

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EXCERPT:

Dual-use items are goods, software or technologies that have both civilian and military applications, including certain rare earth elements that are essential for making drones and chips.

The ministry also said foreign organisations and individuals are prohibited from transferring or providing dual-use items originating from China to the seven entities and any related activities must be stopped immediately.

How Cheap Drones Are Changing Wars Like the Ones in Ukraine and Iran– www.nytimes.com

pgnewser April 20, 2026 0

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One of the biggest takeaways of the war with Iran is that it has proven itself to be a surprisingly capable adversary against the United States. In addition to its willingness to go on the offensive, Iran has forced the U.S. and its regional allies to confront the rise of cheap drones on the battlefield.

Iranian drones, made with commercial-grade technology, cost roughly $35,000 to produce. That is a fraction of the cost of the high-tech military interceptors sometimes used to shoot them down.

Note: Estimated price of munitions per unit. In practice, multiple interceptors are fired when targeting a drone. For instance, with the $80 bullet fired by the Centurion Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM), 75 rounds are fired in a second. Sources: Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Open Source Munitions Portal, SRC Inc, U.S. Army and U.S. Navy.

Cheap drones changed the war in Ukraine, and they have enabled Iranians to exploit a gap in American defense investments, which have historically prioritized accurate but expensive solutions.

Countering drones has been a major priority for the Pentagon for years, according to Michael C. Horowitz, who was a Pentagon official in the Biden administration. “But there has not been the impetus to scale a solution,” he said.

Humans Surrender to Robots

pgnewser April 14, 2026 0

According to Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian troops surrendered to Ukrainian drones and robots, making it, allegedly, the world’s first human surrender to a robot in a field of battle.

Zelensky claimed the machines “carried out (the mission) without infantry and without losses on our side. For the first time in the history of this war, an enemy position was taken exclusively by unmanned platforms – ground systems and drones.”

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s forces surrender to army robots in battlefield first, Zelensky says – www.independent.co.uk
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Over the past several months, Ukrainian forces have been increasingly deploying agile, remote-controlled armoured vehicles to carry out critical tasks and to protect personnel in hazardous operations.

The army uses these “robots on wheels,” which resemble miniature tanks, as it grapples with a soldier shortage in a conflict now spanning over three and a half years.

These versatile machines are capable of ferrying essential supplies, clearing dangerous mines, and evacuating both the wounded and the deceased.

Announcing the operation on Monday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Ratel, TerMIT, Ardal, Rys, Zmiy, Protector, Volia, and our other ground robotic systems have already carried out more than 22,000 missions on the front in just three months.

In other words, he said, lives were saved “more than 22,000 times when a robot went into the most dangerous area instead of a warrior”.

Russian forces are also known to use robots on the battlefield.

“It cannot fully replace people,” said the commander of a platoon of the 20th Lyubart Brigade, who goes by the call sign Miami. “I would put it this way: A person can go in there, but for a human it’s (sometimes) far too dangerous.”

VIDEO: Mystery Weapon Spotted In Hands Of President Trump’s Secret Service Detail– wltreport.com

pgnewser April 13, 2026 0

VIDEO: Mystery Weapon Spotted In Hands Of President Trump’s Secret Service Detail– wltreport.com
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EXCERPT:

This has users on X talking.

President Trump was spotted over the weekend on video at his Doral Golf Club; however, his Secret Service detail has garnered all the attention.

In a video of Trump meeting with a supporter, one of Trump’s Secret Service agents is spotted holding a futuristic weapon.

Take a look:

How America is Developing China’s Weapons of War

pgnewser April 10, 2026 0

American tech companies warn the world that China’s domestic tech companies are really military tech companies in disguise. We are China’s free defense tech research and development department now.

Blurb:

The Hidden System Turning Chinese Tech Companies into Military Suppliers – warontherocks.com

In October 2022, Unitree Robotics joined Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, and three other firms in signing an open letter pledging not to weaponize their machines and to review customers’ intended applications. This Chinese startup based in Hangzhou had earned its place in that group. Founded in 2016 by a 26-year-old engineer named Wang Xingxing, who quit his job at the drone maker DJI during his probationary period, Unitree set out to build affordable quadruped robots. It worked. By 2023, the company held over 60 percent of the global quadruped robot market by unit sales. Its investors included Sequoia China, Meituan, and Shenzhen Capital Group. Its consumer-grade robot dogs are sold on Amazon.

Two years after the pledge, China’s state broadcaster aired footage of Unitree’s B1 quadrupeds carrying assault rifles in joint military exercises between the Chinese and Cambodian armed forces. By September 2025, robot dogs appeared in China’s largest-ever military parade on Chang’an Avenue. In July of the same year, a military training exercise at a Chongqing vocational college — jointly developed by students, faculty, and a military training team — featured Unitree machines fitted with rifles and rocket launchers. In an August 2025 statement, Unitree affirmed that it “has always been a civilian robotics company” and that all militarized modifications were made by third parties.

The interesting thing is, Unitree isn’t really lying. And that is precisely the policy problem. Unitree did not seek out the Chinese military. The Chinese Communist Party brought the military to Unitree through channels that required no direct order, no classified contract, and no corporate consent. Understanding how that system works, and why current U.S. policy does not reach it, is the most urgent analytical gap in the American response to Chinese military-civil fusion.

The U.S. Military Risks Letting Contractors Define How It Sees the Battlefield– warontherocks.com

pgnewser March 31, 2026 0

Blurb:

In the 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove, an emergency war plan called “Plan R” allows an unhinged U.S. Air Force commander, Jack Ripper, to launch a nuclear strike without presidential authorization. Once the president, the joint chiefs, and the Soviet ambassador convene in the war room, the bombers are already airborne. Only Ripper knows the three-letter prefix needed to recall them, until his aide, Lionel Mandrake, reconstructs it from Ripper’s notes. Although nearly all planes are turned back, one damaged B-52 cannot receive the recall message and successfully drops its bomb, triggering the Soviets’ secret doomsday machine and bringing about global destruction.

The film’s lesson is not only about nuclear weapons, but also about what happens when critical systems are not governed effectively.

How hacked surveillance cameras are fueling assassinations in Iran– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser March 26, 2026 0

Blurb:

Since a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28, scores of Iranian senior officials have also been killed. According to the Associated Press, two anonymous sources—an intelligence official and a person briefed on the operation—said that hacked Iranian surveillance cameras helped plan the initial attack.

Camera hacking has become a recurring feature of modern warfare. Hamas hacked Israeli cameras before the October 7, 2023, attack; Russia has hacked them in Ukraine, and Iran has hacked them in Israel. But the cameras in question are not exotic spy technology. They’re often unremarkable, much like millions of other devices around the world.

Germany looks to AI for help with combat decisions – army chief — RT World News– www.rt.com

pgnewser March 26, 2026 0

Blurb:

Berlin plans to use Ukraine’s experience to develop an advisory tool, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding has said

The German military is developing an artificial intelligence system to speed up battlefield decision-making by analyzing combat data, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding has said, adding that it will draw on Ukraine’s experience of fighting Russia.

The remarks by Freuding, the commander of the German land forces, come as the country is undertaking a major military buildup. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is seeking to make the German military “the strongest conventional army in Europe.” German officials have set 2029 as the deadline for the armed forces to be “war-ready,” citing the supposed Russian threat. Moscow has dismissed claims that it harbors hostile intentions as “nonsense” aimed at justifying increased military spending.

“I think it’s important that we get something up and running quickly,” Freuding told Reuters on Wednesday. He had previously overseen German arms supplies to Kiev before taking up his current position in October 2025. An advocate of close military cooperation between Berlin and Kiev, Freuding previously unveiled plans for the Ukrainian military to help train German troops for a possible conflict with Russia.

Almost 1,000 drones within 24 hours: Russia launched one of its largest attacks on Ukraine– www.euronews.com

pgnewser March 25, 2026 0

Blurb:

Russia launched almost 1,000 drones against Ukraine within 24 hours between March 23 and 24, making it one of Moscow’s largest aerial attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Following a massive barrage of missiles and drones overnight, Russia carried on its attack during Tuesday in a rare daytime wave of over 550 attack drones targeting central and western regions.

At least three people have been killed and over 30 have been injured across Ukraine during the daylight attack, following the overnight missiles and drone assault, killing at least four people and injuring 21, according to regional authorities.

Lviv in Western Ukraine got hit and 17 people were wounded when Russian drones hit civilian areas in the city not far from the border with Poland.

China is mapping the ocean floor as it prepares for submarine warfare with U.S.– japantoday.com

pgnewser March 24, 2026 0

Blurb:

China is conducting a vast undersea mapping and monitoring operation across the Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans, building detailed knowledge of marine conditions that naval experts say would be crucial for waging submarine warfare against the United States and its allies.

In one example, the Dong Fang Hong 3, a research vessel operated by Ocean University of China, spent 2024 and 2025 sailing back and forth in the seas near Taiwan and the U.S. stronghold of Guam, and around strategic stretches of the Indian Ocean, ship-tracking data reviewed by Reuters shows. In October 2024, it checked on a set of powerful Chinese ocean sensors capable of identifying undersea objects near Japan, ‌according to Ocean University, and visited the same area again last May. And in March 2025, it criss-crossed the waters between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, covering approaches to the Malacca Strait, a critical chokepoint for maritime commerce.

NASA’s ‘1st nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft’ will send Skyfall helicopters to Mars in 2028– www.space.com

pgnewser March 24, 2026 0

Blurb:

Skyfall is happening, and it will get to Mars in a totally new way.

Last summer, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Virginia company AeroVironment unveiled their Skyfall mission concept, which would send six tiny helicopters to explore the skies of Mars.

Today (March 24), NASA announced that it will develop Skyfall for a 2028 launch, and that the mission will journey to the Red Planet on a spacecraft that uses nuclear electric propulsion (NEP) — what NASA is referring to as “the first nuclear powered interplanetary spacecraft.”

NEP systems operate like nuclear power plants here on Earth, relying on an onboard fission reactor. NEP is a fundamentally different technology than radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which have powered the instruments of NASA deep-space probes like Voyager for decades. RTGs use the heat of radioactive decay to generate electricity; they are not involved in propulsion.

“Requiring operating temperatures less than nuclear thermal propulsion, the thermal energy produced by the reactor generates electricity, which is then used to power highly efficient electric thrusters,” NASA officials wrote in a description of the agency’s NEP efforts.

Lawmaker Introduces Measure to Restrict Military Artificial Intelligence Tech– townhall.com

pgnewser March 19, 2026 0

Blurb:

 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has introduced a bill that would regulate the Pentagon’s use of artificial intelligence technology.

The rise of AI has sparked national debate over its use in several different areas. But when it comes to military use, the national conversation has intensified amid concerns that the technology could be misused.

From NBC News:

The bill seeks to codify two existing Defense Department guidelines into law: that AI cannot autonomously decide to kill a target and that the technology cannot be used to help the military conduct mass surveillance on Americans. It would also ban the use of the technology for launching or detonating a nuclear weapon.

“We’re unhealthy as a political system, and so we focus more on things like Greenland than we do on the use of AI in matters of legal force. And it’s our responsibility to legislate this,” Slotkin told NBC News.

The first two tenants of the bill were at the center of the U.S. military’s acrimonious split with AI giant Anthropic in recent weeks. While the Pentagon has insisted that it regards conducting mass surveillance of Americans as illegal already and that its policy mandates that a human be responsible for lethal decisions, Anthropic worried that loopholes could allow for that surveillance anyway and that future administrations could revoke those guidelines.

The feud boiled over into President Donald Trump’s decreeing that all federal agencies have six months to stop using Anthropic models and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s declaring the company a supply chain risk, despite the fact that the technology has still helped the U.S. identify military targets in its ongoing war with Iran.