🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Special guest POV by 🍁 Jozsef Hamari, Co-Founder at TerraSense Analytics

Last week, two dozen industry reps spent the day at CFB Petawawa with the 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (2 RCHA). We watched live as drones enabled artillery fires on a modern battlefield. Far more importantly, we learned exactly where they fail to live up to their potential.

Waiting for the buses that morning, the mood among colleagues was a mix of excitement and deep skepticism. But everyone agreed: this level of transparency is completely new to Canadian defence procurement. By the end of the day, even the skeptics were sold. This is how procurement must happen moving forward.

In the defence sector, it’s dangerously easy to get trapped in the sterile world of procurement paperwork. You read the requirements, check the boxes, and deliver a product. But RFPs don’t win fights.

At TerraSense, I’ve always taken immense pride in how far we’re willing to go to find out what the actual uniformed end-users need, not just what the contract demands. The philosophy is simple: probe deep into the operator’s pain points. Obsessively ask the real people who live and work with real problems in the mud and cold, not just the requirements scorecard.

When an RFP drops, our first move is to find out who really needs this product. What their real capability gap is.

Sometimes this gets us into a little bit of trouble and earns us a scolding from an overly cautious bureaucrat who knows that saying ‘no’ has never lost anyone their job. But I believe this is fundamental to building a product that will deliver maximum, decisive impact.

Importantly, this boots-on-the-ground obsession serves both our warfighters and our partners in industry. Because our technology is custom-moulded to the operational realities of the Canadian Armed Forces, we make integration and interoperability incredibly seamless. We de-risk the AI component so primes can deliver comprehensive, winning solutions without the usual friction.

What MINERVA and the Canadian Army are doing here is important. It’s one of the first signs that Canada really meant all the talk of ‘partnership’ in the new Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS). When you show us the real gaps, we can forge real capabilities. And this is how we’re building an enduring company that truly backs the operators who defend us.

Related:

• Parliamentary testimony from new Defence Investment Agency (DIA) head Doug Guzman

  • DIS roadshow goes cross-country

  • ADM of the DIA on a new era of materiel management

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

The defence tech gold rush is testing the limits of venture capital

The Logic reports that a gold rush mentality is forming around defence tech in Canada due to promises of billions in additional federal spending:

“Amid the excitement, however, investors and entrepreneurs warn that defence tech — with its long timelines and massive capital needs — isn’t a natural fit for the traditional VC playbook.”

US data from Pitchbook validates this challenge: Government capital is now structural. Office of Strategic Capital, In-Q-Tel, and Defense Innovation Unit are acting as co-investors and validators, not just background support.

In parallel, former defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s new startup is laying the groundwork for public listing. Juno Industries has secured $12 million in commitments to list on TSXV in reverse takeover deal.

Last week, Canada was chosen as host country of the new multinational defence bank:

Related:

• ONE9’s Founder and Managing Director, Glenn Cowan, spent 10 days in Europe, including a few days with the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia

• OMERS, other Canadian VC backers sitting on massive Xanadu stock returns – but they can’t sell yet

• ‘America’s seed fund’ is being revamped for modern warfare

• 24 European defence startups that raised $5M+ in the past year

• US Allies Are Becoming All-Star Weapons Sellers

• Defence Space Startup True Anomaly Raises $650 Million

  • Canada at ‘mercy of others’ while it can’t launch payloads into space: former NASA chief economist

• L3Harris closes $1bn DoW investment in missile solutions business

• Skyfire AI Closes $11M Seed Round

• Firestorm Labs raises $82M to take drone factories into the field

• Scout AI Raises $100M to Build Robo-Warfare’s Brain

• Defence primes are no longer the only gateway into joint ventures

• 15 hardware startups to watch in 2026, according to VCs

• NordSpace announces new rocket manufacturing milestone

• Texas’ hard tech cowboy ranch

• Y Combinator publishes request for counter-drone swarms

• Germany’s military shuns Palantir for now, cyber chief tells Handelsblatt

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Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

The Canadian company tasked with purifying water on the moon

As NASA moves towards establishing a permanent presence on the moon, a Canadian company is hoping to solve one of the biggest challenges for astronauts in deep space – accessing drinkable water.

The challenge aimed to identify innovative companies that could develop technologies “to purify moon water for human deep-space missions.”

The Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation (CSMC) was recently awarded $400,000 in grant funding after it won the Aqualunar Challenge, led by the Canadian Space Agency in partnership with Impact Canada.

Related:

• Dominion Dynamics’ CEO — the man turning Canada’s defence procurement upside down — on how the company is taking a different approach to developing defence technology for the warfighter [VIDEO], and on having a frontier mindset

  • New cabinet position coming for defence procurement, new funding for Ukraine announced

• DHS Demanded Google Surrender Data on Canadian’s Activity, Location Over Anti-ICE Posts

• Ottawa commits millions to study micro nuclear reactors for Northern defence facilities

• Carney’s Canada: A New Defence and Security Posture, Yet to be Tested

• China’s Massive Stealth Flying Wings Spotted Together At Secretive Test Base

• A.I. Bots Told Scientists How to Make Biological Weapons

• Iran roundup:

Gray Matters

How Startups, AI, and Drones Shaped the Iran War: Lessons from Operation Epic Fury

Defense tech startups have raised more than $200B since 2020, with a record $49.1B raised in 2025 alone. In February 2026, the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury, its first major military operation since the defense tech funding boom. The military technology landscape has massively shifted since the last major military conflicts involving the U.S. during…

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5 days ago · 14 likes · 7 comments · Maggie Gray

• Canadian bacon: Pentagon procurement post reveals Canada quietly locked into HIMARS deal… You Have No Idea How Much You Still Use BlackBerry… U.S. secures contract with Lockheed Martin to sell artillery rocket systems to Canada, other allies… Contest nearly over to provide Canadians submarines… “Canada fears entanglement with the USA, while Australia fears abandonment”… Feds roll out new cybersecurity certification for defence procurement… F-35 vs Gripen-E: Canadians say mission more important than jobs or defence cooperation when choosing the best jet fighter solution

“Twice in my adult life, I have watched the Government of Canada procure at speed. The first was in Afghanistan and the second was during the pandemic. In both cases, Canadians were dying. Each time the crisis passed, procurement reverted to its status quo paradigm. Why?” — Ret. VAdm Ron Lloyd

• Thought leadership: Canada didn’t just “evolve” into a service-based economy. We systematically dismantled our status as a global peer to become a branch plant for the United States… CSIS Public Report 2025… A look at Canada’s plan to boost the military with skills training… Kepler’s CEO on Canada’s space ambitions… Arctic Strategies and KPMG Canada collaborate to advance

  major Arctic initiatives… Defence spending must include health spending too

• Drone wars: A primer on the burgeoning CUAS industry… A part-by-part breakdown of a typical first-person-view drone shows the strength of China’s stranglehold… Man-portable interceptors are here [VIDEO]… Japan Is Building Cardboard Suicide Drones… Swarmer and HIMERA Partner to Integrate Resilient Communications into Advanced Autonomous Systems

Alex Dolan

Firestorm vs. Purple Rhombus

Firestorm and Purple Rhombus. Distributed UAS production versus centralized UAS production. Two AFWERKX awards. Two production philosophies. The same broad timeline…

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4 days ago · 1 like · Alex Dolan

• Arctic shelf: Amazon, SpaceX, and Telesat are all converging on the same part of the sky. After fifty years as a broadband desert, the Arctic is now the center of a multi-billion dollar buildout… A reporter embeds with the Canadian Rangers in Yukon… How Rangers crossed this dangerous Arctic expanse by snowmobile… Finns accepting applications for Arctic Warrior Experiment

• From the Ukrainian front: Ukraine to allow drone sales abroad, with caveats… A compilation of drone interception footage [VIDEO]… Ukraine’s killer robots show how war is changing… Russia entered the war with a fleet of roughly 2,000 unmanned aerial vehicles, in 2024 they used 1.5 million, and now we are talking about several millions… An open-source database of drone warfare in Ukraine… Ukraine’s Drone-Hunting An-28 Turboprop Is Now Launching Interceptor Drones

Missile Matters — with Fabian Hoffmann

Can Ukraine Jam Russian Ballistic Missiles? Evaluating Soft-Kill Options for Ballistic Missile Defense

Picture: Mil.ru via Wikimedia Commons…

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2 days ago · 79 likes · 10 comments · Fabian Hoffmann

🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Finland reporting aviation, maritime, and cellular impacts from GNSS interference… Uncovering Global Telecom Exploitation by Covert Surveillance Actors… Amazon agreed to acquire Globalstar for $11.57 billion

• Odds & ends: Denmark to procure state-of-the-art Canadian assault rifle before Canada does… In 1956, Canadair’s chief designer, Frederick Phillips, proposed a radically new airplane design… $1.3M award funds space technology innovation research at York… Financing Defence Readiness kicks off today in Ottawa… The U.S. and Taiwan Plan to Turn the Strait Into a Drone Hellscape to Stop China… NATO looking at Canadian aircraft for its new airborne warning fleet… US Navy chief wants big lasers on warships ASAP

  • Canada’s top general says military won’t renew program to prevent avalanches on Trans-Canada Highway

    • AVSS collaborates with the Government of Canada through Innovative Solutions Canada to perform avalanche control work with drones [VIDEO]

Paul Wells

The Q&A: "The human may not be able to make decisions at the speed modern war requires"

Mood-swinging on the Russia-Ukraine war has lately swung toward unaccustomed optimism among supporters of Ukraine in its long defence against Russian attack. In March Ukraine said it took back more territory than Russia gained, for the first time in three years. Of course in a chaotic conflict with sky-high stakes, much could change. But Australian defence analyst Mick Ryan, a retired major-general, has…

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3 days ago · 90 likes · 19 comments · Paul Wells and Olena Kryzhanivska

• The Pentagon: The Assistant Secretary of War for Mission Capabilities (ASW(MC)), in the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (OUSW(R&E)), is hosting a Technical Exchange Meeting (TEM) with industry… How to sell as a US defence startup… Half of ‘long shot’ Polymarket bets on military action are successful… Australia’s Speartooth submarine drone enters U.S. service… Aligning the U.S. and Canadian Defence Industrial Bases

ChinaTalk

WarTalk: Still Out of Ammo

Two weeks into the US-Iran ceasefire, CENTCOM is requesting Dark Eagle hypersonics, the 82nd Airborne is flowing into theater, and the wargames keep telling us the same thing — there’s no military solution to the Strait of Hormuz…

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4 days ago · 58 likes · 1 comment · Jordan Schneider

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Ukraine is proving that drones are not “poor man’s airpower” — they are the foundation of a new way of war. Cheap, precise, mass-produced unmanned systems are replacing parts of the old precision-strike model built around scarce, expensive platforms. The result is affordable precise mass: millions of drones, mid-range strike systems, long-range one-way attack UAVs, and robotic platforms that can surveil, strike, and adapt faster than legacy militaries can procure.

What It Means: The bigger disruption is doctrinal. Air superiority no longer guarantees freedom of movement, because the air domain has split into layers: jets may control the high sky while low-altitude drones still make the ground battlefield nearly transparent. Large formations are punished, manoeuvre is harder, and the winning unit is increasingly small, dispersed, networked, and plugged into fast sensor-to-shooter loops like Ukraine’s Delta system. The drone is often just the last mile; the real weapon is the network.

Hamilton, Ontario’s Sentinel R&D in talks to make drones in Canada for Ukraine through joint venture, sources say

Bottom Line: The scariest lesson for NATO is not technical — it is organizational. Ukraine’s advantage comes from rapid iteration between frontline units, engineers, volunteers, and manufacturers, with changes happening in days or weeks. Western militaries still rely on slow procurement, restricted repair, exquisite platforms, and expensive interceptors. If they do not adapt, they risk preparing for a war whose basic assumptions have already expired.

Related:

• Startups say Ottawa’s defence-spending boom hasn’t reached them yet

• Pentagon Seeks $75 Billion for Drones in Record Budget Ask

• Defence Industry Thought Leaders see Domestic-made Canadian Drones as Next Frontier

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

For startups, working with the US Department of War (DoW) can feel like stepping into a fortress of bureaucracy

Selling to the DoW isn’t as simple as pitching a product and securing a contract. The military operates on a rigid, multi-year budgeting system — PPBE: Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution — that dictates what gets funded, how, and when. Unlike the fast pace of technology startups, DoW funding moves slowly through layers of approval:

a16z

DoW Contracting for Startups 101

America | Tech | Opinion | Culture | Charts…

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11 days ago · 54 likes · 1 comment · Ryan McEntush, Leila Hay, and Alex Oliver

• In Canada: Why firms and the government are co-conspirators in procurement complexity

  • Defence procurement 101 in Canada

  • Cybersecurity has become a prerequisite for participation in Canada’s defence supply chain

• Public defence comps from BCI: At 13.4x, autonomy now trades above every defence category and most growth software

• What do recent PE exits tell us about defence startup valuations?:

Related:

• A history of DARPA: Washington Rewrites the Rules of Funding Technological Innovation

  • The Pentagon’s ‘Last Supper’ is still costing billions

  • To defeat foreign foes, Palantir’s chief technology officer urges us to confront the naysayers entrenched within the Pentagon

• Cohere to acquire Germany’s Aleph Alpha in sovereign AI play

• Nomi Capital Closes $50M Defence Tech Fund I

• The upstarts shaking up the defence industry

• Private-Sector Sleuthing Becomes Big Business for US Tech Startup

• CPPIB’s John Graham says pension fund ‘open for business’ to invest in defence sector

• Toronto-based INKAS touts French-Canadian armoured vehicle in response to Ottawa’s call for diversification in defence

• Saildrone Unveils Spectre, Built with Lockheed Martin

• As Canada rebuilds its military, Waterloo region moves to front lines

• Castelion Awarded $105M U.S. Navy Contract to Field Blackbeard on the F/A-18 Super Hornet in 2027

• Inside the UK’s Munitions Bet

• Ten Canadian defence founders choose a hero from history

• This is the defence sector’s fastest grower — and a $20 billion trade most investors are missing

• Skydio Raises $110M at $4.4B Valuation

• The economics underpinning Shield AI

• Norrsken Evolve backs Bubble Robotics’ $5M raise to deploy an autonomous workforce at sea

• UK MoD meets with defence VCs

• $85 billion of exit value generated in Aerospace & Defence M&A across Europe and Israel since 2022

• The AI in defence tech market map

• Which European Defence Companies Are Most Exposed to SAFE Eligibility Constraints and Foreign-Control Screening Risk?

• Capital markets brief: Spotlight on orbital warfare & Space Force acquisition reform

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Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

2026 Red Team Hackathon Series continues in Ottawa May 30, 2026

A national defence-tech innovation challenge for Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs, startups, and future leaders.

The 2026 Red Team Defence Tech Hackathon Series continues in Ottawa at Bayview Yards. This national series brings together entrepreneurial teams and early-stage startups from across Canada to compete for $200,000 in total prize money, potential grants, and exclusive internship opportunities — all while solving critical dual-use challenges that matter to Canada’s defence and security ecosystem.

Modern Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operations increasingly rely on drones, ground robots, maritime vessels, sensors, and networked platforms operating in complex and contested environments. As system density increases, cognitive load on operators rises — creating operational friction, delays, and potential mission risk.

The Ottawa Event

• May 30, 2026 Bayview Yards, Ottawa, ON

• Ten selected teams will compete for a $20,000 prize pool and the opportunity to advance to the Grand Final in Ottawa November 21.

Verified Canadian Supply Chain: Cryptographic Provenance for Buy Canadian Procurement

The Challenge: With the rollout of Canada’s Buy Canadian Policy, verifying whether products are truly Canadian has become increasingly complex. Global supply chains involve multiple tiers of suppliers, making it difficult to confirm origin claims like Product of Canada or Made in Canada. Today, these claims rely heavily on self-reporting, which is difficult to validate and vulnerable to misrepresentation.

What’s at Stake: Teams will design and prototype a system that creates a trusted, tamper-evident record of product origin. Using cryptographic attestations from verified suppliers, the system should track materials, labour, and production across the entire supply chain—ensuring transparency and integrity from source to final product. The Canadian drone sector will serve as the primary use case.

Register here.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ottawa opens regulatory doors to space launches in Canada

The federal government has introduced legislation to enable Canadian satellite builders and launch providers to go where they have never gone before – at least, not from their home turf. The Royal Canadian Air Force also named its first Space Major-General.

Canadian entrepreneurs are working to make it happen:

• NASA and Russia are struggling, so Bachar Elzein founded Reaction Dynamics to launch rockets from Canada

• NordSpace Corp. has been awarded approx. $250,000 in funding under the Department of National Defence (DND) IDEaS program to advance its Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellite constellation technology for resilient non-terrestrial networks (NTN)

• Everything you need to know about the ‘spaceport’ in Nova Scotia

However, not everyone is impressed with recent developments:

• NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) is calling innovators to help shape the future of Arctic operations through Innovation Continuum 2026 and Task Force X Arctic

  • NATO DIANA’s Rapid Adoption Service enables first R&D contract between Allies and industry

    • NATO DIANA Decision Superiority for NATO Warfighters Challenge is now open

• Northrop Grumman swaps autonomy software mid-flight

• Iran roundup: Indian tanker falls for IRGC crypto scam… The Iran war burned through America’s L-RASM, JASSM-ER, and Tomahawk stockpiles — weapons designed for a Pacific fight against the PLA Navy… Newly Deciphered Sabotage Malware May Have Targeted Iran’s Nuclear Program—and Predates Stuxnet

• Canadian bacon: Dominion Dynamics introduces modular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) tower, as its CEO joins PM’s Canada/US advisory group… Inside Sapper Labs, the veteran-led Ottawa firm wiring Canada’s defence intelligence… Canada Rethinks Global Telecom Networks Amid Rising US Tensions… DND seeking AI-driven solutions that fuse heterogeneous multi-domain data streams to provide real-time, explainable, and policy-aware situational awareness for operational decision-making… The luxury parka company that wants to wire soldiers’ clothing… Kraken Robotics is changing mine countermeasures

• Thought leadership: The “America Is Out of Missiles” Story Collapses Under Scrutiny… European Defence Should Rely on European Technology… America’s new defence-tech industry should be a model for Europe… Building a Canadian Dual-Use Industrial Commons… Canada is entering a defence spending supercycle… How Military Demand Is Reshaping The Future of Critical Minerals… A new baseline for Canada’s Arctic

• Drone wars: Rise of the ‘wolf pack’: China’s canine robots evolve to think as one for urban combat… Drones Tested for Avalanche Control in Canadian Rockies

• Arctic shelf: On patrol with Canadian forces securing the Arctic as global threats grow… Ship traffic is growing in the High Arctic, but very unevenly… $1B Arctic fund now accepting proposals… Square dances and cell signal dead zones: Rangers confront Canada’s Arctic reality

• From the Ukrainian front: Ukrainian soldiers deploy ground robot to evacuate senior citizen… Inside Ukraine’s robot war revolution… Japan Just Put a Weapon in Ukraine’s War, and It Cost $2,500… Why Do Many Western Defence Tech Firms Struggle in Ukraine?… Footage of a French Mistral SAM shooting down a Russian Cruise Missile [VIDEO]… Russia Is Building Tomorrow’s War Machine… In a first, Ukraine’s drone force launches interceptor drone from USV to destroy Shahed… Ukraine intel exposes Russia’s Krasnopol ammo that syncs with drones… Putin’s High-Tech Russian Submarines Goad NATO Deep Below the Atlantic

The Defense Brief

The First Robotized War

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13 days ago · 7 likes · 2 comments · Louise Boucher

• The F-35 Is a Masterpiece Built for the Wrong War

• Warfare in a Box: Executive Outcomes and the making of the modern mercenary

🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Toronto police seize ‘SMS blasters,’ a cybercrime weapon never before seen in Canada… A team at Stanford and Arc Institute fed a language model a DNA sequence and asked it to write a new virus… CISA lacks access to Anthropic’s Mythos… Huawei spinoff Honor wants to sell smartphones in Canada

Chris's Substack

Backdoors Are Not Secrets

There is a moment in WarGames that still captures something essential about cyber, long before the term entered military doctrine. Matthew Broderick’s character visits a technology company and asks how its engineers broke into a system. One engineer casually suggests looking for a backdoor. Another snaps, “Hey, you’re giving away all our best secrets.” …

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11 days ago · 3 likes

• Odds & ends: Victoria Cross fight reignited as MPs back independent honours review… FBI ‘spooked’ by sophisticated theft of agricultural drones in New Jersey… SpaceX rideshare is full up until 2029… Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Roads University agree to new post-secondary education pathway… Lithuania’s playbook for surviving economic warfare, and what Canada can learn… How Portugal shaped Canada’s new submarines and fine-tuned Arctic defence… TKMS and Havguard AS signed a teaming agreement… Why is Canada’s submarine project such a big deal for South Korea?… McKinsey Partner’s Secret Drone Bet: How Conflicts of Interest Are Redefining Elite Consulting Careers… Ursa Major — Printing a way out of the SRM bottleneck

Canadian Cyber in Context

Canadian Program for Cyber Security Certification (CPCSC): Evaluation Findings Explained

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14 days ago · 4 likes · Alexander Rudolph

• The Pentagon: A visual of US military spending as a percentage of GDP over time [hint — line goes down not up]… Pentagon pulls the plug on one of the military’s most troubled space programs… The White House announced that grid infrastructure is essential to national defence

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Canada’s defence-tech scene is having a “why not us?” moment. As Ottawa prepares to pour billions into military modernization, a wave of Canadian drone companies is racing to prove the country can build its own next-gen systems across air, land, and sea.

“Everybody knows drones are the new warfare. Rifles used to be the first line of resistance. They’re now the last line.” — Glen Lynch, Volatus Aerospace Corp.

What’s Next: The bet is simple: drones are cheaper, faster to build, and far more expendable than legacy military hardware — which makes them increasingly central to modern warfare. Companies like Volatus, Sentinel, Kraken, Open Ocean, and INKAS see a rare opening to turn Canada’s engineering talent into sovereign capability.

“Drones are the splashy cousin… and the ground robot is the workhorse.” — Philip Reece, InDro Robotics

Bottom Line: RBC says Canadian defence spending could generate $100 billion for Canadian companies and transform Canada from a defence equipment importer into a contributor to allied military capabilities.

It all hinges on whether government procurement can finally move at startup speed. If Ottawa follows through, this could be the start of a real domestic defence-industrial base. If not, Canadian innovators may keep doing what they’ve always done — selling abroad first.

Related:

• How Iran’s Cheap, Low-Tech Drones Have Cost the U.S.

• Drone wars: The strategic convergence between Ukraine and Iran

• Killer robots are coming: Ukraine is using unmanned ground vehicles armed with bombs, guns or rockets to carry out attacks and keep its soldiers out of harm’s way

• ‘Robots don’t bleed’: Ukraine sends machines into the battlefield in place of human soldiers

• DND seeking to advance methods to assess, calibrate, and maintain trust in real-time when humans work with autonomous systems

ChinaTalk

How Ukraine Scaled to Millions of Drones

Ukrainian drone manufacturing. How has the country been able to scale from thousands to millions of drones over the past four years? What dependencies does its industrial base still have on China? And what lessons does its rapid scaling offer for the US…

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20 days ago · 45 likes · 4 comments · Jordan Schneider, Chris Miller, and Phoebe Chow

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation takes one small step to support life on the Moon

The Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation (CSMC) has won grant funding for two projects that could one day help humans live and operate on the Moon.

The Kitchener-Waterloo-based space and defence tech company has been awarded $1.2 million in federal funding to build manufacturing capacity for its nuclear microreactor, which is intended to power facilities both in the Arctic and on the Moon. The award follows CSMC winning the $400,000 top prize of the Canadian Space Agency’s Aqualunar Challenge last week for its lunar water purification technology.

Related:

• Converting Canada’s quantum leadership into operational advantage

• Landing Zones Canada Secures First Investment from BDC’s New StrongNorth Defence Fund

• U.S. defence company looking to raise up to $100-million to build Ontario arms factory

• SBQuantum nabs $4 million USD, new CEO as it preps for US expansion

• Norwegian Startup Stendr Secures $5.4M to Combat Drone Threats

• Kepler to lead testing of European Space Agency’s high-speed data network

  • Canada formalizes subscriptions to four new European Space Agency programs

  • ESA’s €18.6 Million Bet on Kepler Communications Reveals How Europe Plans to Build the Backbone of Space-Based Internet

• Tungsten Collaborative receives National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) funding for drone development

• Lockheed Martin bumps up VC investment fund to $1bn

  • Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works launches UK Technology Roadmaps initiative alongside MTC partnership expansion

• Ulysses Raises $46M Seed + Series A

• Finland’s Kelluu Raises €15M NIF-led Series A

• Aevex CEO Drops Bombshell on $320M IPO Surge: Why Defence Drones Are the Next Trillion-Dollar Bet

• The European Defence Fund (EDF) 2025 results are in

  • EU pumps over $1 billion into defence R&D, centered around Ukraine war lessons

• Wars Impose Lasting Economic Costs, While More Defence Spending Means Hard Choices

• US NatSec Innovation Report Card

• Space Race: The Canadarm launched 25 years ago this week

  • NATO Defence Giant Licenced To Serve Satellites for China’s Military

  • Telesat’s Rebuild Gets Boost From Canada’s Defence War Chest… Amazon to Buy Satellite Company Globalstar for $11.6 Billion

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Dominion Dynamics awaits military procurement reform after successful Arctic deployment of sensor tech

After meeting with the Prime Minister and embedding in the Arctic with the Canadian Rangers, defence tech company Dominion Dynamics is reconsidering its next steps as it waits for federal procurement processes to catch up.

• Meet the neo-primes: Anduril, Palantir and SpaceX are changing how America wages war

  • Federal report: Evaluation of Capability Acquisition Modernization

  • Audit warns military procurement faces ‘persistent’ hurdles

The Defense Brief

How the new primes actually won — and what it means for everyone else

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21 days ago · 8 likes · Louise Boucher

Gray Matters

🎙️ Ep 22 - Armada: Building American Edge AI Dominance

In the latest episode of the Mission Matters Podcast, Akhil and I sat down with Dan Wright and Pradeep Nair, co-founders of Armada, which is building distributed AI infrastructure for the world’s most demanding environments…

Listen now

14 days ago · Maggie Gray and Akhil Iyer

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Security Compass helps you maintain end-to-end security traceability across your control framework: requirement → implementation → test/verification → evidence. Give assessors what they need faster, with less ambiguity.

• Iran roundup: How did the US run out of missiles in Iran?

• BAE Systems trials low-cost counter drone solution for Eurofighter Typhoon

• Canadian bacon: A new Ontario defence association… New Canadian trade association seeks to represent domestic defence industry… Canadian military beats recruitment target after 1,400 permanent residents sign up… BBE and Det’on Cho Logistics Launch Arctic Defence Logistics Platform to Strengthen Canada’s Northern Readiness… Built in Canada, Armed for the World: Roshel’s Bet on Sovereign Defence… Civil defence and Canada’s critical infrastructure

• One app to check all UAS geographic zones across Europe

• Sweden is allocating SEK 30 billion of its expanded defence borrowing to transport infrastructure

• Boeing commits $36 Million CAD to Aerospace Manufacturing R&D in Winnipeg

• Anthropic’s AI model sparks rush from industry, government to batten down defence hatches

• Thought leadership: The Pentagon Has The Fast Lanes Now. Defense Catalyst Is Training the Drivers… How Emerging Technologies Are Redefining Modern Defence… Canadian Dynamism: From Survival to Triumph… NAV CANADA Study Projects Drones Will Reshape Canada’s Low-Level Airspace, Economy and Daily Life (Status check on drone licenses across Canada)​… How Hyperspectral Data Is Changing Maritime Domain Awareness… Crafting a Canada-Made Critical Minerals Strategy

• Drone wars: Are water drones in for an investment bonanza as defence budgets spike?… Building “Swarming” Software for Drones… Rheinmetall wins €300mn drone order from German armed forces… Estonia to halt $587M Infantry Fighting Vehicle buy in favor of drones, air defence… The West is preparing for cheap drone attacks, but many businesses and civilians can only watch, not stop them… Germany Orders “Thousands” of Auterion-Airlogix UAVs… Gambit Awarded OTA by U.S. Army GVSC to Advance Integrated C-UAS Simulation and Coordinated Autonomy… The Gulf’s counter-drone problem is that operators have been forced to burn $4M to $7M PAC-3 interceptors on $30K Shaheds because nothing cheaper existed at volume:

• Arctic shelf: We deployed AuraNet in the High Arctic. Here’s what we learned working with Rangers for eight weeks… Canada, Nordic countries can work together to defend the Arctic, Finnish President says… How the US military is preparing for the future of arctic warfare… We’re spending $35B on Arctic defence. Why are we doing that?… Canadian Coast Guard tests Arctic surveillance drone as air force delivery stalls… Ottawa wants LNG to be shipped from Port of Churchill by 2030… I Went to Greenland and Saw a Warning for Canada

True North Strategic Review

So, What The Hell Is An Arctic Mobile Base?

Usually, I wouldn't write about a project this early in its development…

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15 days ago · 26 likes · 15 comments · Noah

• From the Ukrainian front: Ukraine unveils universal ground control station for fiber-optic drones to eliminate the “zoo” of systems… Visiting a drone factory in Ukraine… The Ukrainians are claiming to have intercepted a Shahed with an interceptor drone from a surface platform… Ukraine’s Future Vision and Current Capabilities for Waging AI-Enabled Autonomous Warfare

🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Here’s how cyber heavyweights in the US and UK are dealing with Claude Mythos… Canada urgently needs a civilian defence strategy — before the next crisis forces one… The Finns have suggestions for Canada… Push to secure Canadian IP in defence procurement needs a ‘clear plan’ of execution… UK to help Belgium build electronic warfare centre… Why Did China Buy Up the World’s Ports?

  • Canadian Program for Cyber Security Certification (CPCSC) has released its level 1 self-assessment tool and scoping guide. CPCSC will eventually become the cyber security standards for Canada’s defence supply chain and will start to be required as part of certain defence contracts

• Odds & ends: Comprehensive list of European defence funds… How to get your robot on an airplane… The Alaska Highway was constructed in just eight months after the attack on Pearl Harbour. Soldiers, not civilians, built it. Today it continues to serve as a transformative piece of linear infrastructure that supports significant elements of the economies of BC, Yukon, and Alaska… NorthStar Earth & Space Announces Plans to Become Publicly Traded via Merger with Viking Acquisition Corp… UVic to get more than $5M for aerospace, AI projects… 10 defence tech startups on a hiring spree… What Ukraine Has Taught Us: The Critical Role of Textiles and Equipment in Modern War… The Largest SME Opportunity in Canadian Defence History — And Why Most Founders Will Miss It

Decouple

Arctic Baseload: Russia's Floating Nuclear Power Plant Dominance

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22 days ago · 42 likes · 2 comments · Chris Keefer

• The Pentagon: America’s Fourth Coast Could Help Close the Shipbuilding Gap With China… A Private Equity Billionaire Mounts His Biggest Takeover Yet: the Pentagon… The three valleys: why American defence tech cannot scale at the speed of strategic competition… $7.2B to the Missile Defense Agency — 41% of the $17.5B Golden Dome for America Fund in the FY27 request

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

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🎯 Three-Shot Burst

The Royal Canadian Navy will shortly be launching a new approach to building naval warfare capability, designed to strengthen how the Navy works with industry from the earliest stages of capability development. They’ve asked The Icebreaker for some help reaching out to homegrown startups:

How It Works: The RCN’s new industry engagement model starts with operational problems, not predefined solutions. Through an upcoming pilot from Director of Naval Requirements 4: Warfare Systems, the RCN wants companies to begin thinking early about priority warfare challenges and potential concepts shaped with end-user realities in mind:

“Rather than defining detailed requirements upfront, the Navy will articulate the operational problems we need to solve and work with industry to explore, shape, and mature potential solutions through direct engagement with end users. The intent is to improve alignment, reduce misinterpretation of operational need, and ensure that emerging capabilities are grounded in how the Fleet actually operates.

Our intent is to deliberately shape a solution space in a way that respects the principles of transparent and fair procurement. This approach is designed to deliver the capabilities the Royal Canadian Navy needs to succeed on operations, while enabling industry to develop solutions that are competitive for Canada and in global markets.”

What’s Next: No submissions are being requested yet, but industry should treat this as an early signal to start exploring where it can contribute. The Navy says fuller guidance on participation will follow once final approvals are complete.

Bottom Line: The RCN is signaling a notable shift in how it wants to work with defence industry: less prescription, more problem-solving. A forthcoming capability development pilot from the Navy’s warfare systems requirements team will ask companies to orient around operational problem statements instead of waiting for highly specified requirements.

The slide deck from Cdr Phillip C. Durand is a bit too big to share, but reply here, and we are authorized to send you a copy directly!

Related:

• IDEaS gets a contract vehicle: The POINT pilot is being tested on select IDEaS contract-based challenges to help streamline the acquisition of innovations that have successfully completed IDEaS funding

• As drones upend tank warfare, Canada’s army races to rethink its armour

• FUBAR: How Canadian Defence Procurement Can’t Shoot Straight

• Canada seeking observer role in sixth generation fighter jet project

  • Dominion Dynamics, which recently met with the PM, presented its approach to building collaborative combat aircraft in Canada to a government delegation of over 30 stakeholders from DND, ISED, NRC, DRDC

  • Canada killed its own fighter jet industry twice

SAGE

Why Business is Reluctant to Rally Around the Flag. It’s not 1988

Dale Eisler is a former Assistant Deputy Minister and Consul General in the U.S. He is currently a Senior Policy Fellow at the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy…

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a month ago · 17 likes · 3 comments · Dale Eisler

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

PM announces Canada First defence policy

“The days when we sent 70 cents of every dollar in military spending to the United States are over forever. This is not an act of hostility, but an act of self-respect. We cannot claim to be a sovereign nation if every bolt in our aircraft and every line of code in our radar systems is built and controlled in the U.S.

As of today, the ‘Canada First’ defence policy is no longer a slogan - it is an unbreakable mandate.” — PM Mark Carney

Related:

• Hermeus Hits $1B Valuation, Raises $350M and Moves HQ from Atlanta to Los Angeles

• Space analytics firm HawkEye’s revenue jumped 74% in 2025, US IPO filing shows

Industrial Base Alpha

The Valuation Trap

BLUF: Defense tech founders are raising at valuations calibrated for IPOs in a market where the realistic exit is an M&A transaction at a fraction of that price. The gap between entry valuation and likely exit multiple is widening, and almost no one in the room is saying so out loud. Venture capitalists competing for limited talent are bidding prices up…

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21 days ago · 13 likes · 5 comments · Matthew Bernard

• Why Astranis, Red 6, Merlin, and Slingshot are among Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2026

• The comprehensive list of specialist European defence funds

• RBC plans to invest up to $1 billion through new Canadian growth fund

  • A new global defence bank will help Canada’s startups more than its military

  • RBC and Treble Victor Group on deploying veteran talent

  • Defence, infrastructure, and a $3.5 billion organization you’re probably not watching

• CCC is pleased to announce that it was awarded a new 5-year contract with the United States Department of Defense (U.S. DoD) for maintenance services by StandardAero at its facility in Winnipeg

• KONGSBERG Vanguard LP awarded federal contract to design the Canadian Coast Guard’s future Mid-Shore Multi-Mission vessels

• Pentagon’s Little-known DAWG Fetches $54.6B In Spending Plan

• Algoma forms joint venture with armoured vehicle company Roshel

• Bravo Dynamics, developer of a mesh communications system, has raised investment from Freedom Fund VC

• Trae Stephens: Silicon Valley and Washington Must Build Together

  • Defence’s Silicon Valley pivot: Ukraine, Iran wars challenge the legacy playbook

  • Trump praises Palantir as stock has worst week in over a year and Iran conflict drags on

Pirate Wires

How the Military Is Using Palantir to Fight Wars

The first substantial profile on how Palantir and the Pentagon are actually using AI in warfare, with a closer look at Palantir’s unique approach to problem-solving, which unlocked targeting software the military has wanted since Vietnam…

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24 days ago · 87 likes · 12 comments · Blake Dodge

• Space Race: Canada’s spotty support for innovation is grounding its space ambitions

  • Canada’s space industry faces its moment of truth

  • When the Moon Met Canada

  • Why NASA footage rarely shows satellites [VISUAL]

  • Canada has joined the ranks of the world’s most adventurous lunar explorers

  • T-28 days until the Canadian Space Launch Conference in Ottawa on May 5th

  • SpaceX bankers bend over backwards to bag IPO role

  • MDA Space announces “MDA MIDNIGHT” space control platform for the defence market

  • Your spacecraft is flying through debris right now that no public catalog will ever show you… Over 13,000 active payloads are now in lower LEO

  • Space Force taps 14 firms for $1.8 billion GEO surveillance program

  • A worst-case solar storm could knock out satellites, GPS and power grids, report warns

  • Monarch Quantum Raises US$55 Million for Quantum Photonics Hardware

• Saab dangles sovereign data centre in Montreal to undercut F-35 fighter contract

• Ottawa gives South Korean, German submarine builders opportunity to revise bids

  • TKMS and Finkl Steel – Sorel Sign Teaming Agreement to Explore Cooperation on Strategic Materials for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project

• While most people see UAVs and drones as a VC story, PE is increasingly investing in this space

  • Drones are about to unlock an entirely new operating layer for the physical economy

• UK Signs Drone Interceptor Deal With Cambridge Aerospace

• Defence executives worry Trump’s proposed military splurge could backfire

• B Riley Securities Q1 2026 Aerospace and Defence report

• Italian government poised to replace Leonardo’s CEO who oversaw order surge

Steve Blank

Nowhere is Safe

Drones in Ukraine and in the War with Iran have made the surface of the earth a contested space. The U.S. has discovered that 1) air superiority and missile defense systems (THAAD, Patriot batteries) designed to counter tens or hundreds of aircraft and missiles is insufficient against asymmetric attacks of thousands of drones. And that 2) undefended hig…

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25 days ago · 32 likes · 3 comments · Steve Blank

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Epic Fury Already Stress Testing More Agile Army Acquisition System, US General Says

“As I look back on the past 30 days in Operation Epic Fury, we had some immediate requests from the field in the first week,” Phillips said. “Those immediate requests in the field returned on a requirements document with the [Army Future Capabilities Directorate] and [Army Transformation and Training Command] in about 48 hours, who turned on a contract in about 72 hours. And I can say that we’ve had soldiers out training and testing the capabilities they’re going to deploy with in real time in the past 10 days. So we’ve got industry fully engaged.”

• New US Navy Budget Wants $3B for New Tomahawks, $4.3B for SM-6s

  • The biggest constraint in missile production isn’t funding

• Mutually Automated Destruction: The Escalating Global A.I. Arms Race

• How This Precision Weapon Reengineered Modern War

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When you transform defence you set off a dual-use chain reaction that might just spark a monumental economic transformation. Could this be Canada’s Mars-shot?

• Iran roundup: Iran is trying to turn off America’s water… The top secret CIA tool ‘Ghost Murmur’ used to save US airman downed in Iran by detecting his heartbeat… Operation Epic Fury U.S. Aircraft Losses Visualized… Iran’s Asymmetric Counterair Campaign: Attacking the U.S. Air Force’s Nests and Eggs… America’s Underwater Drone Strategy Is Reshaping Naval Warfare in the Strait of Hormuz

• China Seizes An Island While The World Is Watching Iran

• US Air Force taps AIM for autonomous air base construction

• U.S. Navy Destroyer Equipped With New Launcher For Unknown Weapons

• I Went to China to See Its Progress on A.I. We Can’t Beat It

• Decentralize or Defeat: How Institutional Ego Slows U.S. Military Intelligence

• Canadian bacon: Most Canadians prefer a NATO without the US, to a NATO that bows to Trump’s demands… A fixation on Trump and American politics is blinding Canada and its allies to the challenges that will define the next quarter century… NORAD commander says F-35-type aircraft not needed to defend North America… The U.S. isn’t happy about Canada’s quest for digital sovereignty… Building Whole-of-Society Resilience Against Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference in Canada… Beyond Regions: Why Canada and South Korea Need a New Security Narrative

• Thought leadership: Is CANDU a solution to the reprocessed Uranium problem?… The Pentagon is calling for rapid industrial modernization, but the largest defence primes returned over $20B to shareholders in 2024-2025 while investing just 2-3% of revenue back into physical assets. The real burden of building America’s defence capacity falls on small and mid-size suppliers… NATO Sec Gen 2025 Annual Report

• Drone wars: Estonia cancel a €500M combat vehicle procurement and redirect those funds toward air defence, drones, and unmanned systems… U.S. Develops Acoustic-Guided System to Intercept FPV Drones… Recent viral reports are highlighting a new Chinese system dubbed the “Baby Shahed”… He built Ukraine’s first bomber drone flying 3km in May 2022. Now it reaches 65km… How America’s Shahed-136 Kamikaze Drone Clone Suddenly Became An “Indispensable” Weapon Of War… China still controls 70–90% of Europe’s critical drone component supply chains with propulsion and raw materials most exposed at 90%+ in the 5th year of the war:

Defense Tech and Acquisition

Drones, Dollars, and Disruption

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

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23 days ago · 18 likes · 1 comment · Matt MacGregor and Pete Modigliani

• Arctic shelf: Arctic Fever: Canada’s Ambitions in the North… Training above the 80th parallel [PHOTOS]… Defence experts warn Canada lags far behind in efforts to secure the Arctic… Rangers end ‘majestic’ snowmobile trek through Canada’s North in Churchill… Arctic advantage: China’s new tech boosts sub detection capabilities near Alaskan waters

• From the Ukrainian front: Drone warfare in Ukraine: munitions, cameras, and fiber optics… New battlefield footage appears to show a North Korean Type-75 107 mm MLRS mounted on the Russian NRTK “Courier” ground robotic platform [VIDEO]… Footage of a Russian drone dodging interceptor drones while being shot at from the ground with machine guns [VIDEO]

Missile Matters — with Fabian Hoffmann

Ukraine's Deep-Strike Drone Campaign Against Russian Oil Infrastructure

Picture: Ukrainian Armed Forces, 14th UAV Regt…

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22 days ago · 106 likes · 8 comments · Fabian Hoffmann

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Security Compass aligns engineering outputs to SA&A security expectations with structured evidence and change-aware monitoring. Make reassessments simpler by showing what’s implemented, what changed, and what’s validated.

🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: The Beginning of the End of Cybersecurity… Russia is not just sabotaging cables and pipelines. It is normalizing underwater warfare as a permanent feature of European security… CIA director quietly elevated agency’s cyber espionage division… A hacker has allegedly breached one of China’s supercomputers and is attempting to sell a trove of stolen data… CIA employees will get AI ‘coworkers’—and eventually run teams of AI agents, deputy says

• Odds & ends: Europe’s New Defence Core… Aerospace, Defence Parts Maker Arxis Seeks $1.06 Billion in IPO… Xona Space Systems debuts satellite manufacturing facility in Burlingame… Japan and Australia eye joint missile and drone production amid U.S. stockpile concerns… Europe is winning the AI and drone science race. It’s losing the deployment war… France to increase defence spending by $42 billion, mulls new tank effort… Drones could change avalanche control in Canada. Here’s how… Gulf Allies Turn Away From U.S. for Fresh Ammo

• The Pentagon: For acquisition reform to succeed, the Pentagon needs civilian agency budget flexibilities

  • Defence budgets are rising but most suppliers still will not benefit

  • Just over two months ago, the United States Department of War launched the “Patent Holiday” pilot program. This initiative offers industry partners a two-year, no-fee license to evaluate and commercialize a curated list of patented technologies from the Department

• How Canadian military members violated intelligence-gathering rules during COVID-19

• Power and Dominance: The carrier-SSN balance in modern warfare is a necessity

• Canada’s defence investment: Can we action a strategy for sovereign strength and the future of industry?

  • How defence spending could help Canada beyond the military

Second Tour

The Arsenal of the Midwest

My father spent twenty-eight years on the line at Pontiac Assembly. He came home most nights smelling of paint and metal in a neighborhood where nearly every other father did the same. The street ran on General Motors time. Shift changes set the rhythm. First, second, or third shifts. What I understood growing up, without anyone having to explain it, wa…

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a month ago · 5 likes · Nick Ondovcsik

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

Save the Date: Along with CSMC, RBCx, and Torys LLP, we will be hosting a breakfast event on May 26 during Toronto Tech Week. Details to come.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

This week, the CAF is hosting Outlooks in Ottawa — an opportunity to hear directly from Canada’s top military leadership as they discuss their goals for tomorrow’s Army, Air Force, and Navy. Unfortunately, you must be a CADSI member to participate.

The goal is the right one — get government, the CAF, and industry aligned on future requirements. But that only works if the right companies are actually in the room.

Tsk, Tsk: Limiting this to one industry group’s members effectively shuts out many Canadian-owned, Canadian-controlled companies — especially newer and smaller firms.

At a moment when Canada says it wants more domestic capability, more Canadian content, and more new entrants in defence, it makes little sense to gate access through a single industry association. That is not how you build a broader defence industrial base. It is not how you surface the best new suppliers. And it is not consistent with the logic of the Defence Industrial Strategy.

Moving On: In spite of this gatekeeping, contacts in the CAF have quietly consulted with The Icebreaker given our national defence census work, so we’ve gotten a sneak peek at early versions of what will be shared. Participants should expect genuinely progressive pilots from really thoughtful CAF leaders, that will address problem articulation and end user access, and be scoped at very low TRLs.

Bottom Line: CAF leaders are doing their best within the parameters they have to work with — but the parameters still represent a broken architecture. Do not expect the fundamental procurement architecture, IP, or anything pertaining to attritable mass doctrine, to be addressed here. These efforts still likely feed into multi-year procurement funnels.

Related:

• Canada Buys is now able to track your CPCSC and CMMC certification level

• Ottawa Hands Billions to Firms Calling Themselves Canadian. Most Aren’t

• Canada’s biggest banks get into defence after years of avoiding military financing

• Canada’s $150-billion challenge: How to build a homegrown defence sector and fast

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

AI boat maker Saronic smashes $9 billion valuation

Led by Kleiner Perkins, robot shipbuilder Saronic raised nearly $2 billion to expand production and develop new vessels as the Navy seeks refined options for medium unmanned surface vessels.

Related:

• Defence gave back gains in BCI’s monthly public comps

  • $6.8 billion: That's the size of Ukraine's defence technology market in 2025

• Palmer Luckey-Backed Nuclear Startup Valar Lands $2 Billion Valuation

• Darkhive Secures $49.7M APFIT Contract

• Overmatch Raises $250M to Expand Defence Tech Investments

• Lockheed Martin Canada invests $3.6 million into Lemay.ai

• With Ottawa’s defence push, Calgary’s ATCO eyes more deals after investing in Arctic venture

• Brit Box: The UK’s SME Action Plan for defence will not be published until after the delayed Defence Investment Plan is finalized… These drones can take on Putin but can’t beat British bureaucrats… UK defence tech alliance targets 20 spinouts a year

• Larus awarded $8.3 million IDEaS Test Drive contract by the Department of National Defence to advance the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) in tactical planning and decision intelligence

• PacifiCan invests $13.8 million to advance defence innovation in AI and aerospace in British Columbia

• Navy, Hadrian launch partnership, open facility to build submarine parts

• Dominion Dynamics presented its approach to building collaborative combat aircraft in Canada to a government delegation of over 30 stakeholders from DND, ISED, NRC, DRDC

• The Calgary firm with a wildly different plan for the AI infrastructure boom

• U of A researcher on battery-free sensor to track vital signs in extreme cold

• Inturai to fast-track combat defence and infrastructure technologies with veteran-owned defence technology company VEXSL

• Westinghouse is Canada’s choice for proven and ready now nuclear energy… the Americans think it belongs to them

• From Lockheed to European start-ups, arms makers jostle for Iran war orders

• 15 defence startups to watch in 2026, according to VCs

Emerging Defense

Emerging Defense March Recap

Summary…

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a month ago · Scripps Wilkinson

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ex-CIA director David Petraeus says U.S. needs to learn “whole new concept of warfare” from Ukraine

“In some Western countries right now, they think that innovativeness is giving 50 drones to an armored battalion,” he said. “No. What we should do is scrap the armored battalions and replace them with a drone battalion.”

• The war Rheinmetall thinks it’s fighting is not the one Ukraine is winning

  • Autonomous swarms are the future of drone warfare

  • Iran is ending the dream of remote-controlled war

• Integrated Air & Missile Defence (IAMD) in Canada

• America’s ‘Featherweight’ Missile Is Unlike Anything China Has. It Could Rewrite the Hypersonic Arms Race

• Anduril’s EagleEye helmet enables soldiers to see through objects by using real-time drone and sensor data

• Acoustic Drone-Sensing Startup RADD Emerges from Stealth

• New business models in defence tech:

Gray Matters

Beyond SaaS: New Business Models in Defense Tech

Traditional venture-backed business models – SaaS, marketplaces, consumer platforms – are built for large, competitive markets with many buyers. Defense is the opposite: one customer, constrained budgets, and procurement systems that don’t neatly reward off-the-shelf products…

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a month ago · 25 likes · Maggie Gray

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Security Compass aligns engineering outputs to SA&A security expectations with structured evidence and change-aware monitoring. Make reassessments simpler by showing what’s implemented, what changed, and what’s validated.

• Iran roundup: The US Burned 14 Years of Missiles in 30 Days… Shutting Hormuz is a template for China in Taiwan… A former C.I.A. officer says that he recruited scientists as part of the United States’ effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program… Israel targets Iran’s leaders with lethal expertise using new AI platform… Europe imports 80% of the hydrocarbons it consumes and that oil and gas keeps getting more expensive as they unplug from Russian gas and become hostages of America’s War on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz… Iran Is Piercing Israel’s Ballistic Missile Defences With High Altitude Cluster Warhead Releases

• Clearpath Robotics’ Ryan Gariepy on killer robots and Canada’s defence strategy

• The cutting-edge robots that can hunt some of Iran’s most notorious weapons

• Scaling Golden Dome’s Model For Multi-Vendor Developed Solutions

• Seagliders and the Future of Maritime Defence

• The U.S. Military Risks Letting Contractors Define How It Sees the Battlefield

• Airbus seeks to expand defence footprint in Canada

• Canadian bacon: Canada’s Arctic Energy Security: Infrastructure Vulnerabilities and NATO Resilience Requirements… Cole Rosentreter on why your flight is delayed and how Canadian tech can fix it… Canada could help in the Strait of Hormuz, but must we?… Five big moves Mark Carney must make to secure Canada’s place in the world… Everything You Should Know About CAF Cyber Command… Defending distant, unsurveyed Arctic ‘more complicated,’ top naval commander says… A Steep Climb: Financing Canada’s NATO Commitment while Maintaining Fiscal Discipline… How Canada Can Get the Most Out of Its Defence Spending Surge… To meet next NATO spending target, Canada needs a credible fiscal plan, think-tank says… Diego Garcia was the warning shot Canada cannot afford to ignore

• Thought leadership: Across the CAF, NATO, and the wider Five Eyes community, one truth is becoming unavoidable: we’re no longer dealing with isolated security crises… Robert Dimitrieff on the layers of the industrial sovereignty system… Innovation Policy in Canada: A Practitioner’s Perspective… People Must Be at the Core of Canada’s New Defence Ecosystem… Alexander MacDonald, the Canadian who served as NASA’s first chief economist:

• Drone wars: US Army Tests Northrop Grumman’s Lumberjack Group 3 Strike Drone, kitted out with Palantir’s Maven… The Mongols, Drones, and the Future of War… The Drone Dominance Program Lethality Prize Challenge is now live… America Needs to Get Serious About Drones… France goes big on missiles and drones in multibillion-euro defence plan… People keep calling Shahed “a drone.” It’s not. It’s a mass attack system. And the real complexity is not the drone itself… America’s Best New Weapon in Iran Is a Drone Inspired by Iran… Ukraine is developing interceptor drone swarms to defend against Russian attacks… Europe’s Untapped Arsenal

• Arctic shelf: Inside NATO’s race to secure the Arctic… Ottawa earmarks up to $8B for 5 Wing Goose Bay but falls short of offering details… In war-torn times, allies are taking a keener interest in this Nordic nation’s culture of preparedness

• From the Ukrainian front: Drones haven’t won the fight in Ukraine. That matters as the West learns new ways of war… ‘The frontline is like Terminator’: fighting robots give Ukraine hope in war with Russia… How to Measure Russia’s Munitions Throughput—and How to Disrupt It

• Space race: ‘This feels fragile’: how a satellite-smashing chain reaction could spiral out of control… SpaceX tries to convince FCC that Amazon put satellites into wrong altitude… Inside Canada’s race for space sovereignty… Canada charts a new path in space, with the US… Sherbrooke-based SBQuantum put its quantum diamond magnetometer aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare as part of the MagQuest Challenge… SpaceX files for IPO… Roshel takes Jeremy Hansen to launch… Direct-to-device and NTN mobility are often framed as coverage solutions

  

🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: After 16 years and $8 billion, the military’s new GPS software still doesn’t work… Data centers emerge as targets in warfare’s AI era… A.I. Is on Its Way to Upending Cybersecurity… The front lines of irregular warfare are not found only on battlefields. They also run through banks, export regimes, and critical supply chains… Chinese firms market Iran war intelligence ‘exposing’ U.S. forces… Strategic Capabilities Office Launching Cognitive Warfare Project… China maps ocean floor as it prepares for submarine warfare with US… China is a prisoner of energy geography

• Odds & ends: How American Camouflage Conquered the World… An increasing percentage of Canadians report that they would be willing to serve in the Armed Forces if Canada were involved in a major conflict… Pax Americana — who paid for what?… The Crumbling Foundations of American Strength… German men must ask army for permission to leave country… China’s EV success formula — and Canada’s dilemma… Afghanistan veteran William MacDonald on being considered for the Canadian Victoria Cross

• Budgeting: The US FY2027 defence budget request totals $1.5 trillion, an unprecedented 44% increase over current levels. Here’s what stands out… Budget would cut Pentagon research by one-third. Can industry compensate?… DARPA’s budget for 2026 is $4.9 billion, a 12% jump from 2025

The Deep Brief

The Byproduct Theory of Defense Innovation

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made asymmetric warfare impossible to ignore. On the Eastern front, cheap, adaptive systems — iterated fast, tested under fire — have consistently outperformed expensive, slow ones…

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a month ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Herbert Mangesius and Nicolas Colin

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

One week to go: Make sure your voice is heard in the Icebreaker x BDC national defence census, which will help governments and capital providers understand the challenges and supports Canadian SMEs need to win in defence.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Special guest POV by 🍁 Katheron Intson, CEO at Sentinel R&D

A lot of people looked at Swarmer’s Nasdaq debut and saw absurdity: a company with just $309,920 in 2025 revenue and a net loss of about $8.5 million trading like it had already arrived. On a conventional software screen, that looks detached from fundamentals. But conventional screens are built for normal commercial markets, not for companies whose products are still being validated under live battlefield conditions.

Reality Check: Swarmer is not a normal software company. Public reporting linked the company to Operation Spiderweb, the June 1, 2025 Ukrainian strike inside Russia. The clearest public account described Swarmer as “the invisible brain” behind the operation’s autonomous drone control layer. That does not mean Swarmer alone created Spiderweb, or that it should be credited with the entirety of the operation’s outcome. It means the company has been publicly tied to one of the most consequential drone operations of the war, which proved that low-cost autonomous systems could help impose strategic costs on extremely expensive military assets.

Think Bigger: Swarmer has been in its combat testing and validation stage. Yet according to both its SEC filing and company materials, drones equipped with its Trident OS have already flown more than 100,000 combat missions since 2023, and the company says those missions were conducted under active electronic warfare and GPS-denied conditions. That is not peacetime testing. It is live operational validation at a scale almost no Western defence software startup can match.

This is where the usual valuation language starts to break down. Revenue is one metric. Backlog is another. But neither fully captures what investors may actually be looking at here: a wartime autonomy stack being refined through repeated operational use, and through its demonstrated contribution to losses imposed on the adversary, before commercialization has fully caught up.

Public markets may be trying to price not merely software sales, but combat-proven relevance, battlefield-hardened data, and the possibility that this testing phase is already producing an asset of genuine strategic value.

That matters because value does not begin only when a contract is signed. In defence technology, especially during wartime, a system can be enormously valuable long before procurement channels have translated that value into recognized revenue. If software contributes to missions that destroy or degrade assets worth many times more than the company’s own current income, the absence of near-term sales does not necessarily mean the absence of substance. It may simply mean that the machinery of acquisition is moving more slowly than the machinery of war.

That does not mean Swarmer should be valued dollar-for-dollar on the reported damage associated with Spiderweb or any other mission. Damage is not revenue, and combat contribution is not the same thing as durable market power. But it does raise a serious and underexplored question: how should markets value a company that appears to have contributed to an operation associated with billions in reported losses, and to more than 100,000 combat missions beyond that, while still effectively in the validation phase of its life as a business?

Bottom Line: Swarmer’s debut makes more sense if you stop looking at it like an immature software company and start looking at it like a combat-validated autonomy layer. The market was not buying $300,000 of revenue. It was buying the possibility that software tested across more than 100,000 real combat missions, and publicly linked to a major strategic operation like Spiderweb, may already have demonstrated a kind of value that conventional financial statements are too early to capture.

Related:

• Volatus Aerospace Announces Strategic Collaboration with Sentinel R&D to Support Canadian Sovereign UAV Capability

• Defence tech founder warns Canada is getting “wishy-washy” about defining sovereignty

• DND seeking innovative solutions for Sentinel Shield: Wide-area detection for early warning against uncrewed aerial systems

• The Defence Industrial Strategy’s initial spending is not as Canadian as hoped… Canada formally launches Defence Investment Agency, expected to reduce $100-million contract minimum… What comes next on the contracting front?

• The Icebreaker’s parliamentary testimony frames final government report on reforming defence procurement:

“The old approach to procurement does not work at the speed of modern threats.”

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Canada Ex-Defence Minister’s Startup Juno Sees Anduril-Type Role

Vancouver-based Juno Industries Inc. hopes to close a Series A round of about C$10 million by mid-April.

Founded last April, the company is developing a hub for communications, drones and sensors in Arctic environments called Polar Nexus, which CEO Hunter Scharfe said will be “the first of many sensor nodes and deployment platforms” from the company.

“Autonomous systems are going to become the forefront of defence investment,” and “those systems are very powerful and have a lot of different data capabilities,” Scharfe said. But the issue, he said, is what platform will be trusted to trawl through the data, interpret it, and provide officials options for action.

Juno’s ambition is to be a “neo-prime,” a term used for fast-growth startups like Anduril Industries Inc. that are racing with the traditional “prime” defence contractors like Lockheed Martin Corp. to deliver new security technology.

The Free Press

Trae Stephens: Silicon Valley and Washington Must Build Together

February 27, 2026, was a flash point in the cold war between Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C…

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a month ago · 51 likes · 17 comments · Trae Stephens

The Defense Brief

Hill & Valley 2026: What the US Tech-Defence Alliance Actually Believes

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a month ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

Related:

• Behind the scenes in Canadian defence procurement:

Not long ago, I was entrusted to lead the business development effort, technical compliance strategy, proposal structure, and OEM engagement for a bid valued at up to $60M. Here’s what that looks like.

• Pitchbook: “The Most Investable Corner of Defence? Electronics”

  • Uncrewed Mine Warfare Is Emerging as a Scalable Defence Industry Segment

• The most innovative defence tech companies of 2026

• The United States Department of War announced 25 companies competing for its $1.1B Drone Dominance Program. Check out their cap tables

  • Shield AI Raises $2B Series G at $12.7B Valuation

• Anduril, Palantir Developing Golden Dome Missile Shield’s Software, Source Says

• SBQuantum wants to help the world navigate in a post-GPS era

• Denvr signs two defence deals to deepen sovereign AI push in Canada

• Edmonton’s Wyvern Inc. to track rogue vessels as feds earmark $6M for defence research

• Cohere teams up with Swedish defence firm Saab on AI for surveillance jets

• Airbus and L3Harris Win $1.1 Billion Deals for Canada Fleet Support

• Carlyle Said to Plan Defence Fund as Governments Hike Spending

• Sailbotix announces initial deployment of one of the most advanced hand-deployable data buoys

• UK risks losing defence tech start-ups to relocation amid funding delays

• South Korea’s Defence Startups Surge as Global Conflicts Flare

• Canada Advances New Global Security Architecture: The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank

  • Ontario seeks private-sector manager for new $4-billion Protect Ontario investment fund

• Pete Hegseth’s broker attempted to make defence investments before Iran war

Defense Tech and Acquisition

Acquisition Marketplaces Are Blooming

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition. We salute all those overseas serving in Operation Epic Fury and those stateside ensuring they are fully supported. Your work is vitally …

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a month ago · 17 likes · 1 comment · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Former top general says we need to start building our own long-range missiles

Wayne Eyre, who was Canada’s top soldier as Chief of the Defence Staff until summer 2024, said this country desperately needs its own production lines for many of these munitions. “This includes using our inherent strength in the aerospace industry to produce our own long-range strike and air defence missiles, along with lower cost drones and counter-drone systems,” he said in an interview:

Fly Straight

Canada needs a "wartime mentality" in a disordered world

Sixty eight years ago this week, the Avro Arrow interceptor fighter took its maiden flight - arguably the pinnacle of Canadian aeronautical engineering history…

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a month ago · 35 likes · 5 comments · John Ivison

• Ottawa’s defence spending plan has ambition, but half of the equation is missing

• Money alone does not build security: capacity does

  • Ukraine Is Making Home-Brew Long-Range Missiles

• In 1952, Canada was spending 8% (!) of GDP on defence

• Canada’s push to develop nitrocellulose hinges on real industrial integration… CellCore Technologies Emerges from Stealth at DEFSEC West, announces plans for new nitrocellulose facility

• As Canada hits NATO 2% goal, Carney vows more as warfare ‘rapidly’ changes

  • Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger said Ukrainian drone makers were housewives with 3D printers and that their work was not real innovation. Ukrainians responded.

“If every housewife in ​Ukraine can really make drones, then every housewife in Ukraine can be the ⁠CEO of Rheinmetall,” Zelenskiy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat.

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Security Compass aligns engineering outputs to SA&A security expectations with structured evidence and change-aware monitoring. Make reassessments simpler by showing what’s implemented, what changed, and what’s validated.

• Iran roundup: Ukrainian cheap interceptor drone blows up Iranian Shahed drone in spectacular hit [VIDEO]… Iran built a vast camera network to control dissent. Israel turned it into a targeting tool… Images show destroyed US E-3 Sentry AWACS at Prince Sultan Air Base… Iranians Don’t Have a Missile Alert System, So Volunteers Built Their Own Warning Map

• Electromagnetism Secretly Runs the World

• China’s robot wolves have been put through a simulated street battle [VIDEO]

• A blueprint for Chinese global leadership

• Why China Is Stepping Up Its Reusable Rocket Push

• Hellscape Taiwan: A Porcupine Defence in the Drone Age

• US and UK teaming up to destroy underwater drones

• Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence: Meet the Gods of AI Warfare

• Canadian bacon: The push to create a Canadian rival to GPS… Calgary-born astronaut to be voice link to Artemis II moon mission… Canada clears NATO’s 2% bar — after years of lagging and a last-minute lift… Saab CEO says company, Canada still in ‘intensive’ talks… Toronto Argonaut turned military outfitter wants Canadian Army to be ‘brilliant at the basics’… Farewell, Victoria! On Hanwha Ocean’s Bid for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project… As oil pipelines become an ace in ‘Canada’s deck,’ should country place bet on path south or west?… Canadian Army overhaul looms as DND finalizes mobilization plans

• Thought leadership: The Luxury Beliefs That Broke Europe’s Energy System… NATO on how emerging technologies advance… Artificial intelligence is increasingly being incorporated into maritime surveillance, navigation, and decision-support systems… Kraken Robotics’ Chief Technology Officer, David Shea, “Dispelling Myths About Synthetic Aperture Sonar”

• Drone wars: Noah Gairn on CUAS… Dutch armed forces to add drone operators to combat brigades… VW in talks with Israel’s Iron Dome maker to shift from cars to missile defence… Kinetic interception, Russian style [VIDEO]… Yesterday, a $𝟱,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗲 destroyed a $𝟲,𝟬𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗸 equipped with the world’s most advanced protection system… The Pentagon Copied Tehran’s Technology but Is Still Struggling to Keep Up

• Arctic shelf: In Canada’s far north, some fret Carney’s military plan overlooks everyday needs… Scenes From the Canadian Arctic

• From the Ukrainian front: Ukrainian drone architect talks to 60 Minutes on the cost per kill metric… Ukraine is offering Gulf states 1,000 drone interceptors per day. Each Sting interceptor costs $2,100. Each Patriot missile it replaces costs $3.9 million… Vibe-coded visualization of publicly available data relating to Unmanned Systems that have been used during the Russian invasion… A choice of deadly drones is a few clicks away for Ukrainian troops… Ukraine Is Building the Drone Warfare Machine NATO Still Does Not Understand… Ukrainian drones have made artillery and armored vehicles look obsolete. Why is the world still buying them?

• Why defence can’t scale innovation, by Stuart Lodge:

First Breakfast

The 1-to-100 Trap

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a month ago · 23 likes · Stuart Lodge

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Reservists killed in Kuwait a few weeks ago were targeted using adtech; Iranians used it to trace their movements to the port… Chinese Hackers Caught Deep Within Telecom Backbone Infrastructure… APT Iran hacking group advertises 375TB of data purportedly exfiltrated from Lockheed Martin for $600M… Buy a cheap satellite dish and listen: SMS, payment data, and military secrets will fall from the sky… Hacked hospitals, hidden spyware: Iran conflict shows how digital fight is ingrained in warfare… Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish photos and documents

• Odds & ends: “Ronnie, the Bren Gun Girl” was a Canadian icon representing nearly one million Canadian women who worked in the manufacturing plants that produced munitions, weapons, and equipment during the Second World War… More money for Canada’s military should mean more transparency and accountability… Why foreign investment has surged into Canada

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

Following the success of our national market mapping survey last fall (many of its conclusions are reflected in Canada’s defence industrial strategy), The Icebreaker is partnering with BDC to make sure Canadian dual use SMEs get to shape procurement going forward.

What’s Next: This survey is explicitly designed to capture financing pressure, procurement friction, certifications, cybersecurity requirements, export restrictions, long sales cycles, and the other real constraints SMEs face.

It runs March 24 to April 6, takes ~10 minutes, and will help governments and capital providers understand the challenges and support Canadian SMEs need to win in defence.

Bottom Line: Canada’s banks and policymakers have moved quickly to endorse multinational defence-finance vehicles, but Canadian defence SMEs still need reliable domestic credit channels, guarantees, and underwriting standards that treat lawful defence production as bankable.

If you want the system to work for Canadian dual use SMEs, you need to show up in the data. If Canadian dual use SMEs stay silent, then existing primes and foreign incumbents will define the market, the barriers, and the support agenda for them.

Stand up and be counted — take a few minutes to influence what support, capital, and market access look like next.

Related:

• BDC expands Defence Platform to $6 billion and names a StrongNorth Fund leader

• BDC leads negotiations as Canada hosts international partners to advance establishment of the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank

• Canadian Defence Industry Resilience (CDIR) Program is opening new doors for companies ready to step into the defence and security market

• Ottawa spending $1.4-billion to ramp up domestic ammunition production capacity. The Canadian Shield Institute weighs in, giving this announcement a 3 out of 10 sovereignty score:

  Over $1 billion of the $1.4 billion investment will go to General Dynamics Canada, a subsidiary of the American defence company…

  In areas like building nitrocellulose production capacity, a capability that our existing and vast wood pulp industry could meet with government support and partnership, there is no excuse to not direct the investment to a truly Canadian option.

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Defence Tech Exits: Swarmer, Merlin, and CSG

On March 17, Swarmer — a Ukrainian drone autonomy software company founded in 2023 — listed on Nasdaq and closed up 520% on its first day of trading. It now trades at a 1,000x revenue multiple — a remarkable achievement since revenues declined in 2025 even as losses quadrupled.

Simultaneously, Merlin — which designs autonomous flight systems — also had a successful IPO and raised $200M, valuing the company at $1B.

Related:

• Kraken Robotics Announces $24 Million in Defence Orders; the company is also seeking new talent for its software department in all product areas

• Is defence tech a ‘proper’ VC-backable vertical?

• MDA Space wins $32-million contract to build telescopes for space surveillance

• Brave1 packs rooms in the US with its Ukraine defence tech roadshow

• 15 defence startups to watch in 2026, according to VCs

• US Navy and Hadrian Team Up on Alabama Submarine Facility

• ‘Cruise missile’ drones and low-cost Shahed knockoffs listed on Alibaba

• Photonic names former Microsoft Xbox head Don Mattrick CEO… From dropping out of film school to leading Xanadu’s bold IPO, quantum trailblazer Christian Weedbrook is no stranger to calculated risks

• Telesat shares soar on hopes for defence spending by Canada and allies

• Defence and housing take centre stage at N3 Summit

• Toronto Argonaut turned military outfitter wants Canadian Army to be ‘brilliant at the basics’

• French-Italian VC 360 Capital raises €85m for deeptech fund backed by European defence prime… Becoming the First French Defence Unicorn

• UK drone interceptor start-up in funding talks at $1bn-plus valuation

• The Battlefield is the Next Betting Market

• Enigma Emerges from Stealth

• Silicon Valley Bet on War: The Bets are Paying Off

• The Danger of Vibe Patriotism in Defence Tech

• High-speed combat drone production starts at new US Anduril plant in days… Anduril has effectively become the gatekeepers for US counter drone tech

• Arc has secured $50 million in Series C funding to scale production of electric tugs, ferries, and defence vessels

• Rheinmetall Walked Away. Germany Should Take the Hint… Merz’s €600 Billion Defence Push Is Rippling Across Germany

• Iran war puts Europe’s air defence startups in the spotlight: ‘The gap is impossible to ignore’

• A Pentagon Sovereign Wealth Fund?

• Only 1 Canadian company cracks Resilience’s 100 Startups to Watch in 2026

• US procurement: Issues with the Ancient Arsenal Argument… SBIR’s Back and New PAEs… Navy unveils acquisition reform, establishes five more PAE organizations

  • How Defence Programmes Actually Shape Industrial Decisions

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Palantir’s Maven artificial intelligence system will become an official program of record

The designation marks a shift from earlier pilot programs and short-term contracts to a standardized capability expected to be deployed across the US armed forces. Programs of record typically receive stable, multi-year funding and are integrated across service branches, streamlining procurement and adoption.

Canada’s space commander reveals major threats to our sovereignty, security.

• Space sovereignty for middle powers

• Beyond Venture: Space Needs a Complete Capital Stack

• The Defence Paradox in Earth Observation: The Enabler and the Hindrance… For Satellite Startups, War Pays Better Than Climate Change

• Canadian Space Agency terminates Lunar Rover Mission in 2026-27 Plan

• Why Canada Must Build Sovereign Launch Capability to Lead the Space Economy

Bruce Mehlman's Age of Disruption

Six-Chart Sunday – The Art of War in the 21st Century

Emerging technologies are changing how we work, live, play, learn, parent… and fight. A profound revolution in military affairs is reshaping warfare & redefining power, as is vividly on display in Iran, Ukraine, financial markets and communications networks around the world. 21st century warfare is increasingly…

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a month ago · 76 likes · 6 comments · Bruce Mehlman

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Security Compass aligns engineering outputs to SA&A security expectations with structured evidence and change-aware monitoring. Make reassessments simpler by showing what’s implemented, what changed, and what’s validated.

• Iran roundup: Who Runs Out of Munitions First in Iran… Why the Blockade Won’t Hold — and What It Means for Prices… U.S. vs. Israel on battlefield tech… America goes on cyber-offence… Iran-backed Iraqi militia Saraya Awliya al-Dam released FPV drone footage showing their drone flying through the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad without activating any air defence systems… Pentagon Plans to Mass Produce Attack Drone Used in Iran War… A bootstrapped startup just bombed Iran:

Industrial Base Alpha

Spektreworks

I don’t write about this subject lightly…

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2 months ago · 29 likes · 13 comments · Matthew Bernard

• AI warfare: How the Iran war could derail the AI boom… Saab and Cohere sign memorandum of understanding on advanced AI collaboration… Anthropic Denies It Could Sabotage AI Tools During War… AI Mission Planning Tools Are Coming: Your Pilots Are Not Ready to Use Them… US intelligence elevates AI as a top global threat in new report… Compute infrastructure will decide the next phase of the conflict

• Canadian bacon: Canada Shifts From Peacekeeping to Building a Strong Military… Canada’s Industrial Transformation in the World Wars and What It Actually Teaches Us… Inside the Mountain Where Americans and Canadians Are Still Tight… CAF members safe after missile intercepted near Israel-Lebanon border… Colt Canada to deliver more than 65,000 rifles to Canadian troops in sped-up procurement process… Europe is eyeing France’s nuclear shield. Should Canada follow?… Why Canada needs a modern merchant fleet

  • China is after Canada’s pulp and paper industry – it’s a national-security issue

  • In 1982 there were approximately 100,000 people working simultaneously in the CANDU supply chain, thirteen reactors under construction domestically and internationally at a single point in time

• Army ‘Very Close’ to Fully Fielding First US Hypersonic Missile… U.S. Army Receives DARPA’s Optionally Piloted H-60Mx Black Hawk

• The U.S. Ammo Shortage Is Worse Than You Think… Magazine Breadth — Not Just Depth — Is Key to Munitions Industrial Base Resilience… Why the Ammunition Surge Is Stalled—and How to Fix It

• Thought leadership: What is Deterrence at Scale?… UK publishes ‘future operating environments 2040’… Russia’s drone army is already here… Canada must play to win: From the Arctic to our economy, participation is no longer enough… Lofty goals, real constraints: Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy… An Era of Global Rearmament and the U.S. Defence Industrial Base

  • Canada should mandate 70% domestic content on all major defence contracts, giving the Defence Investment Agency authority to enforce it and removing regulatory barriers to sole-sourcing Canadian suppliers

  • For decades, America used technology to offset mass. Today, that same technology is proliferating, eroding its advantage, and reshaping the character of warfare:

    Building Our Future

    The End of Technological Overmatch

    America’s military has enjoyed technological superiority over every adversary it has faced for decades…

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    a month ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Building Our Future

• Drone wars: France Introduces Telecom-Based Counter-Drone Network Using 19,700 Towers to Protect Critical Assets… Why making a great drone isn’t enough… How low-cost drones are used in modern military strikes… Q&A with Chad McCoy, Firestorm Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer… ‘Multiple waves’ of unauthorized drones recently spotted over strategic US Air Force base… The drone swarm is coming, and NATO air defences are too expensive to cope… Why Cheap Drones Destroy Expensive Things - And How to Deal with Them… In tiny Estonia, drones lead booming defence expansion

• Arctic shelf: Ships Should Meet the Polar Code Before Entering Canadian Arctic… In Canada’s Frozen North, With Canada’s Frozen Soldiers… Carney’s depressing Arctic confession… Canada wants to build up its long-neglected Arctic. The hard question is how… Canada, the Nordics, and the New Arctic Industrial Base… Forging an Arctic Security Strategy: Why Canada Needs a Coherent Framework Now… Russia Builds $600M Arctic Military Communications Network with Drone Integration… In a more competitive Arctic, Canada’s influence hinges on investment

• From the Ukrainian front: Zelenskyy gives King Charles iPad showing Ukraine’s battlefield and airspace situation; Ukraine offers protection to Europe… Ukraine Just Proved a $500 Drone Can Kill a $16M Helicopter… Saudi Arabia Turns to Ukraine for Air Defence Weapons Amid Iran Strikes… Ukraine commands NATO’s simulated enemy for first time in history at Portugal naval drills

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: The US bans all new foreign-made network routers… Companies are now on the front lines of war. They need to act like it… Hackers have hacked into one of China’s main supercomputing centers

• Odds & ends: In modern conflict, it’s not enough to be powerful; resilience under pressure is essential… Canadian companies make their case at Nvidia’s GTC conference… These Canadians are preparing for a US invasion… Mobilize by Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar and Defence Lead Madeline Hart is out… EA-18G Growlers Carrying Mixed Load Of Old And New Jamming Pods Are Flying Iran Missions… Australian Rare-Earths Miner Lynas Inks $96M Pentagon Deal

Gray Matters

🎙️ Ep 21 - Techquisition: SBIR Reauthorization Explained

After a 6 month lapse, the SBIR program is officially back following Congressional reauthorization…

Listen now

a month ago · 2 likes · Maggie Gray

On Fragile Orbits

Dual-Use: From Infatuation to Commitment

Industrial policy is having a comeback, led by two words: dual-use. Here in Canada, the phrase appears repeatedly in the new Defence Industrial Strategy. It carries a promise. Defence investment becomes innovation policy. Military spending becomes economic development. Security becomes prosperity…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · Jessica West

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Ukraine is giving international partners and defence companies access to its vast trove of real combat data to train artificial intelligence models for autonomous drone systems — a move Kyiv is calling “the first initiative of its kind in the world.”

“The future of warfare belongs to autonomous systems,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote in a release announcing the program.

Bottom Line: For companies building autonomous systems or target recognition software, the value is straightforward: Validated, real-world training data compresses development timelines and improves model performance in ways no laboratory environment can replicate. For allied governments, it offers a faster path to fielding AI-enabled defence capabilities — without having to generate their own combat datasets from scratch.

Related:

• Open-sourced: Individual builds a functional MANPADS missile launcher for under $100, using open-source 3D-printed files, firmware, and ATR models now on GitHub [VIDEO]

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Pentagon hiring investment bankers

The Pentagon is reportedly hiring investment bankers to deploy $200B over 3 years in defence deals. Take a look at the job specs.

The Pentagon is also committing $150M to a maritime-tech VC fund and appears to be ramping up venture deals. Elsewhere, Wall Street firms are looking to ex-military and national security experts to navigate Iran conflict risks.

Closer to home, BDC is expanding its Defence Platform to $6 billion, and has appointed Peter Suma to lead its new, $300-million StrongNorth Fund. Mark McQueen has some thoughts on the capital pacing required going forward.

Related:

• Canada announces $35B for defence, infrastructure in Canada’s North. Most of the investment is being drawn from a pool of money set aside almost four years ago

  • Op-ed: Great defence industrial policy. But how do we know it’s working?

• Assessing the impact of venture capital dynamics on military norms

• Canada Leases Space Port in Bid to Break Reliance on US Rockets Like SpaceX… One Hundred Years of Liquid-Fuel Rocketry

  • $200M to Maritime Launch Services
    $8.3M to Canada Rocket Company
    $8.3M to NordSpace
    $8.3M to Reaction Dynamics

• IQT’s Look at the Year Ahead: What 2026 Could Have in Store for Strategic Technologies

• Canada’s first-mover advantage in SMRs faces growing geopolitical risks

• Canada pitches Telesat Lightspeed to the Australian government; Norway and UK are next: Can we make the sale?

• Canada’s SkyWatch has launched the first app for satellite imagery inside ChatGPT

  • Planet Labs Extends Middle East Satellite Imagery Delay on Iran Risks

  • Open-source intelligence shuts down

• PitchBook Analyst Note: The Iran War Viewed Through a PE Lens

  • Global defence spending grew in 2025, reaching USD2.63 trillion, up from USD2.48 trillion in 2024

• Lux Aeterna raises $10 million to build reusable, returnable satellites

• Kai Emerges From Stealth With $125M in Funding for AI Platform Bridging IT and OT Security

• The Return of Industrial Warfare: What Modern Conflicts Mean for the Defence Supply Chain

  • Industrial sovereignty does not end at the mine

• Hadean, the AI battle simulation startup, closes bridge round ahead of a Big B

• HavocAI’s All-Domain Shopping Spree

• Palantir and NVIDIA announce a new Sovereign AI OS that provides a complete AI datacenter stack

• US Army awards Anduril Industries a contract with a total value of as much as $20 billion to buy the defence startup’s software, hardware and services. The deal “formalizes single contract vehicle” and “eliminates pass-through charges on subcontracts”

  • DoD Modernization is Burdened by Legacy Systems and Services

  • A guide to US federal acquisition architecture

Marlinspike: The 21st Century Offset

Valley of Value Destruction

The “Valley of Death” describes the period it takes the Department of War (DoW) to transition from prototype to contract. Companies caught in this valley often run out of capital before contract awards are announced…

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2 months ago · 14 likes · 3 comments

• Galvion Secures Canadian DND Order for 29,000 Additional Caiman Helmet Systems & Covers

• Calian VENTURES and Tessellate Robotics Advance Autonomous Navigation for Arctic Defence

• NYSE Listing Puts MDA Space in Position for Global Deals

• Ottawa gives NRC $900 million for drone innovation hub and defence-focused IRAP stream

  • Canada’s New Flying Laboratory and What It Means for Defence Innovation

• Xanadu in talks with government over potential $390 million for domestic quantum manufacturing

• Kongsberg-led venture to design future Mid-Shore Multi-Mission Vessels for the Canadian Coast Guard

• Company offers use of private deep-water Baffin Island port to Department of National Defence

• European NATO nations reduce reliance on US arms imports: SIPRI data

• Drones, lasers and radars: Middle East war spurs hunt for cheaper air defence

  • The high price of intercepting Iran’s low-cost drones

• We need a strong, unapologetically Canadian defence industry voice—for the first time in a generation, we have one

• A collaboration between TKMS and Seaspan ULC delivers Canada’s desired outcome for sustainment

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

US military supremacy shines as China fails big in Iran, Venezuela

For years, China showcased their powerful HQ-9B missiles as the best air defence system. In less than a year, their system has failed catastrophically in Pakistan, in Venezuela and now in Iran.

Related:

• Taiwan is turning into a porcupine, with over a thousand anti-ship missiles… Thousands of Chinese fishing boats have been massing in geometric formations in the East China Sea… Poll finds most Taiwanese willing to resist Chinese invasion… Taiwan’s bid to export drones free of Chinese parts is taking off

• Iran roundup: Iran’s Cheap, Plentiful Weaponry Puts US Military Under Unprecedented Strain… Ottawa questioned why Iranian strike on military hub with Canadian forces was not made public… Why Kharg Island is so significant… Operation Epic Fury: The first 10 days visualized… How Iran Exposed the U.S. Defence Emperor’s Facade… US has burned through ‘years’ of munitions since start of Iran war… How Iran’s Naval Mines Work… Chinese AI Startup Watching US Military Assets in Middle East From Space… An Iraqi pro-Iran armed group used a fiber-optic FPV drone to attack a key US military facility close to Baghdad’s international airport [VIDEO]… F-35 Software Upgrades ‘Stagnated’ as Jets Fly Iran Missions… Iran’s Survivable Second Drone Strike… How Seven Insurance Letters Closed the World’s Most Critical Chokepoint and Why Markets Are Mispricing Duration by 300%… Iranian Attacks On Prized Missile Defence Radars Are A Wake-Up Call… Don’t Count Launches: Misreading Iran’s Drone Capacity

• AI warfare: The Pentagon got hooked on AI war machines, but where are the guardrails?… Rise of the AI Soldiers… The Autonomous Battlefield: And Why the U.S. Military Isn’t Ready for It

  • For Canada, the march of the killer robots is getting hard to avoid

• Canadian bacon: Finding domestic workers may hamper progress on new defence industrial strategy… Winning the Dual-Use Era Requires a Human Capital Architecture… China Owns Canada’s Only Antimony Mine — Holding Canada’s Trump Card… Canada ready to promote CANDU… Could the Iran War Catalyze Canadian Oil and Gas?… Oil prices are spiking: Can a solar tycoon convince America to embrace the sun?… The Middle Power Moment?… Submarine bidders open to Ottawa splitting contract, say procurement speed setting new standard… Canada considers joining U.K., Italy and Japan to develop future fighter jets… Canada mulls joining U.K.-led response force as its military grows

• DIU, Navy tap Anduril to prototype Dive-XL autonomous submarine

• How the South Builds America’s Next Industrial Chapter

• The West’s response to new methods of warfare in Ukraine and the Middle East has been sluggish

• Drone wars: For the Pentagon’s drone push, the “factory is the weapon”… Cheap drones transform global battlefield… Ukrainian Forces use laser light beam to fry fiber optic on “waiter” drones… Arash-2: Shahed’s Bigger Brother… Britain to buy fleet of 20 drone ships for the Royal Navy… Phones ringing off the hook for Ukraine defence firms as Mideast seeks help… US Apache pilots explain how helicopters are shooting down Iranian drones… Can drones be stockpiled? Europe wrestles with weapons dilemma… Poland to build EU’s first anti-drone shield… Unpacking Iran’s Drone Campaign in the Gulf: Early Lessons for Future Drone Warfare… U.S. Reaper Drones Take the Fight to Iran, but at a Cost

  • Dispatch from the Front Lines: How are we not a drone superpower by now?

• Arctic shelf: Canada, Nordics Deepen Arctic Security Ties, Back Greenland Sovereignty… Carney heads to Arctic war games as NATO flexes muscle in Norway… More than 30 Canadian soldiers suffer ‘cold-weather injuries’ during Arctic training… Canada and its allies are prepared to defend the Arctic, Carney says… Norway’s elite Arctic soldiers still dig their own snow caves to hide from drones

• The Sea Geeks Are Ready for World War III

• From the Ukrainian front: To Fight Iran’s Drones, U.S. Taps Ukraine’s Hard-Earned Knowledge… U.S. dismissed Ukraine deal for anti-Iran drone tech last year

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Training Your Unit on Spectrum: A Company/Battery Commander’s 30-Day Plan… How mobile networks became infrastructure for modern war… 14,000 routers are infected by malware that’s highly resistant to takedowns… Iran Warns US Tech Firms Could Become Targets as War Expands… Datacenters are becoming a target in warfare for the first time… Salt Typhoon is hacking the world’s phone and internet giants — here’s everywhere that’s been hit… Russian military hackers revive advanced malware to spy on Ukraine, researchers say

• Odds & ends: From strategy to scale: Seeing Canada’s defence innovation agenda in action… The RCAF has reached an important milestone with the integration of the new AIM-120D-3 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) into the CF-18 Hornet fleet… War, AI, and the Enduring Human Trinity… This Canadian family fuelled Myanmar’s civil war with ‘blood pearls’… Can America’s Mineral Wealth Be Unlocked Without Smelters?… OSINT Field Notes #6… Applications for the MINDS Targeted Engagement Grants are now open… They Came to Spy on America. They Stayed to Coach Little League… AI-Ready Biodata Is America’s Next Strategic Infrastructure… Will China Overplay Its Hand?… Sovereign by Design: Strategic Options for Canadian AI Sovereignty

• Golden Dome: Redefining Homeland Defence in the Era of Complex Threats… Britain must join European missile shield, says defence company boss

• US Shipyards Specialize in Steel, Smaller Vessels:

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

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Special guest POV by🍁 Cameron Rowe, Co-Founder at Sentradel

Modern air defence was built for Cold War threats like fast jets, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. Systems like Patriot, NASAMS, and Iron Dome use radar to detect objects, calculate trajectories, and fire interceptors moving several times the speed of sound. A Patriot interceptor can travel above Mach 4 and costs roughly $5-$6 million.

Reality check: These systems work well against traditional threats, but drones introduce new problems. A one-way attack drone like Shahed-136 flies about 150-190 km/h, carries a 30-40 kg warhead, and costs ~$20,000. They can be launched in large numbers and fly very low.

Detection is harder than it seems in practice. Most drones have very small radar cross sections. A Shahed is around 0.01 to 0.03 square meters, which is tiny for legacy radars. Their slow speed also creates problems because radar software often filters slow objects to remove birds and ground clutter. A drone can look a lot like noise.

Low altitude flight makes things worse because of the radar horizon. A drone flying at 50 to 100 meters may not appear at all until it’s too late.

Bottom Line: Interception is expensive. Missile defence has never been fully solved, even for nuclear warheads, because saturation overwhelms defences.

Drones recreate the same saturation problem at far lower cost. It’s a cost curve problem disguised as a missile problem. And cost curves, historically, are where technology revolutions hide.

Ukraine shows us both progress and limits. Shaheds are intercepted with missiles, anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, MANPADS, and electronic warfare such as jamming. Systems like the Gepard and ZU-23-2 are used alongside older heavy machine guns like the DShK.

The central issue remains simple: focus on cost per interception — a layered approach with solutions that work and scale.

Related:

• Why The US May Not Be Able To Stop Iran’s Shahed Drone Attacks… Only so many air-defence interceptors are available to knock down an almost limitless number of drones

• The Pentagon and at least one Gulf government are in talks to buy Ukrainian-made interceptors to fend off attacks by Iranian drones

• US deploys laser interceptor for first time

• Rethinking Counter-Drone Defence: A Cybernetic Approach

• The Iran war has been a stunning aerial success… The Glaring Oversight in the U.S. War Plan

• Ukrainian autonomy company The Fourth Law unveils an anti-Shahed drone

• Getting creative:

  • North Vector Dynamics is building Canada’s answer

  • Footage of Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 Eagles and Eurofighter Typhoons shooting down incoming Iranian attack drones [VIDEO]

  • Onboard footage from United Arab Emirates Joint Aviation Command AH-64D Apache attack helicopters as they shoot down incoming Iranian attack drones [VIDEO]

  • The era of jamming drones is over

• Iran’s Missile Math: $20,000 Drones Take on $4 Million Patriots… Testing the limits of US inventory… Gulf states in race to secure more US interceptors

• The US Air Force can now load up to 76 low-cost APKWS guided rockets onto a single F-15, creating a <$20,000-per-shot answer to Iranian-style drone swarms

• Turkey Makes Aviation History With First Drone To Shoot Down A Moving Supersonic Target

• Defence start-ups set their sights on the interceptor market

• Autonomous drone warfare will soon be open source?

⚔️ TECH WARS 👨‍💻

Long-range Terrorism

“However, any such cooperation aimed at protecting our partners can only proceed without diminishing our own defense capabilities here in Ukraine…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · 1 comment · ⚔️Marc C Lange👨‍💻

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🤝 Deal Corner

Dominion Dynamics to build a sovereign autonomous wingman

Dominion Dynamics says it will invest $50 million to build Canada’s very own “autonomous wingman” to fly alongside crewed air fighters.

CEO Eliot Pence said in a statement that the systems “will allow Canada to operate effectively in the most contested and remote environments, including our own Arctic.”

On top of potentially preserving the lives of crewed aircraft, Autonomous Collaborative Platforms can also expand the reach and sensing capability of allied forces with persistent surveillance, electronic warfare, and strike support, the company added.

Related:

• In 1940, the British Air Ministry dismissed Geoffrey de Havilland’s proposal for an unarmed, all-wood bomber as absurd. De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited built the Mosquito anyway

• The Canadian Armed Forces are reliant on a single American defence giant to supply 100% of its ammunition, with all propellants made in Florida

• Pitchbook initiation report on SpaceX IPO: air value at $1.1T–$1.7T… $16B in revenue and $7.5B in EBITDA in 2025

• The Pentagon’s Favorite Tech Guy Is This Hawaiian Shirt-Wearing Founder

  • Kushner’s Thrive, Andreessen Lead $4 Billion Anduril Round

• Defence AI Lab Smack Raises $32M Seed and Series A

• Augur, a ‘grey-zone’ national security startup, raises $15M

• Orqa Raises $14.7M, Heads to the US

• Trump Sons Back New Drone Company Targeting

• Drones: a strategic tool for defence and markets

• H4D Heads to Germany

• Vast Secures $500M in Funding to Accelerate Production of Haven Space Stations

• British defence tech outfit Mutable Tactics raises over $2M in pre-seed round

• Hardware testing startup Nominal hits $1B valuation, raises $155M in 10 months

• Medicine Hat’s Landing Zones Canada: AI-enhanced drones get upgrade with $1.1-million investment

• Kraken dives deeper into defence with $615-million Covelya Group acquisition

• A Darkly Modern Guide to Betting on War

• CAE and TKMS Team Up for Canada’s Next Submarine Era

• 21 Canadian cybersecurity companies are coming to San Francisco for RSAC 2026

• One company makes both solid rocket motors (SRM) inside every Standard Missile (SM) the Navy buys. The United States Department of War just committed over $1.3 billion across three instruments to expand and sustain that industrial base

  • X-Bow Systems and the Future of U.S. Rocket Motor Production

  • The $12 Motor That Could Ground America’s Military Drones:

Industrial Base Alpha

Rival Robots

BLUF: This is my first article in a series called “Prototypes-To-Primes” where I profile the founders, investors, and companies they are building. Here I hope to shine a light on the hardworking people building in the toughest sector for the challenges of national security. This first one is a great story of a BattleBots champion and a serial entreprene…

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2 months ago · 12 likes · 5 comments · Matthew Bernard

• Finnish Defence Chief Warns Against Rushing Military Tech Adoption and Calls on Europe to Develop a New Kind of Maneuver Warfare

• An AI agent that monitors Canada Buys

• Bubble Technology Industries awarded contract to detect space radiation for astronauts

• Feds announce nearly $1 billion for domestic defence innovation, including Bombardier aircraft

• MDA Space: A Canadian company many haven’t heard of just grew revenue >50%

• Satellites are Canada’s next sovereignty frontier as global ‘race’ heats up

  • GPS jamming is emerging as an increasingly prevalent — and troubling — weapon of war

• Modern Military Technology Advancements and the Relevance of Textiles

• Applying lessons from Silicon Valley at the Pentagon

  • The Pentagon is dismantling one of the most entrenched pillars of its bureaucracy

  • US Army hopes to lure civilian tech workers by letting some join as captains

• Iran war underscores the ‘urgency’ for Europe to build its defence capabilities, VCs say… Europe’s defence tech start-ups hunt for more capital

• Boris Wertz: America’s H-1B visa debacle could send foreign founders our way. Our system needs a fix first

• Under the Hood: How Defence Startups Really Protect IP

• Reality Defender Joins NATO’s Cognitive Warfare Experimentation

• Strong products do not guarantee defence contracts… here’s the playbook

Britain’s World

Rethinking rearmament: The return of finance for defence

This article forms the second part of a two-part series on rethinking rearmament. The first part, focusing on industrial requirements, can be read here…

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2 months ago · 10 likes · Benedict Goodwin

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In the 20th century, innovation in semiconductors led to unprecedented industrial growth. In 21st century Canada, that could be a formidable economic unlock.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

How Iran’s missile arsenal is being wiped out

Iran’s missile threat has been severely degraded, with some estimates claiming as much as 70% of its launchers destroyed.

How does it work?: Satellites spot a missile launcher and instantly beam coordinates to the nearest F-35 which fires without ever seeing the target.

As Iran tries to move a launcher, U.S. satellites see it glowing like a matchstick from space, and can target the source. Every time a launcher launches a missile it exposes its position. They’re designed to be reusable but under these conditions they’re mostly only getting off one shot.

Defense Tech and Acquisition

Insights in Iran: Lethality in Action

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

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2 months ago · 14 likes · 2 comments · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

Related:

• Iran roundup: Space Was ‘First Mover’ In Iran Conflict, Top General Says… Israel says it knocked out Iran’s cyber warfare headquarters… How China’s enormous bet on Iran failed… How America reverse engineered Iran’s top attack drone… U.S. Space Force’s AN/FPS-132 (Block 5) Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar System in Qatar damaged by Iran… Cyber Command disrupted Iranian comms, sensors, top general says… U.S. intelligence sees Canada as ‘serious place of concern for Iranian activity’… Satellite firm pauses imagery after revealing Iran’s attacks on US bases… U.S. braces for cyberspace retaliation from Iran… Iran’s Underground ‘Missile Cities’ Have Become One of Its Biggest Vulnerabilities… The Four Hour Cyber War on Iran… Israel’s jet-launched ballistic missile that took Khamenei by surprise:

Iran’s arsenal:

Shanaka Anslem Perera

The Invisible Siege: How Insurance Markets, Not Missiles, Closed the Strait of Hormuz

Shanaka Anslem Perera | March 3, 2026…

Read more

2 months ago · 337 likes · 48 comments · Shanaka Anslem Perera

• AI warfare: Iran War Provides a Large-Scale Test for AI-Assisted Warfare… Meet the startups trying to build military-specific AI… To strike 1,000 targets in 24 hours in Iran, the U.S. military leveraged the most advanced AI it’s ever used in warfare… How the US military uses Claude… Intelligence, targeting and damage assessments are accelerating in Iran thanks to military versions of software now remaking business and daily life… How could AI fundamentally affect military leadership?

  • Maduro raid was the trigger point for the DoW’s conflict with Anthropic… Pentagon formally designates Anthropic a supply-chain risk

  • Project Dynamis — the US Marine Corps’ flagship initiative to bring AI-powered decision advantage to the tactical edge — has an immediate, one-year ADOS billet available

• Canadian bacon: Canada’s submarine conundrum: Buying a few boats is harder than it looks… Canadian military refuses to release photo of air force commander signing F-35 fuselage… Saab sees Canada as ‘great’ partner to design next-generation fighter jets… U.S. could hold a ‘red card’ over Canada’s Gripen fighter jet option… Canada Once Had Nukes. We Might Need to Bring Them Back… Is “Lockheed Martin Canada” an authentically Canadian company, when it is fully controlled by an American parent company?… From Client State to Sovereign Power… Canadian Government Provides Next Steps to Sovereign Cloud… Despite US-Canada tensions, it’s business as usual at NORAD: U.S. F-35s and Canadian CF-18 Fighters Train to Stop Cruise Missiles Approaching Through the Arctic… Canada Is Already at War with the US—We Just Don’t Know It Yet… Navy commander, SecState kibosh mixed submarine fleet… Canadians assigned to ‘other duties’ outside of Iran strikes while on U.S. exchange… Canada’s small military is a big problem for Carney… Canada is not a middle power – it’s a future great power

• The Future of War Is Drones Bombing Data Centers

• Defence Investment Agency seeks input from Canadian industry on future submarine fleet sustainment

• Drone wars: Anthropic Made Pitch in Drone Swarm Contest During Pentagon Feud… Drone Dominance: Pentagon to order 30,000 one-way drones in ‘next few days’… When drone production becomes distributed warfare… NATO to Shift Focus From Tanks to Drones, AI at July Summit

• Arctic shelf: Arctic warfare… Trump’s Greenland gambit exposes Canada’s Arctic vulnerability… Arctic Summit in Whitehorse talks infrastructure, security in the North… Closing Strategic Gaps in the Face of China’s Expanding Influence in the Canadian Arctic… Arctic security talks need more focus on intelligence, say some analysts… Japan may join Canadian Arctic military exercises as part of new strategic partnership

• America cannot rebuild its military to attack without China:

• The Emerging Role of UGVs

• NASA successfully kicks asteroid off course in Earth defence test

• China Building Subs That Can Strike U.S. From Closer to Home, U.S. Navy Warns… China’s Defence Budget Is Bigger Than You Think

• U.S. military tested device that may be tied to Havana Syndrome on rats, sheep, confidential sources say

• Ukraine’s first defence unicorn: This New Company Will Build Ukraine’s Deadly Drone Boats For Western Militaries

  • Uforce’s CEO Oleg Rogynskyy 🍁

• From the Ukrainian front: Armed robots take to the battlefield in Ukraine war… Interceptor launch from Ukrainian naval drone [VIDEO]… Networked for War: Lessons from Ukraine’s Ground Robots… Russia’s Starlink shutdown is a blow to its soldiers and drones

ROBIN’s Substack

Ukraine’s unseen victory.

While world attention has been drawn towards the new. evolving war in Iran there is a danger we will forget to watch what is going on in Ukraine…

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2 months ago · 89 likes · 1 comment · ROBIN HORSFALL

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Trump’s new cyber strategy details more offensive response to cyber threats… Iran-Backed Hackers Aim for Economic Disruption… US releases national cyber strategy… A Possible US Government iPhone-Hacking Toolkit Is Now in the Hands of Foreign Spies and Criminals… Why National Guard Troops Lead In Cyber Warfare, Drone Tactics… This AI agent freed itself and started secretly mining crypto… China Suspected in Breach of FBI Surveillance Network… Your WiFi router can see you through walls… An attacker hid a prompt in a GitHub issue title. An AI triage bot read it, interpreted it as an instruction, and handed over the npm token… Fake DOD memo about ‘compromised’ apps shows swift spread of deceptive messaging… Iranian Hacking Outage Coincided With Israeli Military Strike

• Bio defence: Why Washington Confuses Pandemics with Bioweapons… Defending Against the Next Bioweapon: the mRNA Imperative

• Monitoring the situation: Interactive global intelligence dashboard

• Odds & ends: Canada’s lack of mineral processing capabilities is a defence vulnerability, committee hears… Australia to join G7 critical minerals alliance, Canada’s Carney says… NordSpace is looking for a Sr. BD Director… Plan Qulliq’s first Innovation Lab takes flight… Innospace Explores Canadian Launch Option… Swedish brochure “In case of crisis or war” provides advice on how to prepare yourself and what you should do in the event of crisis or war… Here’s Canada’s version… The new alliance positioning Edmonton as a Canadian defence hub… Switzerland just published its national quantum strategy, and it’s worth a read… H1 2026 Canadian Defence Events… CDAI 2026 Strategic Outlook: The Road to Five Percent

Noahpinion

Japan can be America's arsenal

I just came back from Andreessen Horowitz’ American Dynamism Summit in Washington, D.C. It was very refreshing to see so many smart people invested in both American reindustrialization and American defense…

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2 months ago · 356 likes · 26 comments · Rie Yano - Coral Capital

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

Over the weekend, the US and Israel kicked off a major air campaign against Iran, framed as a strike to cripple Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities. It’s already spilled across the region due to Iranian missile and drone retaliation against several neighbouring Gulf states, much of which targeted civilian infrastructure.

Reality check: Canada’s official line is “we support the objective, but we’re not participating militarily” — except Canada had up to ~18 CAF exchange personnel embedded with US forces in Bahrain (U.S. 5th Fleet) and Qatar (the CAOC at Al Udeid), which is exactly where targeting, air tasking, and operational coordination happens.

As Canada continues to grapple with the fallout of the ongoing conflict in Iran, a group of police chiefs say there are no imminent threats in Canada or to Canadians. However, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is warning Canadians to be vigilant.

Bottom Line: Like in Ukraine, this conflict demonstrates that modern war is an industrial + data contest. Canada should treat it as a forcing function for (1) counter-UAS and integrated air & missile defence (sensors + EW + interceptors + command software), (2) targeting-grade ISR (space, airborne, maritime; fusion that turns “too much sensor data” into “actionable decisions”), (3) base/critical-infrastructure defence (hardening, rapid detection, cyber resilience, incident response), and (4) munitions + sustainment (predictive logistics, domestic/ally manufacturing capacity, cheaper autonomous systems that preserve exquisite assets).

The winners won’t be “one magic drone” — they’ll be companies that plug into allied command stacks, survive procurement gauntlets, and measurably reduce the cost per defended asset or cost per successful strike. In this new world, unit economics is strategy.

Related:

• Homefront: CSIS acting to prevent possible Iranian proxy attacks on US targets in Canada, former spies say… Vancouver’s Iranian community celebrates after Iran’s supreme leader killed

  • A visual guide to the industrial processes you can no longer permit in the state of California — and the grandfathered facilities that still can

• Ripple effects?

  • Russia: How Iran help(ed) Russia produce drones… Kyiv says Russia accepted US plan for Ukraine security guarantees

  • China: The Iran Question Is All About China… China is the primary buyer of Iran’s oil: Why China Is the Wildcard for Markets in the US-Iran Conflict… History repeats?… Five charts show China’s oil dilemma after US strikes

    • What happens if the Strait of Hormuz closes [VIDEO]

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🤝 Deal Corner

A unique investment asymmetry?

Canada, despite being a G7 economy, a top-10 NATO contributor, and responsible for one of the largest sovereign geographies on earth — including the Arctic — remains the only major allied nation without a full-stack prime or sovereign systems integrator. Our defence industrial base is composed primarily of Tier-2 and Tier-3 suppliers embedded in foreign programs. This creates a unique investment asymmetry.

Related:

• Canada’s defence companies battle for billions in historic military build-up

• Ready for takeoff: How former Canadian fighter pilots built one of our most successful defence companies helping train foreign militaries

• Quantum, cloud and cyber take shape in Canadian defence plan… China Is Now Trying to Use Fancy Quantum Sensors To Unstealth U.S. Navy Nuclear Attack and Missile Submarines… Lockheed Martin and Xanadu: Redefining Quantum Machine Learning… Xanadu Expected to Become the First and Only Publicly Traded Pure-Play Photonic Quantum Computing Company

• NordSpace launches venture arm with strategic investment in Wyvern… The Future of Government Space Contracts

• RBC Seeks to Bet on New Defence, Energy Projects in Canada

• Canadian-owned defence and tech firms launch Ottawa-based trade association

• Fighter jets and subs exempt from new defence industrial strategy, feds say

• The push to create a Canadian rival to GPS

• Ottawa makes first RDII investments in Ontario with $15 million for CDL Defence and Wolf Advanced Technology

• Public market comps from BCI including in defence… The Big Bet on European Defence Stocks Is Getting Expensive

• US Navy Awards $50M to Castelion for Blackbeard Hypersonic Weapon

• Auterion, the drone software startup, eyes raising $200M at a $1.2B+ valuation

• Chariot Raises $34M Series A

The Pentagon is opening doors for innovation: The CTO just announced a two-year royalty-free trial on 400 carefully selected patents from DoD labs to help industry accelerate tech development and commercialization

• Nuclear startup Proxima Fusion is aiming to secure around €2bn to build a test facility in Germany

  • Nuclear Fuel: The Most Sophisticated Industrial Product You’ve Never Heard About

• Aalyria Raises $100M at a $1.3B Valuation… Google spinout Aalyria valued at $1.3 billion as investors pour into space-based communications… Roundup of European space companies

• NODA AI Raises $25M Bessemer-led Series A at $125M Valuation

• Vector closed a SOCOM contract in ~18 months

• German startup develops cyborg insect swarms for NATO forces [VIDEO]

• Air defence startups Frankenburg and Tytan raise €30m each from Plural, NATO Innovation Fund

  • Investors back European start-ups building low-cost air defence

  • Drone swarms and deal fever: consultants cash in on Europe’s defence pivot

• Staggering European defence industry order backlogs, according to Vincent Marmion:

  • BAE Systems (UK): £83.6B

  • Thales (France): €16.8B

  • Leonardo (Italy): €47.3B

  • Airbus (Netherlands/France): €46.8B

  • Rheinmetall AG (Germany): €55B

  • Rolls-Royce (UK): £18.8B

  • Saab AB (Sweden): SEK 275B

  • MBDA (Multiple): €37B

  • Safran (France): does not provide backlog data

  • Naval Group (France): €14.4B

  • TKMS (Germany): €18.7B

• Autonomous Warship Startup Saronic Raising at $7.5 Billion Valuation… a profile on the company by Kyle Briggs

• Building a Better Missile: How the Sidewinder was invented

  • It’s a Miracle: A Cheap Pentagon Missile — The Air Force has built the ERAM cruise missile in 16 months

• The Looming Taiwan Chip Disaster That Silicon Valley Has Long Ignored

• How Estonia built a defence industry from scratch

• Canada Needs American Dynamism… A neo-mercantilist ‘offer’ for Canada… Canada, like Europe, seeks to break U.S. defence dependency

  • The Transatlantic Defence Business Politics Can’t Break

• Germany limits drone deal after Peter Thiel backlash… Merz steps up scrutiny of arms procurement amid spending angst

• NATO tech accelerator’s search for new chief drags on, sparking complaints

• Pentagon’s spending plan doubles down on land, air, sea robots

• The Defence Industry Doesn’t Need More Applicants — It Needs More Value

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💾 Attention Calgary: Announcing the 2026 Red Team Hackathon Series

A national defence-tech innovation challenge for Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs, startups, and future leaders.

The 2026 Red Team Defence Tech Hackathon Series continues in Calgary in partnership with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).

This national series brings together entrepreneurial teams and early-stage startups from across Canada to compete for $200,000 in total prize money, potential grants, and exclusive internship opportunities — all while solving critical dual-use challenges that matter to Canada’s defence and security ecosystem.

Modern Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operations increasingly rely on drones, ground robots, maritime vessels, sensors, and networked platforms operating in complex and contested environments. As system density increases, cognitive load on operators rises — creating operational friction, delays, and potential mission risk.

Calgary Event: March 21, 2026 | Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), Calgary, AB

Ten selected teams will compete for a $20,000 prize pool and the opportunity to advance to the Grand Final in Ottawa this November.

Your Mission: Voice-Driven UxS: Converting Battlefield Voice Commands into Operational Tasks for Uncrewed Systems

Design and prototype a voice-enabled Command & Control (C2) system that allows a single Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operator to convert battlefield voice commands into actionable operational tasks for Uncrewed Systems (UxS).

What’s at Stake

• $20,000 Calgary prize pool

• Qualification pathway to the Ottawa Grand Final

• National exposure within Canada’s defence-tech ecosystem

• Access to industry mentors and internship opportunities

Presented by: Remote Robotic Systems

Sponsored by: AVSS, Orqa, ThinkOn, and NORRG

Marketing Partner: The Icebreaker

Register Now: www.redteamhack.ca

⚔️ Combat Readiness

Cyber operations were almost certainly used against Iran in the early hours of Operation Epic Fury. AI, cyberattacks, and cheap drones helped the US and Israel carry out targeted Iranian leadership assassinations

Russian commentators are sounding the alarm over America’s use of a new kamikaze drone against Iran. It appears to have an integrated Starlink terminal, and was reverse-engineered from Iran’s own Shahed-136.

US officials claimed the attack was necessary to stop Iran from building up an impenetrable stockpile of drones and missiles to ring fence their nuclear program.

Now, the US is racing to accomplish the Iran mission before its own munitions run out. Missile interceptor stocks are also low. Check out the missile math: only so many air-defence interceptors are available to knock down an almost limitless number of Iranian drones.

Related:

• Iran roundup: Hacking traffic cameras — inside the plan to kill Ali Khamenei… How Cyber Command contributed to Operation Epic Fury against Iran… Russia abandons Iran… US using cyber warfare to fracture Islamic regime from within its ranks… Hackers hit Iranian apps, websites after US-Israeli strikes… How Russian and Chinese Tech Underpins Iranian Strategic Depth… Can Iran hit back hard enough? Missile and interceptor math matters… Black Tomahawk Cruise Missile Seen For The First Time In Strikes On Iran… Iran Has One Card Left—It’s Pointed at Your Network

  • Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz are suffering from a complete loss of GPS signals [VIDEO]

  • Israel used a laser air defence system against rockets launched from Lebanon [VIDEO]

    • America needs a lot more weapons: A high-low mix of exquisite, expensive munitions and inexpensive mass-produced ones

    • Macron orders nuclear warhead increase and unveils ‘forward deterrence’ plan for Europe

The Defense Brief

(Early) Lessons from Iran

Read more

2 months ago · 19 likes · 1 comment · Louise Boucher

• AI warfare: The F-35 now has an AI co-pilot… How to Adapt in an Era of Algorithm Warfare… AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations… CrowdStrike: The Age of the AI Adversary Begins… Why the nations that can power inference will own the models, the narratives, and the future

  • Anthropic situation: U.S. Strikes in Middle East Use Anthropic, Hours After Trump Ban… US Accused of Using AI For Spying, Killer Robots… Military Worries Simmer at OpenAI, Google As Anthropic Hits Stalemate With Pentagon

    • Palmer Luckey — should the military be regulated by corporate execs?

    • Musk’s xAI and Pentagon reach deal to use Grok in classified systems

    • Pentagon moves to build AI tools for China cyber operations

    • AI Inside the French Armed Forces

    • China’s AI Arsenal

    • What’s Next: World Models and Their Importance in Physical AI

    • A preview of what OpenClaw can do for surveillance and remote monitoring

• Canadian bacon: Sweden flies Gripen fighter jets on offer to Canada as part of NATO mission… Let’s just buy the F-35s and not cut off our nose to spite our face… DEFENCEX: Beyond System Replacement… Force Development: Sustaining Canada’s Future Submarine Fleet… Ottawa weighs splitting submarine contract between Europe and South Korea… UBC partners with TKMS on dual-use innovation ecosystem… No new auto plants but here’s what else Germany and South Korea are offering in their submarine bids… TKMS signs pan-Canadian Indigenous agreements to support future capability… Hyundai pitches hydrogen transport tied to Canada submarine bid… Canada and Germany to work together in key industrial sectors… Canada signs a defence agreement with South Korea as it seeks to diversify trade… The discussion on Sovereign AI has mainly been about the real estate of data centres and fibre lines, but it should be about data… US orders diplomats to fight data sovereignty initiatives… The National Interest: What It Means To Be Canadian… Strategic Choices for Middle Powers Navigating U.S.-China Competition… Deloitte Canada on better health care for service members and veterans

• Critical minerals: America’s dangerous pursuit of critical-mineral dominance… Canada Advances National Digital Core Library to Unlock Critical Minerals Discovery… Greenland Resources Conditionally Approved for up to $7 Million From the Government of Canada

• Drone wars: How Ukraine became a drone factory and invented the future of war… Russia’s Aeronet 2035 Exhibitor Catalog, a detailed government-backed industry document showcasing dozens of Russian UAV companies, propulsion systems, 5G drone platforms, autonomous systems, and full technical specs… Why Counter-UAS Requires Continuous Attention… Can drones be stockpiled? Europe wrestles with weapons dilemma… US military shoots down government drone in Texas accident… New DIU Counter-UAS solicitation… Ukraine Develops Acoustic Detector for FPV Drones… US Navy to experiment with tailored force pairing with Theodore Roosevelt deployment

  • Ukrainian interceptor drones are demonstrating remarkable capabilities [VIDEO]

• Arctic corner: NATO’s Naval Forces Are Demonstrating Their Arctic Commitment for Trump.. Canada’s Newest Defence Prime is Betting on the Arctic… Why the Arctic matters to the United States… Could MQ-9B drones draw Canada and Denmark closer in Arctic surveillance?… NATO is not ready for drone warfare in the Arctic… Arctic Hot Takes Need a Cold Reality Check… U.S. Maritime Plan puts Arctic Security at Core, Betting on New Icebreakers to Turn Policy Into Presence… Operation Nanook is underway in the Arctic, but what does it hope to accomplish?

• European defence companies should step up collaboration to fix ‘fragmented’ sector, Leonardo CEO says

• China’s Growing Armada Of Spy Satellites Is Pushing Space Force To Go On The Offensive… Hacking satellites in space

• The implications of SpaceX going all-in on orbital data centres… CSA to invest in future lunar mining and power infrastructure… SpaceX can launch anything, anywhere, anytime. So why is everyone scrambling for alternative launch capacity?

• The South China Sea is seeing a new kind of border patrol: digital geofencing

• NATO artillery exercise tests cross-border ‘kill chain’ across Europe

• From the Ukrainian front: ‘We don’t have infantry’: Ukraine’s war machine evolves into machine war… First Ukrainian drone factory opens in Britain… How anti-Russian defences could be funded - and the ‘baffling’ decision not to… Ukrainian OSINT communities just published an interactive map covering 6,088 Russian defence factories… Too many companies and engineers are building solutions far removed from the decisive point

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Google Threat Intelligence Group took down a massive, longterm intrusion campaign into global telcos and governments… CSE issues major cyber threat warning… The cyberattack scenarios that keep officials up at night… A Hacker Threat Is Hiding in Your Car’s Tire Pressure System… Man accidentally gains control of 7,000 robot vacuums… Scientists Discovered WiFi Can Spy on You—Even When You’re Not Online… New AirSnitch attack bypasses Wi-Fi encryption in homes, offices, and enterprises… A West Point study found that military networks are flooded with corporate trackers, including some linked to foreign entities… AI-programming tools are useful to cybercriminals, too

• Odds & ends: China May Grab a Lead in the Race for Military Fusion… Ottawa must borrow hundreds of billions to meet NATO target absent major fiscal reform… DND’s most recent QFR… The BC Defence Tech Moment: Strategy, Scale, and Sovereignty [March 18 Event]… Canadian Maritime Security Network report on modern seapower… Noah Gairn on future naval occupations… Melanie Nadeau: The Defence Industrial Strategy is All About Trust

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

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🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Starting gun: Canada’s defence industrial strategy (DIS) swung for the fences last week: 70% domestic procurement, +85% defence R&D, +50% exports, +$5B/year in SME revenue, 125,000 jobs, and +240% total industry revenue over 10 years.

Reality check: Canada’s defence industry today is ~$14B/year, ~600 firms, and >$7B in exports. Hitting +240% means scaling to roughly ~$50B/year. Even if exports do some of the lifting, most early growth has to come from domestic capital programs, sustainment, and prototype contracting. If two-thirds of the incremental growth is domestic, that implies about $3B in new procurement value every year.

Bottom Line: That pace requires a step-change in contracting capacity: think multiple $500M+ anchor awards every year, plus hundreds of $5–$50M contracts to keep innovation flowing. Practically, PSPC and the new Defence Investment Agency would need to push through roughly ~300 defence contract actions annually, many of them novel, multi-year, and technically complex—at a tempo Canada hasn’t historically maintained.

Debating Canadian Defence

Deconstructing the Defence Industrial Strategy

Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) is out. It outlines plans to boost the Canadian defence industrial base, spur innovation, and build new capability partnerships. The DIS is a solid, but measured, document —at least as compared with the Prime Minister’s rhetoric of late. Mr Carney has told us that we’re living through a rupture not a transition…

Read more

3 months ago · 88 likes · 13 comments · Philippe Lagassé

Related:

• Canada’s DIS: The beginning of the beginning… Eight experts break down the plan’s strengths and weaknesses… A jump-start for the sector

  • Kraken Robotics on building at home

  • How do colleges and universities fit within Canada’s defence boom?

  • Feds must get their own house in order for defence industrial plan to work, sector leaders warn

  • Buy Canadian or Buy the Best?… The good (and lots of bad)

  • Did you know that the cooking oil in your kitchen cupboard was developed for its military applications?

  • Why Canada’s defence spending should follow this Cold War blueprint

  • What’s a Canadian firm under defence industrial strategy? It’s complicated… Warning shot: How Canada fits into Washington’s rebuke of the EU’s ‘buy European’ defence drive:

“There’s nothing in this strategy that says that we’re not going to continue to be a branch plant economy for military capabilities,” Wendy Gilmour, a Canadian and former assistant secretary general for defence investment at NATO

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Congratulations to the winners of a total of $1.75 million following the 2025 urban Counter Uncrewed Aerial Systems (CUAS) sandbox demonstration event.

Eagle-eyed Icebreaker community members will remember that Prandtl Dynamics was highlighted in this newsletter in August while raising.

Gray Matters

🎙️ Ep 19 - Vector Defense: Building American Drone Dominance

Drones are re-defining modern warfare – and the U.S. is behind. On the latest Mission Matters episode, we sat down with Andy Yakulis, CEO & Co-Founder of Vector Defense, to discuss what it will actually take to achieve American Drone Dominance…

Listen now

3 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Maggie Gray and David Rothzeid

Related:

• For two decades, Shyam Sankar has been the most important but hidden figure behind Palantir. The question now is whether he will win his wars

• Inside Anduril’s race to build America’s first autonomous fighter jet — and the Pentagon’s bet that robotic airpower will redefine warfare in the decades to come

  • Why the Pentagon’s $13.4B Autonomy push has a Missing Layer

• The Malignant Seven: The Blind Spots That Destroy Value in the New Defence

• Defence deals surge as PE activity accelerates in aerospace & defence

• Want to Sell Arms to Poland? Then Invest Here, Minister Says

• 2 Edmonton businesses get federal funding for defence equipment production

• ACOA Puts $4M into N.S. Defence Companies

• Cellula Robotics Selected for Canadian Technology Accelerators UK Maritime Defence and Security Program

• Irving Shipbuilding awards metals supply contract for Canada’s new River-class destroyers

• MDA Space makes defence-industry push with launch of 49North

• Maple Health extending access to the Veteran Family Telemedicine Service

• Code Metal Raises $125M Series B

• Quantum Systems secures $178M financing for drone expansion

• AI Defence Startup Breaker Raises $6 Million in Seed Funding

• FAQ on syndicate deals: How to start investing in defence tech companies with a check starting at $5,000

• The Aussie government wants VCs to co-invest in a $1 billion defence industry fund

• Brit corner: How Palantir captured the UK Ministry of Defence… Keir Starmer says Britain needs to ‘go faster’ on defence spending… Carney lobbies Starmer over defence bank… Britain’s Starmer set to call for multinational defence initiative… AtkinsRéalis and Anduril UK partner on autonomous aircraft… Nato Innovation Fund raises £30m for British satellite company… UK Renews Push for Saudi Arabia to Invest in Fighter Jet Program

  • French Tech: Sisyphus Ventures, a fund dedicated to defence

  • The European defence techs working with governments in 2026

• Rheinmetall wins approval for Italian munitions expansion after years of wrangling

• China launches venture capital funds to invest in ‘hard technology’, state media report

  • US Funded $1 Billion in Research With Chinese Labs, Report Says

• The diplomats have now less power than technological companies

  • US hyperscaler capex is expected in 2026 to be at approximately $646 billion. That is more than the combined military spending of Germany, France, UK, Japan, Italy and Canada

Defense Tech and Acquisition

Trillion Five Topline

The President opened FY27 budget negotiations with a proposed $1.5T defense topline to build the Dream Military. HASC Chairman Mike Rogers and SASC Chairman Sen Roger Wicker are working to secure $45…

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3 months ago · 12 likes · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

💾 Attention Calgary: Announcing the 2026 Red Team Hackathon Series

A national defence-tech innovation challenge for Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs, startups, and future leaders.

The 2026 Red Team Defence Tech Hackathon Series continues in Calgary in partnership with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT).

This national series brings together entrepreneurial teams and early-stage startups from across Canada to compete for $200,000 in total prize money, potential grants, and exclusive internship opportunities — all while solving critical dual-use challenges that matter to Canada’s defence and security ecosystem.

Modern Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operations increasingly rely on drones, ground robots, maritime vessels, sensors, and networked platforms operating in complex and contested environments. As system density increases, cognitive load on operators rises — creating operational friction, delays, and potential mission risk.

Calgary Event: March 21, 2026 | Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), Calgary, AB

Ten selected teams will compete for a $20,000 prize pool and the opportunity to advance to the Grand Final in Ottawa this November.

Your Mission: Voice-Driven UxS: Converting Battlefield Voice Commands into Operational Tasks for Uncrewed Systems

Design and prototype a voice-enabled Command &amp; Control (C2) system that allows a single Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operator to convert battlefield voice commands into actionable operational tasks for Uncrewed Systems (UxS).

What’s at Stake

• $20,000 Calgary prize pool

• Qualification pathway to the Ottawa Grand Final

• National exposure within Canada’s defence-tech ecosystem

• Access to industry mentors and internship opportunities

Presented by: Remote Robotic Systems

Sponsored by: AVSS, Orqa, ThinkOn, and NORRG

Marketing Partner: The Icebreaker

Register Now: www.redteamhack.ca

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The Office of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Ombudsman has released a new systemic report, Marking Time: A Decade of Stalled Progress for the Primary Reserve.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

How the US Won Back Chip Manufacturing

CHIPS didn’t magically create the fab boom—AI did—but it determined where the inevitable buildout happened by speeding U.S. projects with a 25% tax credit + $39B in targeted awards.

The playbook: intervene only when an industry is critical, a real chokepoint, and actually shiftable with subsidies (chips fit because costs are front-loaded and automation limits labor gaps).

Related:

• Speed Can Reindustrialize America

• 6G will merge communications, AI, and environmental mapping into a single fabric. Defence must adapt or be exposed:

Building Our Future

6G vs. the Military

Good morning…

Read more

3 months ago · 4 likes · Building Our Future

• In the US, the Services and SOCOM created a playbook for speed and agility

• The obligation to create defensive resilience

• AI Safety Meets the War Machine: Anthropic doesn’t want its AI used in autonomous weapons or government surveillance. Those carve-outs could cost it a major military contract

• a16z: A Primer on Factory Economics for Startups

  • For the Pentagon’s drone push, the “factory is the weapon”

  • Meet Project Millennium, Neros’ 250,000-Square-Foot Drone Factory

  • Holding out: for domestic munitions supply, Taiwan needs drones. Millions of drones

  • Batteries Are the Next Fault Line in the Defence Supply Chain

  • Humanoid robots performing at Chinese Spring Festival Gala, 2025 vs. 2026 [VIDEO]

  • We’re in a hard-asset supercycle, driven by new fundamental technologies colliding with geopolitics

  • Lockheed Martin’s capital allocation strategy reveals a fundamental tension in the US defence industrial base… Revving up American manufacturing to unleash the defence industrial base

  • Inside Canada’s defence infrastructure surge… Key players in Canada’s Shipbuilding industry how its next phase — NSS 2.0 — may evolve

  • The decline of Canada’s factories is about more than just red tape

  • The entire global economy runs on strands of glass thinner than a human hair

• DARPA is accepting abstracts for Carbon Crunch, through March 2. Carbon-carbon (C-C) composites are the preeminent material capable of withstanding the extreme thermal and mechanical loads during hypersonic flight above Mach 7

  • Saronic Tapped for DARPA Pulling Guard Program

• The US Army’s looking for the best drone pilots

• From Seats to Sorties: Why the Pentagon Should Buy Software the Way It Buys (Some) Weapon Systems

• Hypersonic weapons race accelerates as NATO eyes Russian and Chinese missile threats

• AI’s big biosecurity blind spot

• Canadian bacon: A new age of ‘total war’ may be approaching. Are young Canadians ready?

  • For Canada’s military, readiness is the problem – but is it also the solution?… If we are going to spend billions of dollars expanding the CAF, it has to be for something more noble than just keeping America happy… How Canada fits into Washington’s rebuke of the EU’s ‘buy European’ defence drive… Canada should not join the nuclear club… In having more mixed firepower capacity, the CAF can conduct more precision strikes, alongside extended barrages needed to sustain attritional combat operations… Canada’s Alternative to Trump’s Doctrine for the Americas… Canada revises express entry immigration rules, adds military roles… What to know about the Canadian Armed Forces, its part-time reserves and its increase in applications… Majority concerned about possible threat from U.S. to Canada’s sovereignty: Nanos survey… B.C. to see $20B in defence spending as Ottawa targets ‘lethal’ domestic growth… Why Canada has a structural disadvantage in NATO procurement that has nothing to do with the quality of our products… Canada to Press For Auto Plants In Exchange for Defence Contracts

• Critical minerals: As aircraft become more sophisticated, the amount of critical raw materials embedded in aircraft components will only increase:

  

• Drone wars: The Raytheon Coyote Block 3 solves the biggest problem in modern air defence: cost [VIDEO]… Airbus Helped Create A Unique Drone For Ukraine… ‘Pew Pew’: The Chinese Companies Marketing Anti-Drone Weapons on TikTok… 5 NATO allies agree to produce low-cost drones… Rapid scaling, soldier-led market key to US drone ambitions, US Army secretary says… Counter-UAS: What works well in Ukraine will not necessarily work in other battlefields… US Marine Corps looking into new medium-range tactical drone as it pushes small UAS capabilities… SpaceX to Compete in Pentagon Contest for Autonomous Drone Tech

• Arctic corner: Canada isn’t ready for Arctic grey-zone threats… The Arctic is a Strategic Distraction for the US… Canadian troops train in Arctic as tensions rise over region

• From the front: Electronic Warfare Systems: Mapping the Russian Threat… Mesh Networks on Russian Drones and Ways of Countering Them… Deploying more than 15,000 unmanned ground vehicles, here’s how Ukraine’s military is saving money while reducing soldier risk… How the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them… Working with Ukrainian troops convinced this elite British Army infantry battalion to go all in on drones… Russia shifting their target set from primarily energy infrastructure to include Ukrainian water and railway infrastructure… These new Ukrainian ground robots can launch unjammable fiber-optic drones close to the front so troops don’t have to

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Canada Rocket Company is building our sovereign launch capability. We’re hiring 10+ roles. Apply here.

🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Anti-feminist ideology ‘increasingly relevant’ to national security: CSIS… China once stole foreign ideas. Now it wants to protect its own… US concludes BYD and Alibaba have links to Chinese military… Russia stepping up hybrid attacks, preparing for long standoff with West, Dutch intelligence warns… US cyber responses will be ‘linked to adversary actions’ and involve industry coordination… How Chinese Espionage Eroded U.S. Power… Canada can’t be ‘naive’ to China’s transnational repression threat… A Defector Explains the Remote-Work Scam Helping North Korea Pay for Nukes… Poland bans Chinese-made cars from entering military sites… AI Can Help Defend Against Cyberattacks… Threats from Salt Typhoon are ‘still very much ongoing’… China’s military AI wish list… The Russian Federation’s Cyber War Did Not Begin Online: Why Canada Continues to Misread It… Texas sues TP-Link, alleging it allows China to hack into routers

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• Q&A: Xanadu’s Christian Weedbrook on why quantum ought to be a national defence priority

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• When GPS goes dark: Building a Force That Navigates from Orbit to Seabed

• Odds & ends: ‘Digital Flag State’ Rule Would Give Space Law a Regulatory Boost… EDC has established a new National Ecosystem Lead role for Defence & Security, appointing Gord Scharf… Defence Innovation: NATO DIANA, Ukraine and Opportunities for Waterloo SMEs… Governments should not impose sensor technologies on subsea cables… The operational vulnerability addressed by “Radar & Sensor Fusion Corridors”… Our partners at the European Defense Tech Hub have already run three global events bringing together 400 builders, operators and investors… Beetroot’s tech ecosystem launches Beetroot Defence… Emerging Dual-Use Technologies in an Era of Strategic Competition [Feb 24 event]

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

The Government of Canada will prioritize building sovereign capabilities and buying Canadian (sidebar: what is a Canadian company, really?), focusing on the country’s existing strengths, and picking domestic champions in its long-awaited Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS).

The “build-partner-buy” framework indicates that Canada will focus first on domestic production and procurement. When that is not feasible, the feds intend to explore co-development partnerships with trusted allies.

Reality check: The emphasis on ‘build’ as the first priority before ‘partner’ and ‘buy’ is a huge shift and shows the government is listening to Canadian defence companies about building sovereign capability.

The DIS’ focus on growing Canadian SMBs into anchor companies is a welcome shift and important recognition that so many Canadian SMBs are already selling to our NATO allies first while searching for a domestic customer.

However, the document is light on enforceable mechanics that would actually make it fast and SMB-friendly: no procurement authority pushed down to the CAF; no fast lanes or separate rules for small / attritable systems; no authority to waive TB-style process for certain categories, or hard caps on decision timelines.

Bottom Line: On the assumption that simple rules for small dollars, explicit waiver authority, and alternative procurement authorities including agile and OTA, are now being crafted by the DIA, we give this strategy a solid B+.

Congratulations to Wendy and the DIS team.

Related:

• Trump Shocked Canada Out of Complacency on Defence. Will It Last?

• Ottawa plans to double defence exports, create 125,000 jobs in next decade

• Ottawa’s shift away from US defence manufacturers aims to create 125,000 jobs

• Carney Plots ‘Buy Canada’ Defence Strategy to Unlock Billions in Investment

• Plan aims to award 70% of federal defence contracts to Canadian firms within a decade

• Every other major NATO ally has built and backed a national systems integrator — a company capable of assembling sovereign capability at scale. Canada stands alone without one

• Carney government to select private-sector ‘strategic partners’ in new defence industry strategy

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

💾 Apply now for the 2026 Red Team Hackathon Series

A national defence-tech innovation challenge for Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs, startups, and future leaders. This national series brings together entrepreneurial teams and early-stage startups from across Canada to compete for $200,000 in prize money, potential grants, and exclusive internships.

Modern Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operations involve a growing mix of drones, ground robots, vessels, sensors, and networked platforms operating in complex and contested environments. In these conditions, misidentification of friendly, civilian, or unknown systems—or the loss of situational awareness—can create operational friction, delays, and mission risk.

Kickoff Event: March 7, 2025 | University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC

Subsequent events scheduled for Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and New Brunswick throughout 2026.

Your Mission
Build Find My Force — a secure, intuitive system that allows authorized users to identify, verify, and track platforms in real time, even when systems do not actively communicate, network connectivity is degraded, or platforms operate across domains.

What’s at Stake
Compete for a $20,000 prize pool at Vancouver’s kickoff event, an invite to the National Final in Ottawa, and help shape the future of multi-domain situational awareness.

Application deadline is February 20.

Marketing Partner: The Icebreaker
Presented by: Remote Robotic Systems
Sponsored by: AVSS, Orqa, ThinkOn, and NORRG

👉 Register Now: www.redteamhack.ca

🤝 Deal Corner

The factory is becoming the product

Pitchbook’s Ali Javaheri writes that for years, Defence VC funded prototypes. Now, it’s funding production. The numbers tell the story of a massive structural shift:

• 2022–2023: ~$0.5B annually in manufacturing-focused defence deals.

• 2024: $2.6B.

• 2025: $4.7B across 39 deals.

Bottom Line: Defence tech VC is in “industrialization mode,” not a Pentagon-prototype cycle: 2025 closed at $49.9B across 966 deals, with Q4 at $11.9B on 225 deals, signaling durable demand for scaled execution even as deal volume softened into year-end. Capital is clustering around readiness bottlenecks (autonomy + sensing + compute/infrastructure)

Related:

• Investors pour billions into Europe’s AI and defence start-ups

  • An overview over the emerging defence & resilience VC landscape in Europe

  • UK Regulator Fast Tracks Defence Funds as Europe Rushes to Rearm

    • From Spitfires to drones: the UK defence tech cluster harnessing its industrial past

  • 43% of all European deep tech VC now flows into defence, security & resilience

  • Dealroom and the NATO Innovation Fund shows that European DSR (Defence, Security and Resilience) startups secured a record $8.7 billion in venture capital in 2025

  • Deutsche Telekom-backed DTCP’s €500m Project Liberty fund already has more than half the funds committed as Europe’s investors zero in on defence spending

  • Defence ‘top of the agenda’ for Denmark’s sovereign LP fund

• 2026 defence industry outlook – from printing parts on the battlefield to AI‘s strategic move from the frontline to the flightline

• Saudi Arabia’s first dedicated defence venture fund has launched with a $100m (SAR 375m) target to back locally manufactured military technology

• Anduril discusses new funding at $60 billion+ valuation

• US Marine awarded for designing the Corps’ first fully NDAA-compliant 3D-printed drone at $700 a pop

• A River Runs Through It: The Canadian River-Class as an Option for the US Navy

• Petrel Technologies Flies Out of Stealth

• Dominion Dynamics pushes forward with seed funding

• Halifax company Modest Tree will design training systems for the Navy’s new destroyers

• Coast Guard awards Davie Defence contract for 5 icebreakers

• Drone company Volatus signs NATO training deal

• Magellan Aerospace signs deal with TKMS to potentially produce submarine torpedoes

• constellr secures €37 million Series A funding to deliver defence-grade thermal intelligence

• Apeiron Labs has raised a $9.5M Series A to scale its global ocean data platform

• Firestorm and Orqa Team Up

• Gambit exits stealth with L3Harris, RTX partnerships in hand

• Defence Project Management Startup Integrate Raises $17M

• The Future of Defence Tech with Booz Allen’s Steve Escaravage

• Hassan Ismail cofounded a defence tech startup in Canada. He found the country’s regulations difficult to navigate, and the investors too risk-averse

• Will These Four US Defence Innovation Reforms Improve Industry’s Lot?… US defence industry heaps praise on Hegseth’s weapons-buying reformation

  • China is building ‘full-stack’ defence-innovation cities: While the U.S. struggles to add rare-earth factories and drone-test ranges, Beijing is creating them in clusters… Will China’s navy soon outgun the US?

  • The Career Risk That Kills Defence Innovation: US defence startups still have less than 1% market share

    • CIA announces new acquisition framework to speed tech adoption

  • New Zealand on how tech innovation will influence defence capability

  • Australia’s Defence Investment Strategy: Balancing Long-Term Capability Development with Near-Term Readiness

  • Our armed forces are hollow, and our enemies know it

• DSRB: Canada’s Big Six banks all on board to support new multinational defence bank… Ottawa, Gatineau launch defence innovation task force in bid for NATO defence bank… Is Montreal a perfect fit to host headquarters for NATO’s defence bank?… What about Toronto?

  • CPP Investments backed both Anthropic and Cohere in AI rivals’ megarounds… Amid ‘Buy Canadian’ fervour, Canada’s top pension funds still heavily invested in U.S.

Gray Matters

🎙️ Ep 18 - Starfish Space: Building Autonomous Satellite Servicing in a Contested Space Domain

Space is a contested domain. Russian and Chinese satellites are conducting proximity operations near American satellites. Critical U.S. and allied infrastructure depends on space-based assets that can be inspected, approached — or interfered with. On the latest…

Listen now

3 months ago · 2 likes · Maggie Gray and David Rothzeid

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Join Canada’s innovation leaders at the N³ Summit in Toronto. Promo code: Icebreaker10

Canada’s Defence Ambitions Must Include The Semiconductor Industry

Special guest POV by Gordon Harling, President and CEO, CMC Microsystems

The rapid uptick in defence investment under the Carney government is an opportunity to strategically bolster Canada’s semiconductor ecosystem as part of a broader re-industrialization effort.

Semiconductor-based technologies used for defence are often proven first in commercial industries where equipment must operate securely and reliably in harsh conditions.

Semiconductors are critical infrastructure at the heart of industry, and military-grade technologies have a long history of being repurposed for broader societal and economic benefit. 

Canadian companies in mining, agriculture, automotive, marine and oceans, healthcare and biotechnology are all able to compete globally by integrating the intelligence made possible by semiconductor technologies into specialized equipment and software. 

The dual use nature of defence technologies hammer home the need for a cohesive, national strategy to accelerate the expansion of Canada’s semiconductor sector industry so it can continue to contribute to the nation’s sovereignty, security and productivity.

Canada is focused on where it excels

Our heritage in telecommunications – think Nortel and Blackberry – have put Canada in a strong position to advance key semiconductor technologies and secure communications, which are integral to defence:

• Compound semiconductors, which combine two or more different elements, sit at the core of modern radar, secure communications, power conversion and space systems. The federal government is already funding further development through the Strategic Response Fund and the FABrIC program, managed by CMC Microsystems.

• Photonics, which uses light to carry and process information through fibers or tiny chips and turns it into useful signals for the internet and sensors, are found throughout defence applications including communications and navigation. The federal government earmarked money in its 2025 budget to advance photonic networking, sensing and secure communications as part of a broader initiative to fund quantum technologies for defence. 

Click here to read more.

To read this article in French, please click here.

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The Office of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Ombudsman has released a new systemic report, Marking Time: A Decade of Stalled Progress for the Primary Reserve.

⚔️ Combat Readiness

The Europeans have had enough

One year into the second Trump presidency, a major ECFR poll finds that most Europeans no longer see the US as an ally and believe that greater defence spending is needed. This may also be related to the fact that NATO has seen the future, and is unprepared:

A single team of some 10 Ukrainians, acting as the mock adversary, counterattacked the NATO forces. In about half a day they mock-destroyed 17 armored vehicles and conducted 30 “strikes” on other targets.

Despite US Secretary of State Rubio’s conciliatory remarks at the Munich Security Conference, European countries are taking action to decouple from US security guarantees they no longer trust.

Dutch Defence Secretary Tuinman: “If the US blocks F-35 software updates, we will crack the code and do our own updates to make the plane fully European. I’m not allowed to say more”:

For the first time since the end of the Cold War, European capitals are discussing how to develop their own nuclear deterrent:

Related:

• Canadians are clamouring for a stronger military… Keeping Canada’s options open on nuclear weapons is not as simple as it sounds

• How Vulnerable Is Europe’s Defence Without US? [VIDEO]… From umbrella to uncertainty: Europe and Canada’s nuclear deterrence anxiety

  • To protect itself, Europe needs the systems that make warfare work

    • Portugal builds Europe’s first dedicated drone carrier

    • A Strategic Guide to the European Triple Helix of Government, Industry, and Academia

• Canada has officially joined the EU’s loans-for-weapons program

• France is ditching American tech. When will Canada?

  • Is this really sovereign cloud?

• Scramjet: Colour Me Sceptical – The F35 vs. The Gripen… A European fighter-jet partnership is verging on a break-up… Canada discreetly puts money down on 14 additional F-35s… German union urges homegrown fighter jet in blow to European plan… Saab Sees Potential Canada Production Line Serving Other Gripen Buyers… Are F-35s Being Delivered To The USAF Without Radars?… Should Canada have a mixed fleet?

• US, European navies push Lego-like modularity to boost ships’ combat punch

• UK soldiers to get new AI capable radios, headsets and tablets with futuristic sensor data… UK fast-tracks £12m hypersonic weapons deal

• Canada Punches Above Its Weight: Paradigm Shift Technologies Redefines Defence Manufacturing

• The US Army jammed its new command-and-control tech to see if electronic warfare would break it

• C-17 Airlifts A Micro Nuclear Reactor For The First Time

• US Navy Rethinking How to Command Robotic Forces

• Why the Ammunition Surge Is Stalled—and How to Fix It

• Munich Security Conference: Cyberattacks are considered the most serious threat to national security by German survey respondents, ahead of war, terrorism, and nuclear weapons

• Biodefence Blind Spot: Why Washington Confuses Pandemics with Bioweapons

Inside Daneel’s Mind: BioNeuroCognitive AI

Smartification of weapons, weapons systems, and combat platforms

Context and purpose…

Read more

7 months ago · 1 like · Luis Martin "The Druid"

• Canadian bacon: Photonic claims “world-first” quantum teleportation across TELUS fibre network… Canada’s space inflection point… NordSpace engine testing [COOL VIDEO ALERT]… Quantum and drone tech dominate first DISH Industry Day… If Poland is preparing for war, why aren’t we?… How Can Improved Civil-Military Cooperation in Disaster Response Strengthen Canada’s Readiness?… Inside the Edmonton facility building quantum’s hidden infrastructure… Contested, Congested, and Constrained: Control of the Mid-Band and Its Implications for Canadian National Security

• Critical minerals: China Still Dominates Critical Mineral Refining in 2030 [Graphic]… Mining startup Hades raises €15m as demand for critical minerals heats up: ‘Europe is incredibly vulnerable’

• Drone wars: Daniel Ek and Peter Thiel-backed start-ups win German military drone contracts… Defending America against drones… Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser… The US Army has been acquiring multiple versions of the LOCUST laser weapon system to bolster its ability to shoot down hostile drones… Germany awards Stark and Helsing contracts to deliver next-generation strike drones… Euro drone: France is apparently negotiating an exit… Russia is deploying FPV attack drones from long-range “mothership” UAVs, extending precision strike capability to ranges of up to 400 miles… For the first time, an AI autonomous drone has beaten the best human pilots in global drone racing:

⚔️ TECH WARS 👨‍💻

Drone Dominance: Gauntlet Phase I: Essential Field Notes

The term gauntlet evolved from describing the armored glove that protected the hand of a swordsman, to a challenge of an opponent to a duel (”throw down the gauntlet”; though it is debated if that was ever a thing), to a brutal military punishment in the 17th century (”running the gauntlet”), to a figure of speech about facing harsh criticism or hard ti…

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3 months ago · ⚔️Marc C Lange👨‍💻

Defense Tech and Acquisition

Drone-ing on About Love

Welcome to the Valentine’s edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

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3 months ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

• Arctic corner: Canada, Denmark deepen defence ties after Greenland annexation threat… In exclusive analysis, former Canadian defence chief says we can no longer afford to just claim the Arctic… CSIS officials say China is more of a concern in Canada’s Arctic than Russia… Inuit leaders urge Ottawa to follow Greenland’s infrastructure lead… Arctic as global flashpoint… Russia’s Arctic shadow war: How Moscow’s most-probed front fuels its Ukraine invasion… Head of CAF’s space division warns Russia is considering putting nuclear weapons in orbit… Canada wants NATO’s new Arctic Sentry security mission to become permanent… “Shifting Ice” – New Strider Report Reveals Russia’s Increasing Reliance on the People’s Republic of China to Develop and Control the Future of the Arctic

• From the front: Defence Tech Startup Occam Raises €3M Following Brave1 Integration Approval in Ukraine… Shahed drones operating as relays increase the range of the network to some 600 kilometers… How Russia is reshaping command and control for AI enabled warfare… Ukraine to open 10 weapons export centers in Europe in 2026 in major wartime policy shift… Overview from the UK Ministry of Defence on routes for selling into the Armed Forces of Ukraine… Why Modern Warfare Rewards Metabolism Over Architecture:

  

The Defense Brief

What Actually Works in Ukraine - With Florian Seibel, CEO of Quantum Systems

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3 months ago · 1 like · Louise Boucher

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: China Revives Home-Grown Hacking Competition That Stirs Security Concerns… Chinese defence paper on Anomaly Detection in UAV Swarms: An Information Geometric Approach to Behavioral Analysis… Pentagon threatens to cut off Anthropic in AI safeguards dispute… Google finds state-sponsored hackers use AI at ‘all stages’ of attack cycle… Google Reports State-Backed Hackers Using Gemini AI for Recon and Attack Support… Pentagon Used Anthropic’s Claude in Maduro Venezuela Raid… Architect of Canada’s Early Military Cyber Capability: LCdr (Ret’d) Robert Garigue… Universities and politicians briefed on China and Russia spy threat… Google report: Beyond the Battlefield —Threats to the Defence Industrial Base… Researcher skeptical of ‘Havana syndrome’ tested secret weapon on himself… U.S. Smuggled Thousands of Starlink Terminals Into Iran After Protest Crackdown… C.I.A. Video Appeals to Potential Spies in China’s Military… Palo Alto chose not to tie China to hacking campaign for fear of retaliation from Beijing

The Bureau

Beijing's Hidden Army: How 2,294 United Front Cells Advance China's Interests in Four Leading Democracies

WASHINGTON/OTTAWA – A groundbreaking study has mapped 2,294 organizations with proven links to the Chinese Communist Party’s “united front” influence apparatus across the United States, Canada, the U…

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3 months ago · 115 likes · 10 comments · Sam Cooper

Cyberfraud: In terms of gross GDP, it’s the dominant economic engine for the entire Mekong sub-region:

• AI advancing: From Jungle Survival to AI Success: What Elite Forces Training Teaches us About AI and Digital Transformation… The “sensor-to-shooter” cycle is no longer a human-speed problem; it’s a data-orchestration problem… The CAF is recruiting for roles in Computing & Intelligence that directly impact daily decisions and operations

• Uh oh: Canada’s military ombudsman flags decade-long failure to fix reservist compensation system… Gilded Capability: Overinvestment and the Survivability Paradox… Spending More on the US Military Is Not a Defence Strategy

• South of the border: Any Canada-China trade talk must pass a simple Canadian test: Does it strengthen our access to the U.S. market and our resilience at home, or does it create a new veto point in Beijing and a new suspicion in Washington?

  • The EU and a 12-nation Indo-Pacific bloc are opening talks to explore forming one of the largest global economic alliances. Mark Carney is spearheading the discussions

• Recruiting: CSIS is looking for professionals with strong business acumen

• Odds & ends: Demand for low-risk debt is a power Canada can harness… ‘The race is on’: will Elon Musk be the first to put a data centre in space?… Elon Musk Wants to Build an A.I. Satellite Factory on the Moon… Orbital Data Centers are coming and you’ve completely missed the point… The commander of the military’s 3 Canadian Space Division Brigadier General Christopher Horner explains what’s at stake for this country — and how he believes Canada can assert more sovereignty among the stars… Discover how leading experts are shaping the defence sector in the “Future-proofing Industrial Capabilities for Canada’s Defence Needs” panel… Alouette-1 launched on September 29, 1962. Two scientists pitched NASA an idea. NASA said yes. The Canadian team had never built a satellite before

  George Hoyem

  VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit) Is the New LEO — With a Firewall....

  I have spent the last decade in boardrooms of satellite operators, defense‑tech startups, and space‑infrastructure companies, watching a quiet race unfold above our heads. The promise is enormous—global broadband, proliferated sensing, orbital data processing—but so are the risks now coming into focus: congestion, debris, and adversaries who increasingl…

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  3 months ago · George Hoyem

The Strange Review

The Rise of the Private Grid

An interactive companion to this piece, with a geographic map of all major sites, technology comparisons is available here. Listen to the podcast version below…

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3 months ago · 4 likes · Tara Tan

Pravo Zulu

Crewed Carrier. Uncrewed Power. The New Fleet Arrives.

Crewed Carrier. Uncrewed Power…

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3 months ago · Philip Henry Hicks

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

As we await a roadmap for Canadian defence tech to find customers domestically — a document known as the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), due this week — it is worth noting that Canada’s most effective export weapon for defence startups isn’t a stealth drone or an AI sensor stack. It’s the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC).

Quietly, almost perversely, CCC has become best-in-class at helping Canadian defence companies sell into the United States. Canadian companies can contract through CCC and be considered US domestic firms for bid purposes — an agreement dating back to the end of WWII. It translates Ottawa credibility into Washington contracts, wraps SMEs in a sovereign-backed prime, de-risks FAR/DFARS anxiety, and gives US buyers a single throat to choke. For a Canadian firm trying to crack the Pentagon, CCC is not a “nice to have.” It’s a cheat code.

DARPA has also contracted with Canadian startups directly via CCC, avoiding the need to subcontract from a US prime or open a US subsidiary.

No equivalent apparatus exists to help Canadian defence companies sell to… Canada.

Reality check: At home, founders face a maze of fragmented procurement authorities, risk-averse program offices, glacial timelines, and pilot purgatory. Abroad, Canada shows up with a clean contract vehicle, political air cover, and execution discipline. Domestically, we tell our own companies to wait, resubmit, or scale elsewhere.

Bottom Line: We have built a world-class export bridge to the US defence industrial base—while leaving a moat between Canadian innovators and the Canadian Armed Forces. If you’re a defence founder, the fastest way to sell to Canada may still be to sell to America first. Here’s hoping the DIS changes that!

In the meantime, if you’re looking to connect with CCC, let us know. We have been pipelining Canadian defence startups to the excellent team there since our national mapping exercise last summer.

SellingtoDefense

Selling to Defense: Explaining the Pentagon Bureaucracy

This is a lesson on how the Pentagon organizes itself to achieve its sweeping policy goals.. If you don’t understand the Pentagon and how it works — its needs and its budgets — then you won’t succeed in selling your tech or product to them. It’s that simple…

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3 months ago · 25 likes · SellingtoDefense

Related:

• US DIU looking for Containerized Autonomous Drone Delivery System (CADDS) — this opportunity is open to Canadian firms

  • Hunt For Container Launchers Packed With Drones Kicked-Off By Pentagon

• Fredericton-based defence accelerator set to launch with $1-million in federal funding

• Canada’s Race to Rebuild Military Triggers a Defence-Tech Gold Rush

  • Minimum Viable Product and Canadian Defence Procurement - A Conundrum

• Montreal’s Galvion, through U.S. reseller, is supplying US$15.5M of ballistic helmets to ICE

Gray Matters

🎙️ Ep 17 - Techquisition: The $839B FY26 Defense Appropriations Explained

After a brief government shutdown, Congress finally passed the $839B Defense Appropriations bill! What does this new budget mean for startups? In our newest Techquisition Edition of the Mission Matters podcast (link in comments), ⁠David⁠ and I sit down with former HAC-D staff director…

Listen now

3 months ago · 1 like · 2 comments · Maggie Gray and David Rothzeid

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

💾 Announcing the 2026 Red Team Hackathon Series

A national defence-tech innovation challenge for Canada’s brightest entrepreneurs, startups, and future leaders. This national series brings together entrepreneurial teams and early-stage startups from across Canada to compete for $200,000 in prize money, potential grants, and exclusive internships.

Modern Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) operations involve a growing mix of drones, ground robots, vessels, sensors, and networked platforms operating in complex and contested environments. In these conditions, misidentification of friendly, civilian, or unknown systems—or the loss of situational awareness—can create operational friction, delays, and mission risk.

Kickoff Event: March 7, 2025 | University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC

Subsequent events scheduled for Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and New Brunswick throughout 2026.

Your Mission
Build Find My Force — a secure, intuitive system that allows authorized users to identify, verify, and track platforms in real time, even when systems do not actively communicate, network connectivity is degraded, or platforms operate across domains.

What’s at Stake
Compete for a $20,000 prize pool at Vancouver’s kickoff event, an invite to the National Final in Ottawa, and help shape the future of multi-domain situational awareness.

Application deadline is February 20.

Marketing Partner: The Icebreaker
Presented by: Remote Robotic Systems
Sponsored by: AVSS, Orqa, ThinkOn, and NORRG

👉 Register Now: www.redteamhack.ca

🤝 Deal Corner

FT on Carney’s ‘art of the deal’: Canada leverages subs contract for auto investment

Canada is playing hardball with a $40bn submarine contract as it tries to turbocharge investment in civilian sectors ranging from steel and cars to energy and mining, and boost its economic independence from the US.

“Carney is capitalising on a unique moment of opportunity afforded to Canada by this bidding war,” said Xavier Delgado, a fellow at the Conference of Defence Associations Institute in Ottawa. “This is his version of the art of the deal.”

Signs of Life: The submarine mega-project is an element of Canada’s largest defence investment drive since the Second World War. As part of its plan to reduce its dependence on the US and double trade with non-US partners over the next 10 years, Ottawa is also revisiting a contract to buy 88 F-35 fighter jets from the US.

Related:

• How to become a supplier in the Canadian defence supply chain… Wake up call for Canadian tech startups

• Skyryse Raises $300M Series C… RADICL Raises $31M Series A… Overland AI Raises $100M… Whitespace Raises $3.2M Seed

• Hobbit-Inspired Startup Becomes First New Bank Greenlighted by Trump 2.0

• Investigation: 80% of Russian Troops’ Linkups on the Front Line Produced by U.S. Company Ubiquiti

• Space corner: Rheinmetall and OHB in talks over Starlink-style service for German army… German firm to build two-stage hypersonic plane with horizontal takeoff and landing… CesiumAstro raises $470 million to build out low Earth orbit satellites… Space economy hits $626 Billion “Inflection Point” on path to trillion-dollar era

• Niagara College launches drone and defence tech programs

  • Canada’s MDA Courts Global Talent in Defence-Driven Space Boom

  • Western helps drive national defence research with new international partnership

  • Salaries soar ‘astronomically’ as defence techs fight for talent

  • Volatus announces Task Force Drone for Military Veterans, a specialized training program designed to help Canadian veterans successfully transition into civilian drone careers

• A short list of US-based defence accelerators

  • UK defence prime BAE Systems launches incubator, ‘actively looking’ into VC fund investing

• Patient Capital Will Eat the World… A16Z state of the markets report

• Calian-led $100M investment aims to help defence-tech SMEs avoid the ‘supply chain trap’

• Euro trip: The rise of Europe’s war startups… Why European Deeptech Pre-Seed Looks Like US Cloud in 2010… From arms to orbit: Rheinmetall’s expansion unsettles rivals… UK launches £20m fund to accelerate defence contracts for British startups… The UK Enters the Dragon’s Den… Russian spy spacecraft have intercepted Europe’s key satellites, officials believe… Poland Inks $4.3 Billion Deal for ‘Drone Wall’ to Deter Russia… Tank maker KNDS dismisses investment interest from rival Rheinmetall… Germany eyes lasers, spy satellites in military space spending splurge… ‘Mix-and-Match’ Naval Fleet Concept Takes Shape in Denmark

• Yaroslav Azhnyuk: From Consumer Hardware to Battlefield Autonomy

• Edmonton’s Wyvern was recently assessed through ESA’s Earthnet Data Assessment Project (EDAP+), which evaluates Earth observation missions and the data they deliver for accuracy, reliability, accessibility and more. The EDAP+ review found that its data quality meets ESA’s Best Practice Guidelines and EO Mission Data Quality Assessment Framework

• Shoutout to our pal Alex Lee on the launch of Frostbite, a new Canadian defence VC

• Doug Horn at Clairvest shares the Canadian firm’s top aerospace and defence charts of 2025

• Building Bloc, a BC-based company assembling mobile microfactories with 3-D printers that can manufacture prosthetics at unmatched speed and cost, is looking for a CTO

• Province throws support behind private sector bid to bring NATO bank to Vancouver

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💳 NATO’s buying spree is booming — and Canada is barely at the table

A deep dive into €39B of NATO procurement shows spending has tripled since 2020, hitting Cold War–era levels. Germany is vacuuming up over a third of recent contracts. The U.S. is slipping. Canada? Sitting at 0.3% of current awards — wildly below our ~6.7% share of NATO GDP.

Why the gap: NATO buys are delivered to Europe, freight included. That structurally crushes Canadian manufacturers shipping heavy kit across the Atlantic. Unless you’re truly irreplaceable, geography beats price.

Where Canada does win: niche manufacturing (Cascade’s C-130 maintenance), specialized components, spare-parts brokering, and software, IT, and services where shipping costs vanish. Strip out one blockbuster contract, and Canadian SMEs are almost invisible.

Add a final wrinkle: Canadian defence champions are quietly being sold to foreign private equity, hollowing out domestic capacity just as NATO demand explodes.

Bottom line: NATO procurement is growing fast, but it’s not “Buy Canadian.” Without unique capabilities or a pivot to software and services, Canada risks watching the rearmament boom from the sidelines.

Special thanks to Joe Noss for this research. For the full special report, visit Publicus.

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⚔️ Combat Readiness

3 accused in Ontario explosives investigation were developing anti-drone weapons system

The three Ontario men accused of storing materials that could be made into explosives had been looking for money to back the production of a military system designed to prevent drone attacks. The pitch video also sheds light on the backgrounds of the three men accused in the crime:

Bottom Line: Being a fast-growing startup is not a charming exemption from the law. If your company’s operations are not legal, it is difficult for anyone to invest in you let alone buy the products you sell. Especially so in defence.

Related:

• Palantir CEO Alex Karp calls out Canada, says Trump has a point about the AI race: ‘There’s a real hesitance to adopt these kind of products in the West’

  • Ottawa advised to choose champions and spend big to build AI industry…

• a16z-backed Galadyne Enters the Missile Game… US Air Force tests new, rapidly developed cruise missile

• US used cyber weapons to disrupt Iranian air defences during 2025 strikes

• Josh Ogden thinks Canada’s drone industry can gain some altitude

  • Meet Seeing Systems, Y Combinator’s Newest Drone Startup

• Dominion Dynamics: Forging the future of interoperable, attritable systems for Arctic and Allied defence

• A Wargame Shows Just How Vulnerable Europe Is to a Russian Attack

  • With dense air defences and constant surveillance, can air assault still work?

• Why defence and resilience tech companies live or die by manufacturing scale

  • Machina Labs plots huge robo-factory with $124 million raise

  • Logistics Left of Boom: Understanding Adversary Threats to the Defence Industrial Base Ahead of Conflict

  • China Has Built a Regulatory Kill Switch for American Military Production

  • Unrestricted Innovation: The Supply Chain Battlefield

• In just two months since deployment, the United States Department of War’s enterprise AI platform, GenAI.mil, has surpassed one million unique users… Pentagon clashes with Anthropic over military AI use, sources say

• Canadian bacon: Is Canada’s Artillery Modernization Headed for the Same Pitfalls as the F-35?… Bombardier to buy U.S. jet service provider amid White House threats to decertify planes… New submarines will require extra gear after delivery to operate under ice, navy head says… McGuinty: Ottawa remains opposed to acquiring nuclear weapons… An era of ‘wrecking ball’ politics: What the Munich Security Report says about Canada’s moment of reckoning… How the synthetic environment can shape the future of Canadian defence… Why Canada needs a foreign intelligence service… Canada is uniquely unprepared for the dire national-security crisis we are now in… If Canada expects young people to defend national security, we must improve their financial security… Canada delays destroying WW2 pistols while Ukraine figures out if it wants them

• Critical minerals: Even when a Canadian mining giant controls world-class assets, decisions about which country benefits are ultimately made elsewhere – even in the Oval Office… Mariana Minerals is attempting to rebuild U.S. critical-minerals production under severe time, labour, and political constraints… Leapfrogging China’s Critical Minerals Dominance… Australia’s Critical Minerals Reserve: What are the Lessons for Canada?… Trump’s Project Vault Gives US Critical Mineral Startups a Boost

• Drone wars: InDro Robotics Founder Philip Reece discusses the evolution of autonomous defence, drone swarms… Agent-Based Anti-Jamming Techniques for UAV Communications in Adversarial Environments: A Comprehensive Survey… Russia just demonstrated an FPV strike launched from a USV mothership [VIDEO]… The War in Ukraine and NATO Defence Innovation… Airbus’ giant drone ‘mothership’ with big belly for UAV swarms targets 2029 debut… ICYMI: Pentagon Announces Drone Dominance Vendors… Swarmer files for IPO… Russia’s drone pipeline from Iran… Northern Michigan site designated as testing range for military drones

Defense Tech and Acquisition

The Drone Dominance Stage is Set

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

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3 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

• Arctic corner: Baffinland gives green light to rail line to boost mine’s output, lifespan… Canada is under threat—and the U.S. is not our biggest problem… NATO is readying soldiers for a frozen Arctic war. It means learning to fight on skis and snowmobiles… Collaboration, not exceptionalism, is the key to Arctic peace… Fears grow that Russia will deploy more nukes in the Arctic as New START Treaty expires… Norway says it expects more Russian spying in the Arctic, sabotage activity… CCGS Naalak Nappaaluk – Canadian Coast Guard places large offshore science vessel into service

• From the front: Up to 60,000 engines per month thanks to investments — foreign venture funds are entering the Ukrainian components market… Russia’s air defence vulnerabilities and weapons smuggling… Is the Age of Drones Really the Age of Poor Maneuver?… Serious ballistic-missile threat alerts now outnumber those for drones in Ukraine:

• No place for politics in F-35 cockpits as Canadian fighter jet pilots get ready to train at U.S. base… The Price of Dependency: What the Swiss F-35 Experience Reveals About American Power, Control, and Strategic Asymmetry… Saab Says US-Canada Row Bolsters Swedish Fighter Jet’s Prospects… Canada Looks Set to Cut Big F-35 Stealth Fighter Order By More Than 50 Percent… What does the RCAF Commander actually want?

• US Air Force eyes improved comms with bombers after Midnight Hammer

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📋 New Ombudsman Report Warns of Longstanding Inequities Facing Primary Reserve Members

The Office of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Ombudsman has released a new systemic report, Marking Time: A Decade of Stalled Progress for the Primary Reserve. This report highlights persistent inequities affecting Primary Reserve (P Res) members nearly ten years after the Office first brought the issues to light.

Despite repeated commitments from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to improve support for Reserve Force members injured or made ill through military service, the report finds that little meaningful progress has been made since key investigations were completed in 2016. The earlier reviews—Compensation Options for Ill and Injured Reservists and Part‑Time Soldiers with Full‑Time Injuries—identified gaps in governance, inconsistent access to health care, confusion around entitlements, and systemic administrative delays. Today, according to the Ombudsman, those same issues continue to harm reservists and undermine confidence in the CAF’s ability to support its own people.

The new review, launched in 2024, examined why recommendations from 2016 remain unimplemented and assessed whether they are still relevant. After interviews with CAF senior leaders and months of research, the conclusion was unequivocal: the problems persist, and the recommendations must be implemented.

The report identifies four major systemic barriers that have stalled progress:

1. Governance: Fragmented authority and inconsistent leadership direction have allowed Reserve-related issues to drift without clear ownership. Without a coherent employment model for the Reserve Force, policy alignment and timely decision‑making remain difficult.

2. Cultural Divide: Enduring bias toward Regular Force members has created institutional blind spots that disadvantage reservists—particularly around benefits, compensation, and recognition. Many Primary Reserve members reported feeling undervalued in comparison to their Regular Force counterparts, with some even describing themselves as “second‑class citizens.”

3. Resourcing Constraints: Years of staffing shortages, especially in health services, human resources, and administrative roles, have created delays in policy development, medical access, and compensation claims—issues that directly affect members’ financial stability and well‑being.

4. Administrative Complexity and Digitization: Outdated policies, unclear directives, and manual, paper‑based processes continue to impede modernization. These gaps are especially harmful to part‑time members, who often have limited access to CAF systems and rely heavily on accurate, up‑to‑date guidance.

The report shares troubling examples of reservists facing financial hardship due to delayed or mishandled compensation claims.

To break the cycle of delays and inequity, the Ombudsman is issuing five renewed recommendations for the CAF to implement by January 2027. These include strengthening governance of Reserve Force Compensation, completing long‑overdue digitalization of the Reserve Force Compensation application process, centralizing information on benefits, updating health‑care entitlement policies, and improving communication with members, especially those transitioning out of service.

As Canada continues to rely on P Res members for domestic operations (natural disasters), international deployments, and support to the Regular Force, the report underscores a simple message: meaningful change is overdue, and the time to act is now.

🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: Redefining cyberspace as a battlespace… Hackers see opportunity in the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl… Anthropic’s new model is a pro at finding security flaws… US Senator says AT&T, Verizon blocking release of Salt Typhoon security assessment reports… Leaked technical documents show China rehearsing cyberattacks on neighbors’ critical infrastructure… U.S. Cyber Command’s new cyber force generation model… Cloud sovereignty is no longer just a public sector concern… Foreign adversaries are using fake jobs and consulting gigs to coax secrets from former U.S. officials… US Air Force Reserve Activates First Offensive Cyber Operations Squadron… The New Frontline: Technology Is a Modern Warfighting Domain… Chinese phishers impersonate U.S. policy briefings… Mechanized Propaganda: The Automation of Information Operations and Implications for U.S. Defence Doctrine

• AI advancing: xAI co-founder tested Claude 4.6 on theoretical physics and says it does multi-page calculations without mistakes now. Thinks a “Claude Code moment for research” is close… At a closed-door meeting at the IAS, top physicists privately admitted AI does ~90% of their work… Axiom’s AI autonomously proved an open math conjecture end-to-end in Lean, with no human guidance. First time that’s happened in research math… China has launched its own Genesis Mission and state-backed startup DP Technology just raised $114M to build “AI for science” infrastructure… What does it all mean? Scientific discovery is about to be a compute problem: more inference will equal more breakthroughs

• Uh oh: Mathematician Who Warned of Regime Infiltration of Canadian University Engineering Program Missing in Suspicious Disappearance… China’s disappearing generals… China’s intelligence community [infographic]… Budget watchdog says NATO 5% pledge to hike deficit by $63B… Trump’s methods offend, but his diagnosis of freeloading allies and a failing international order may be uncomfortably closer to reality… Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

• Going nuclear: Newly Unbound, Trump Weighs More Nuclear Arms and Underground Tests… US accuses China of secret nuclear test as Trump admin calls for broader nuclear weapons agreement

• Adapt: Adapting Canada’s Trade Diversification Strategy in an Era of Strategic Interdependence

• Odds & ends: Forging the Foundations of Canada’s Submarine Future… Force Development: Sustaining Canada’s Future Submarine Fleet… Free virtual event on modernization and the role of Canada’s aerospace industry featuring Major General Jeff Smyth, RCAF (February 19)

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

Share The Icebreaker

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Bessemer Venture Partners has a new report detailing how defence tech has advanced more in the past twenty-four months than in the previous three decades, with startups leading the charge on key pillars of innovation.

Reality check: Transformational catalysts are converging in defence technology today, with five critical forces shaping the future:

• Autonomy moves from concept to combat

• AI permeates US DoW workflows— both mission-critical and enterprise back-end

• New performance and innovation vectors for advanced manufacturing

• Edge and network resilience

• Energy and materials independence

Bottom Line: Bessemer believes that national security now runs on startup innovation. “Macro shifts, technological innovation, and structural reform are converging to create the most dynamic period in modern defence history, and the way we build, buy, and deploy defence solutions is being rewritten in real time. Unlike previous transformations, startups now play a defining role—and we believe many generational defence tech companies will emerge from this wave.”

Related:

• Defence tech startups had their best funding year ever in 2025

• 2026 defence industry outlook – from printing parts on the battlefield to AI‘s strategic move from the frontline to the flightline

• The European defence techs working with governments in 2026

• Thanks to our pals at BCI — the first Canadian public pension in on a sovereign defence deal — for public comps showing defence durability: Lockheed Martin (+31%), Saab (+36%), Kratos (+33%), Redwire (+64%) surged as European NATO commitments accelerated. Electronics expanded from 6.4x to 8.7x in six months. Multi-year procurement reflect revenue visibility that defined early enterprise SaaS adoption:

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

🤝 Deal Corner

Canada officially endorses leadership role in new defence bank

Pippa Norman reports Canada is officially taking on a leadership role in the effort to establish a new multinational bank dedicated to financing defence projects.

“In the months ahead, Isabelle Hudon, CEO of BDC will be working closely with international partners to lead Canada’s contribution to advancing the DSRB.” — Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne

Scotiabank, CIBC and National Bank plan to support the international defence bank.

Signs of Life: Six months ago, Canadian defence startups routinely complained about being denied basic chequing accounts at major banks. Now Canada is leading global talks to launch a new NATO defence bank.

Bottom Line: Access to credit is critical given the need to re-arm rapidly. Pace will allow private companies to compete against major primes, fulfill urgent capability requirements and help transform the ecosystem. Any VC can tell you how expensive and difficult it is with just equity.

Editor’s note: Bravo Zulu to Kevin Reed, the Canadian leading the charge globally to cajole countries in creating the defence bank.

Related:

• BDC targets rockets, semiconductors as first investments under new defence strategy… Q&A: BDC Capital’s head on why Canadian defence tech investments are heating up

• Canadian companies can win the trade wars by being essential to the U.S. government in defence

• Dominion Dynamics launches AURION, a tool for defence builders in Canada. AURION uses real public data to reveal how procurement, suppliers, and contracts actually work

• Congrats to our partners at Vimy Forge on launching its first cohort. Vimy Forge, anchored in Fredericton, is Canada’s national defence incubator

  • Register here to hear from Vimy’s managing director Duncan McSporran on Canada’s Radar Moment (Feb 10)

• Trump Threatens to Ground Canadian Aircraft and Apply Tariffs to Imports… Trump’s latest tariff threat has targeted Canada’s aviation industry. Here’s how reaction unfolded… The US Army wants 11 business jets for ISR missions

• Photon-IV awarded R&D funding through a $250,000 contract under the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program

• Silicon Valley Goes To War

  • ICYMI: Pentagon CTO Taps CTA Heads

  • Soldiers and Startups: Inside the Room Where Freedom’s Future is Built

  • Legacy Large Defence Primes Are Cracking Up In The New Order

• European defence is so hot right now

• Frankenburg has raised up to $50M at a $400M valuation

• Grid Aero Raises $20 Million To Advance Autonomous Long-Range Aircraft

• Anduril and Davidson Work with D-Wave on Quantum-Assisted Defence Planning

• Brit pop: UK Looks to Private Money to Help Fill Defence Spending Gap… The UK has launched a £20m fund to fast-track government contracts for domestic military technology start-ups, targeting AI, robotics and precision weapons as part of a shift away from reliance on prime contractors… UK Ministry of Defence has awarded Palantir a £240.6m, three-year follow-on contract… Small defence companies get easier access to MoD contracts… New space labs will help small tech firms grow

• Helsing and Stark Set to Win German Drone Order as Rheinmetall Lags… Germany is betting big on killer drones. In Ukraine, they couldn’t hit their targets

• EIF eyeing ‘more ambitious’ defence investing programme as it doubles down on military tech

• Record CSG IPO Sets Europe For Defence-Led Listings Rebound

• Antares Nuclear Moves Closer to Reaching Criticality

• Reveal Snaps Up Anomaly Six

• Commission approves eight more SAFE defence investment plans worth €74bn

• TKMS, Seaspan Shipyards sign teaming for Canadian Patrol Submarine Project… German, South Korean firms scramble to outbid each other on benefits of submarine deal… Ottawa, Seoul agree to work on bringing South Korean auto sector manufacturing to Canada… TKMS launches the Canadian Defence & Dual-Use Innovation Ecosystem (CDDE)

• Industrial benefits policy needs a ‘relook,’ says ex-senior public servant

• Space corner: Five Investor Rules Space Force Must Obey To Secure US Space Industry… Northwood Space secures a $100M Series B and a $50M Space Force contract… The Space Economy: Act Now or Lose Out, UK Engagement with Space Committee 2025

• Ukraine is working with SpaceX and Elon Musk to prevent Russia from using Starlink connectivity to guide its drones… SpaceX files plans for million-satellite orbital data centre constellation

  • 48 GW of proposed data centers in the US - roughly 33% of all planned capacity - now plan to skip the grid by building “behind-the-meter”

• Germany signals joint fighter project with France may not deliver jets

• Ukrainian troops were ‘stunned’ to learn their British trainers weren’t using anti-drone nets, UK officer says

• Legendary defence investor George Hoyem on AI, jobs and Jevons Paradox

The Defense Brief

Can foreign defense companies still export to the US?

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3 months ago · 3 likes

Defense Tech and Acquisition

Pentagon Overhaul Accelerates

Welcome to the latest edition of Defense Tech and Acquisition…

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3 months ago · 15 likes · Pete Modigliani and Matt MacGregor

• John Ruffolo: What is all the YC fuss really about?

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⚔️ Combat Readiness

Ukraine Unveils Mission Control

According to Tectonic, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence announced that all of its drone operations will soon be unified under a single operating system called Mission Control, which will basically act as a giant, data-driven eye-in-the-sky for how drones in Ukraine are being used.

The drone management platform will plug into Ukraine’s bespoke DELTA combat ecosystem, and operators will be able to input all sorts of data about drone missions (from weather conditions to hit rate, speed, launch type, and failures) using an easy-to-use interface, in real time. Mission Control will then analyze these piles of data to help optimize drone use.

Also last week, Ukraine’s Minister of Defence announced that 820,000 enemy targets have been neutralized by the Army of Drones program. Ukraine plans to produce over 7 million drones in 2026.

Related:

• Should the Canadian Coast Guard be armed? The jury is still out, but the navy says no

• Canada’s race to build warships: Here’s what they’ll do, and the yards vying to cut their steel

  • CIBC economist Benjamin Tal here provides an analysis of the performance gap between Canada’s struggling manufacturing sector, and its U.S. counterpart

• Defence tech startups want to change the way Canada equips its military

• James Yurichuk on The Evolution of the Canadian Military Uniform

• Canada should keep options open on acquiring nuclear weapons, former top soldier says

• How Does Canada’s Military Fare Without the United States?

  • Canada Is Building a Surveillance Network in Space: A reborn Cold War telescope is part of a broader effort to stop relying on US intelligence

  • Canada is moving ahead with a $2.4B HIMARS purchase despite trade tensions, delayed delivery, and viable non-U.S. alternatives

  • U.S. defence procurement expert says routine cooperation with Canada ‘not going to change’

  • U.S.-Canada Defence Relationship Evolving

  • The Core Mechanism: Interoperability as US Market Power

Policy Hawk: Canadian Defence & Security

After Constellation: Why the U.S. Navy Needs a Little Maple in Its DNA

The recent announcement that the US Navy’s Constellation-class frigate program would be cancelled, rather than rescued, has been met with a mix of déjà vu, relief, and frustration. Déjà vu, because once again a supposedly affordable, risk-reduced shipbuilding program spiralled into delays and cost overruns…

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5 months ago · 61 likes · 24 comments · 🇨🇦 Policy Hawk

• Rusty Dagger Low-Cost Cruise Missile Hits Its Target

• The ‘Growler’ Signal-Jamming Jet That Helped Capture Nicolás Maduro

• Digital sovereignty: Canada doesn’t need to outspend superpowers to lead on digital sovereignty — it needs to out-think them… Europe Prepares for a Nightmare Scenario: The U.S. Blocking Access to Tech… France to ban officials from US video tools including Zoom, Teams

• Artemis update: We’ve already been to the moon, so why are we going again?… Cold snap narrows launch window for Artemis II mission

• Euro trip: To protect itself, Europe needs the systems that make warfare work… Germany plans satellite missile detection system to cut reliance on US

• Arctic corner: C2 Considerations in the Arctic… Canada’s icebreaker pact looked great until Trump started threatening the Arctic… Coast Guard patrol vessel headed to Greenland for opening of new consulate… The Golden Dome is where Canada’s F-35 debate and Trump’s Greenland threat meet… ‘The ground is shifting’: Inuit leader issues stark warning about Arctic sovereignty

  • Opting out of F-35 purchase would be ‘three ways from Sunday stupid,’ says retired major general

  • Sources say Ottawa considering Swedish jets over F-35s for half of fleet

  • Trump and Ottawa’s take on TACO will determine Canada’s fighter-jet strategy

⚔️ TECH WARS 👨‍💻

The Battle for Greenland: Drones in the Arctic

If you send 40 soldiers to Greenland, what is that for…

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3 months ago · 1 like · ⚔️Marc C Lange👨‍💻

• From Innovation Challenge to Combat Power: The Future of Armed Drone Proliferation

• Canada and the National Technology and Industrial Base

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: ‘We’re losing massively’: EU cyber chief warns Europe’s defences lag… US Conducts Rare Inspection of Chinese Research Base in Antarctica… How computer warfare is becoming part of the Pentagon’s arsenal… “We sped research that should have taken 20 years”: Inside Q.ai’s Apple exit… Pentagon’s new ‘non-kinetic effects cell’ bolsters Gen. Caine’s goal to better integrate cyber into U.S. military operations… A National Strategy to Ensure Greater Use of Trusted Commercial Electronics… Pentagon urged to wage decision-based AI warfare… Pentagon leaders expect Cybercom 2.0 to help thwart Chinese actors ‘living off the land’… Senior DOD officials back Cybercom 2.0, as Cyber Force debate continues to churn

Gray Matters

The Age of AI for Offensive Cyber

Introduction: The Dawn of AI-Orchestrated Espionage…

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4 months ago · 21 likes · Maggie Gray and Katie Gray

• Risky business: A former Chinese inmate on the risks of ‘middle powers’ turning to Beijing… Mark Carney just ushered in a transformative moment for Canada. It’s also a risky one

• Contested logistics: Wargames Keep Warning Us About Congested Logistics—It’s Time to Take Action

• Managed up: US to Seek Rare Earth Price Mechanism During Meetings With Allies, Official Says… Pentagon Strikes Deal With Canada’s 5N Plus… Is the United States Department of War investment in MP Materials a taxpayer benefit or market distortion?… Canada Nears $3 Billion Uranium Deal With India, May Be Inked In March… Trump to Launch $12 Billion Critical Mineral Stockpile to Blunt Reliance on China

• C4ISR is a warfighting system, not IT: Derek Dobson with reflections from the C4ISR conference in Ottawa

• Uh oh: Ottawa is subsidizing a tech firm that provides wiretapping tools to ICE… Canada is Funding its Own Economic Decline… This Gen Z pair built a $34M startup in Canada, only to move to US… Xi Jinping’s purge should worry the world… Japan waiting 5 years for $7.2bn in US military equipment purchases… Class-action lawsuit targets MDA Space over scrapped, $1.8-billion EchoStar deal… Recalibrating Canadian universities to meet the defence mark

• Job alert: Invest Ottawa is seeking a Business Development Manager with experience in the defence industry… Are you interested in building a meaningful and impactful career in safety, security, or intelligence? Attend the Federal Safety, Security and Intelligence Career Fair on Feb 5

• Vroom zoom: Anduril announces the AI Grand Prix, a fully autonomous drone racing competition

• Physical AI: The era of Physical AI is here. Montreal’s Vention announce their $110M USD funding round. Toronto’s Waabi raises up to $1 billion and partners with Uber to deploy 25,000 robotaxis as the race to dominate self-driving heats up

• Reading list: The Bureaucracy of Intervention: Deploying the Canadian Armed Forces by Mike G. Fejes

• Enlist: In an uncertain climate, Canada needs a civil defence corps

• PSA: Hot Docs Talk + Film Screening: Ibogaine, PTSD & Healing - In Waves and War

If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.

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Editor’s note: Congratulations to COVE on a successful launch of the NATO DIANA 2026 Cohort last week in Halifax, showcasing ventures entering NATO’s innovation network and underscoring Canada’s role in supporting dual-use technology and strategic innovation.

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

Tom Lawson and Wendy Gilmour write that Canada is on track to meet its pledge to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence this fiscal year, largely through low-visibility but substantial investments.

Reality check: The government has boosted Canadian Armed Forces pay and benefits, and is funding recruiting, training, health care, grievance reforms, and long-neglected infrastructure and maintenance to improve readiness. It has also begun major capability upgrades, including Arctic radar, long-range precision strike systems, logistics vehicles, Arctic mobility platforms, and rapid moves on submarines, while planning a broader Defence Industrial Strategy.

A little nudge: “Canada’s enthusiasm for rapid militarization began the moment Donald Trump demanded more from America’s NATO allies and deepened as he mused about taking over parts of the Western Hemisphere.”

A new RBC / Eurasia Group report suggests a failure to execute could lead to others, notably the U.S., stepping in.

Bottom Line: If Ottawa crosses the 2 per cent threshold by March, it will signal that Canada is serious about rebuilding military capacity to face a more dangerous world.

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