The ships represent Turkey’s first corvette export to the Asia-Pacific region and will support Malaysia’s ability to carry out a variety of maritime defense missions including anti-surface, anti-air, asymmetric and electronic warfare.

Based on the ADA-class design, the three corvettes are scheduled for delivery by the end of 2027.

STM, the main contractor, is responsible for the design, construction, integration, and delivery of the vessels, as well as logistics support. The ships are being tailored to meet Royal Malaysian Navy requirements and will be constructed in Turkey with the involvement of local defense firms.

The LMS Batch-2 ships will feature a stealthy hull with a low radar cross-section and high maneuverability. With a displacement of approximately 2,500 tons, each vessel will measure 99.5 meters in length and reach speeds over 26 knots. Powered by a CODAD propulsion system with four diesel engines, the ships will have a range exceeding 4,000 nautical miles at cruising speed and an endurance of 14 days. They will accommodate a crew of 111 and support helicopter operations with a hangar and refueling capabilities.

The corvettes will be equipped with an Italian Leonardo 76mm main gun, one Aselsan Smash 30mm secondary gun, Roketsan Atmaca surface-to-surface and South Korean Haegung surface-to-air missiles, decoy launchers, and electronic warfare systems. Their combat systems include a 3D surveillance radar, IFF, electro-optical fire control radar, target designation sights, and a combat management system provided by Havelsan.

The LMS Batch-2 project follows the June 2024 signing of a government-to-government defense agreement between Turkey and Malaysia, with steel cutting for the ships taking place last December.

The weapon, dubbed Bullseye, will be launchable from the sea, land and air, with the developers promising “significant attack performance against high-value targets at an affordable price point.”

“We’re getting lessons learned on cost reduction, and we’ll build at least half the missile in the United States,” Scott Forney, President of General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, was quoted as saying by Naval News.

Development of the weapon was announced at the Sea-Air-Space 2025 conference in Maryland.

The Bullseye missile appears to be derived from Rafael’s Ice Breaker system, which has a 300-kilometer (186 miles) range. Unlike Ice Breaker, however, the new missile will be able to carry various warheads and propulsion systems, General Atomics said on the new product’s web page.

The weapon’s makers also highlighted the “very low observable” stealth characteristics, autonomous target recognition, and resilience in GPS-denied environments.

Autonomous target recognition has been an area of concern for defense researchers but no comprehensive international rules yet exist on the level of human involvement that a weapons system must have.

General Atomics bills the Bullseye as “fully autonomous with man-in-the-loop decision back-up capability” on the company’s spec sheet. The missile will also be equipped with “advanced mission planning” and “synchronized attack capability.”

The new missile has reportedly reached Technology Readiness Level 8, with Rafael having already completed aerodynamics, engine, seeker and launch integration testing. The missile is compatible with jet fighters, light attack aircraft, helicopters, small maritime vessels and ground vehicles, the arms manufacturer said. Initial deliveries are slated for late 2025, General Atomics said.

The partnership seeks to leverage Rafael’s combat-proven missile technology—including systems like Iron Dome and Spike missiles—with GA-EMS’s U.S.-based manufacturing expertise in Tupelo, Mississippi. It also highlights the continuing close ties between the two countries’ defense establishments at a time when other traditional U.S. partners have been estranged.

The 377-foot vessel, built by General Dynamics Electric Boat, can dive to depths of more than 800 feet below the surface and maneuver at speeds of over 25 knots, or nearly 29 miles per hour.

Iowa is equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles and a nuclear reactor plant that eliminates the need for refueling, according to a Navy release. And as a Virginia-class, the boat was built with flexible design features, including an expansive lock-in/lock-out chamber for special operations divers and a reconfigurable torpedo room. The submarine can also deliver unmanned undersea vehicles.

“Make no mistake, naval warfare is evolving. Where battleships once ruled the seas, it is the silent strength of submarines that provides our Navy with an unmatched strategic advantage,” Navy Secretary John Phelan said at the commissioning ceremony. “This is not just a milestone for USS Iowa, but a critical step forward in strengthening our Navy and ensuring America’s global maritime dominance.”

The newly commissioned sub, which carries a crew of 135 sailors, is the service’s first vessel to be named after the state since the famed World War II-era battleship Iowa (BB-61).

“In this coming year, this crew of proud American sailors will put this warship to sea and carry the name ‘Iowa’ to the far-flung corners of the globe projecting combat power for decades to come,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, U.S. Fleet Forces commander, said at the event.

“It is the fearless warriors before me that turn this piece of metal weighing almost 8,000 tons — with hundreds of miles of fiber, cable and piping systems — into a combat ship, a warship designed to decisively win our nation’s battles. Your preparation and execution to get this ship to commissioning day is nothing short of amazing.”

U.S. Navy fast attack submarines enable sea control, power projection, maritime security, forward presence and deterrence, the service release stated, with capabilities to carry out operations spanning anti-submarine, anti-ship, strike, special operations, intelligence, reconnaissance, mine and surveillance missions.

“This event is significant for both the life of a submarine and for the amazing people from the Hawkeye State,” Iowa commanding officer Cmdr. Gregory Coy said. “To the plank owners, the shipbuilders, the commissioning committee, and our Navy and Submarine Force leaders, this is your submarine.”

Leonidas H2O “was effective against vessel motors at record ranges” during the U.S. Navy’s Advanced Technology Exercise Coastal Trident event in Crane, Indiana, held in August 2024, according to the announcement. The system knocked out four commercially available vessel motors, varying in horsepower from 40 to 90 “at a multitude of ranges,” it noted.

The Pentagon “has spent years of research and development and spent tens-of-millions of dollars into developing a non-kinetic vessel stop solution, with no operational system deployed to date. With Leonidas H2O, we are bringing forth a technology with demonstrated effectiveness to fill this capability gap, today,” Epirus CEO Andy Lowery said in the statement.

The California-based company debuted its ground-based system designed to protect forward operating bases from incoming swarm threats in 2020 and has since proven Leonidas can adapt to other platforms, including being mounted on a drone in a pod.

“Leonidas, by its nature, it’s just an old-fashioned platform. We’ve made force fields … of electromagnetic energy,” Lowery told Defense News. “Whether that electromagnetic energy spoils a drone’s electronics from working correctly or spoils a boat’s motor, or use your imagination, anything with little computers in it and stuff, is susceptible to these persistent fields of energy.”

The recent Navy exercise proved the system — scaled down to a third of its original size — could go up against “a whole bunch of different types of boat motors out there,” Lowery said. It did so despite testing restrictions at the range limiting it from operating at full strength and from using certain frequencies.

Lowery noted that the system was effective up to nearly 100 meters working at half power.

The technology would come in handy at ports and close to coastlines, where kinetic defenses would not be a good option, Lowery said.

Adapting Leonidas for marine operations meant the company took into account that it would endure the corrosive effects of salt water, but otherwise, “the system works more or less the same,” Lowery said. “Except for one item,” he added. “It kind of uses the water as a mirror, and so [we] can use the water to our advantage, that is it hits certain spots in even further distances by using reflections off the water.”

Because of the beams’ behavior on water, the company made adaptations to the software, he noted.

One limitation of the system is that it does not work under water.

“The frequencies just don’t propagate under water. They just stop dead in like an inch of travel,” Lowery said.

Epirus continues to work to get the capability into the hands of service members. There are two systems deployed with the Army in the U.S. Central Command area of operations and a few others going to another operational area, Lowery said.

US Army could soon have a high-power microwave to destroy small drone swarms

“Operational commanders probably have the strongest voice on hitting a gas pedal and getting us moving a lot quicker,” he added.

A Navy solution, Lowery said, could be delivered “expeditiously.” The system could be packed in a container to fit on a vessel like a Littoral Combat Ship or a Coast Guard cutter, he noted.

“They can very easily put one of these on long fantail ships. Even some of these same fantail ships are in the Black Sea trying to do sort of escort control for merchants and other things running through that region,” Lowery said. “Another excellent idea is to try to hit some of the surface missiles that the Houthis and stuff are sending out. We could try our hand at disrupting some of those things as well.”

Lowery said he often points to how the Russian invasion of Ukraine in recent years has left Russia with roughly 50% of its navy capabilities destroyed, sunk or damaged beyond use by Ukrainians, with no navy, using unmanned weapons.

“We’re back into this war of the machines. We’re back into this kind of guerrilla warfare where the first wave of battle ends up becoming machines on machines,” he said. “We can have a system that has a very deep magazine that can build force fields out and take care of these, not only unmanned air vehicles, but unmanned surface vessels and unmanned ground vehicles.”

But he’s going to need some help.

“My top priority ... is restoring a 3.0 MEU presence worldwide,” Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said April 7 at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space Exposition.

More specifically, that means a three-ship MEU with an Amphibious Ready Group, or ARG-MEU, deployed out of the East Coast, one out of the West Coast and a third on periodic deployments out of Okinawa, Japan.

The primary impediment? Amphibious ships.

The Corps needs 31 amphibious ships under law at a readiness level of 80% or greater to consistently meet that need, Smith said. But the readiness of that fleet is hovering at about 50% at any given time.

Marines hindered by Navy's amphibious ship maintenance delays

An Amphibious Ready Group includes an assault ship, a landing ship with helicopter platform and a dock landing ship. The MEU consists of a battalion landing team, aviation combat element and combat logistics element to form a Marine Air Ground Task Force.

Bringing the amphib fleet back up to speed will cost maintenance and procurement dollars over multiple years, Smith said. It will take the Marine Corps, the Navy, Congress and shipbuilders.

Smith didn’t shirk the Corps’ role in the state of the fleet. After two decades of land-based wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Corps had largely left its fleet behind. Money for maintenance and building new ships went to those wars instead.

And the way the four-star sees it, a 3.0 presence is the bare minimum. That’s because combatant commanders are requesting the combat power of more than five MEUs throughout the years, he said.

Marine Corps Times reported in December that the Government Accountability Office had audited Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, and Naval Base San Diego, California, regarding amphibious ship maintenance status.

From 2011 to 2020 amphibs were only available for operations 46% of the time.

Also, in 2024 the Boxer and America amphibious readiness groups missed exercises and experienced delayed deployments due to the unavailability of vessels.

One ship had not deployed in 12 years due to maintenance issues.

At the time, Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Joshua Benson told Marine Corps Times, “The current state of readiness impacts the Marine Corps’ capacity to support Combatant Commander’s needs, to maintain a 3.0 presence with Marine Expeditionary Units performing heel-to-toe deployments, and ultimately limits our ability to respond to crisis around the globe.”

Beyond regular maintenance and catch-up work, the lifespan of much of the fleet is in doubt.

Out of 32 amphibious-warfare ships, 16 are not expected to reach their 40-year service life. But the entire fleet must serve beyond that time limit to maintain at least a 31-amphibious warfare ship requirement, according to the report.

Also at the expo Monday, America’s largest naval shipbuilder, HII, reached an agreement to partner with South Korea’s HD Hyundai Heavy Industries to boost shipbuilding across numerous vessel classes.

“By working with our shipbuilding allies and sharing best practices, we believe this [agreement] offers real potential to help accelerate delivery of quality ships,” Brian Blanchette, HII executive vice president and president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, said in a release announcing the partnership.

The landmark agreement, signed as a memorandum of understanding at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Symposium at National Harbor, Maryland, covers not only military but commercial shipbuilding efforts, according to a HII press release.

“By working with our shipbuilding allies and sharing best practices, we believe this [agreement] offers real potential to help accelerate delivery of quality ships,” Brian Blanchette, HII executive vice president and president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, said in the release.

Won-ho Joo, chief executive of HHI’s naval and special ship business unit, called the agreement “a new milestone for both of our companies,” adding that the arrangement will provide South Korea “with the unique opportunity to expand our expertise in shipbuilding.”

Today at @SeaAirSpace, HII and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore collaboration on accelerating ship production and supporting defense and commercial shipbuilding. @NavyLeague_US #SAS2025

Read more here: https://t.co/XAJBUt5lzu pic.twitter.com/khjhrymomf

— HII (@WeAreHII) April 7, 2025

Hyundai Heavy Industries owns the world’s largest shipyard, located in Ulsan, South Korea. The company, which boasts 10% of the world’s shipbuilding market, asserts it can “produce more than one [Aegis-equipped] ship per year, equivalent to the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyer,” HHI Specialized Ship Business Division Managing Director Woo-man Jeong told a South Korean news outlet.

“If maritime defense cooperation with the U.S. is in full swing,” Jeong added, “we will be able to build up to five ships per year, and there is room for further expansion.”

The agreement inked between HHI and its U.S. counterpart, which is headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, is the latest indication of increased naval collaboration between the two countries.

Last month, South Korea’s naval industry notched a significant first when the Military Sealift Command’s Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship USNS Wally Schirra completed a seven-month regular overhaul at a Hanwha Ocean shipyard in Gyeongsangnam-do.

The overhaul marked the first time a Republic of Korea shipyard bid on and won a contract of that scale, according to a U.S. Pacific Fleet release.

“The Republic of Korea’s ability to conduct large-scale maintenance to USNS ships within the Indo-Pacific Theater demonstrates the strong strategic partnership between the Republic of Korea and the United States,” Rear Adm. Neil Koprowski, U.S. Naval Forces Korea commander, said in the release. “Maintenance in Theater reduces downtime and costs, while enhancing operational readiness. This is a landmark achievement to be celebrated as a symbol of our strengthened partnership and ironclad commitment to the ROK-U.S. alliance.”

Monday’s U.S.-South Korea shipbuilding agreement comes on the heels of a recent Government Accountability Office report that described the state of U.S. shipbuilding over the past 20 years as lingering in a “perpetual state of triage.”

During a March 4 address to the nation, President Donald Trump promised to establish a new office of shipbuilding within the White House to inject life into the industry and revitalize U.S. naval strength.

“We used to make so many ships,” Trump said. “We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact to further enhance our national security.”

The companies’ tie-up follows sea trials, funded by the United States Office of Naval Research, during which Saildrone’s Surveyor USV, equipped with Thales’ BlueSentry sensor package, operated almost uninterrupted for 26 days.

Conducted off the coast of California, the tests demonstrated that the systems detected and classified underwater and surface threats, with an uptime averaging more than 96%, according to Saildrone.

In the context of underwater drones, the notion of “uptime” generally refers to the percentage of time the system is available and able to perform its intended missions continuously.

“The trials showed that, under wind propulsion, the Surveyor provided a near-zero self-noise environment, significantly improving the detection capabilities of the BlueSentry sonar system,” a Saildrone press release stated.

A fleet of USVs, integrated with these sonar arrays, is intended to be able to operate for extended periods of time, autonomously patrolling large ocean areas and reduce the costs of coverage, per the Thales website.

The companies said that the team-up could pave the way for greater “naval interoperability” between the trilateral AUKUS partners – Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States – and deliver on the security partnership’s technology-focused Pillar 2 scope. That line of work is intended to harness the joint industrial and innovation bases of the three countries to ensure that their respective militaries are equipped with advanced and interoperable capabilities.

While during the trials the systems relied on Starlink and Iridium satellite communications, Saildrone recently announced a GPS-denied option not reliant on satellites.

“Copperhead enables a comprehensive, intelligent maritime capability that allows operators to quickly respond to threats in the undersea battlespace, at a fraction of the cost of legacy options,” the company said in a statement Monday.

The product line includes two variants, each offered in two different sizes. The baseline Copperhead is designed for rapid-response missions, the firm said, including environmental monitoring, search and rescue and infrastructure inspection.

The vehicle, which can reach speeds greater than 30 knots, can carry a range of payloads, including active and passive sensors and magnetometers, which can detect changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.

The Copperhead-M variant is a munition that can be deployed from a larger system, specifically Anduril’s Dive-LD and Dive-XL vessels. It offers “torpedo-like” capabilities and is designed for mass production, Anduril said.

A Dive-XL can carry dozens of the smaller Copperhead-M and “multiple” of the larger size missile.

“This makes it possible for a fleet of Dive-XLs to control ocean areas with an unprecedented level of autonomous seapower,” Anduril said.

“We are burning readiness to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for what really amounts to a ragtag bunch of terrorists that are Iran proxies,” then-Rep. Mike Waltz, now the president’s national security advisor, told Politico last year. “Iran is the core of the issue.”

“It’s truly a mark of how off-kilter our foreign policy is that we are now embarking on ongoing military attacks in Yemen - Yemen! - without any real prospect they will be effective,” Elbridge Colby, nominated to run Pentagon policy, posted on the social media site X last year.

Since the group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal became public last week, the Trump administration has argued the scandal only distracts from the “highly successful” airstrikes it began earlier in March. Even more, it’s framed the campaign as a return to American strength after years of “deferred maintenance” under the Biden administration.

But as some of the officials’ past statements show, the airstrike campaign shows a change in how some members of the Trump administration see the Middle East, and America’s interests there. The strikes have certainly escalated since last year, experts said. But they represent a high degree of continuity with the Biden administration’s strategy — and are likely to encounter the same problems.

“Whether we’re going to make the Houthis cry for mercy anytime soon is extremely unlikely,” said Michael Knights, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

A ‘relentless’ campaign

The most recent attacks in Yemen began March 15, when U.S. Central Command hit 30 targets across Yemen belonging to the Houthis, a terrorist group largely sustained by Iran. Immediately, the administration sought to distinguish these attacks from its predecessor’s approach.

“Joe Biden’s response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going,” Trump posted on his Truth Social app shortly after the attacks began.

Shortly after Israel’s war in Gaza began in the fall of 2023, the Houthis began attacking commercial ships passing through the Red Sea, where 15% of global trade passed until that year.

In response, the U.S. and a group of other countries began a task force intended to protect those shipping lanes. The American military sent aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships into the Red Sea to escort vessels, and also began routine airstrikes against Houthi sites in Yemen.

The problem, officials in the Biden Pentagon later acknowledged, was that these strikes didn’t solve the root issue. Even when attacked, the Houthis could resupply their stockpiles with support from Iran, and the group was gaining prestige by continuing its salvos.

“One thing we learned from our experience is not to underestimate the Houthis’ resilience,” said Daniel Shapiro, head of Pentagon Middle East policy until January, who supports the current airstrike campaign.

The Trump administration’s answer has been to hit harder. It’s conducted more than 100 strikes across Yemen so far, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week, and it’s changed the targets. Whereas the former administration stuck mostly to military sites — think ammunition depots or launch zones — this one is much more willing to hit enemy leaders, including those closer to civilians in urban areas.

“We have destroyed command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations. While the Houthis still maintain capability, it is largely because of the nearly 10 years of support provided by Iran,” a U.S. defense official said.

These attacks have been occurring much faster than the former campaign. And they’re taking place alongside a greater effort to inspect ships entering Yemen for equipment meant to resupply the Houthis, potentially slowing the group’s recovery.

“This campaign will be relentless to degrade their capability and to open up shipping lanes in the region,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a March 17 briefing.

Surge pricing

Still, outside experts say those lanes will likely stay closed for months, if not indefinitely.

Shipping companies have almost uniformly chosen to reroute around the Red Sea, reasoning that it’s more important for a ship to arrive safely than quickly. Doing so has actually increased their revenue, which will make it harder for any country to force a return to the status quo.

“The Houthis have reshaped global shipping, and they’ve done so in a way that’s more profitable for global shipping,” Knights said.

The other issue is that the Houthis have been here before. In fact, the group has been in a state of almost-constant war for the last 20 years — against Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni government, the United Arab Emirates and now the United States.

“The problem with the air war there is that it’s not going to work,” said Ben Friedman, an analyst at Defense Priorities, a think tank that calls for a more restrained U.S. foreign policy.

The Houthis began their attacks again March 11, after a short pause following a ceasefire in Gaza. An easier way to stop their attacks may be to pressure Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinian people, Friedman argued, though U.S. officials are wary of making it seem like the Houthis are fighting a noble cause by attacking commercial ships.

Instead, the administration has continued to escalate the military campaign.

Last week it extended the deployment the Harry S Truman carrier strike group already in the Red Sea and announced it would bring over another one from the Indo-Pacific, leading to a few weeks of overlap before the Truman departs. It has also brought over additional B-2 stealth bombers and scarce air defense batteries.

In the meantime the airstrikes continue, including rounds over the weekend that pummeled areas across Yemen.

“We hit them every day and night — Harder and harder,” Trump posted Monday, again threatening Iran if it continued supporting the group.

The Red Sea has not reopened for shipping companies, and the military surge has many Democrats in Congress concerned about the mixture of means and ends.

“They’re aware that this will have costs for readiness,” said a Democratic congressional aide, speaking anonymously per the office’s policy, of the Pentagon.

The critique may sound like the sort of partisan grandstanding that often occurs in Washington. But last year, it wasn’t an entirely Democratic issue — at least for Waltz.

“We’re using a lot of munitions,” the then-representative said at a March 2024 hearing, describing the Biden administration’s strategy. “We’re burning readiness.”

Vladimir Putin announced the plans after the launching ceremony last week of the new Perm nuclear submarine of the Yasen-M class. That boat will be the first full-time carrier of the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile.

Following the withdrawal of Soviet submarine, military officials originally wanted to field 30 Yasen-class submarines and 14 strategic Borei-class boats.

Putin’s announcement indicate a shift on objectives, with 10 copies to be built in each class.

Submarine manufacturing plant Sevmash has emerged as something of a bottleneck in the overall production scheme. The plant hasn’t been making enough boats, and only a year ago modernized its production facilities.

Given Russian plans to start building new fifth-generation submarines of the Husky class by 2027, the Yasen-M line may cease to exist, according to Pavel Luzin, a Russia defense expert with the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis.

Moscow’s overall naval weapons mix has leaders hesitant to rush into additional Yasen production, as support elements like reconnaissance satellites and ships as well as accompanying surveillance aircraft are lacking, according to Dmitry Smirnov, a Russian military expert.

In addition, the defense budget shifted to the production of weapons needed in the war against Ukraine. Sevmash is not receiving enough orders for the construction of submarines, and employees are getting pay cuts, says economist Vyacheslav Shiryaev.

Aggravating the situation, after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia lost access to foreign components due to sanctions and was forced to start from scratch on some submarine parts.

The current state of American shipbuilding, however, is sorely in need of a complete overhaul if that plan is to be achieved, according to recent testimony and a new government watchdog report.

“It is way past time that we get after it,” Dr. Brett A. Seidle, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

“Simply put, we need more ships delivered on time and on budget and we are challenged in both of these arenas. Costs are rising faster than inflation and schedules on multiple programs are delayed one to three years late.”

The same day as Seidle’s testimony, the Government Accountability Office released a report detailing 20 years’ of lackluster progress in U.S. shipbuilding. Not enough ships are being built, newly constructed ships are failing to function as expected and ships are being delivered up to three years later than ordered, the report said.

While the Navy nearly doubled its shipbuilding budget during the last two decades, it failed to reach its planned ship count, according to GAO.

Seidle offered ideas for solutions during his testimony Tuesday, including “increased modernization, infrastructure investment, better workforce hiring and retention, and improved supply chain performance.”

In a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Shelby S. Oakley, a director at GAO, said that unrealistic expectations of costs and timing has diverted resources and introduced delays in shipbuilding, with the result that Navy programs and shipbuilders have been “effectively made to operate in a perpetual state of triage.”

“We found that Navy ships cost billions more and take years longer to build than planned while often falling short of quality and performance expectations,” Oakley said.

Since 2015, GAO has made 90 recommendations to the Navy to improve shipbuilding. Only 30 of those have been partially or fully addressed to date.

Shipyards, military clinics exempted from Pentagon hiring freeze

Shipbuilding is a complex process. To build a ship takes eight phases on average, from the award of a contract to design and construction phases, and eventually ending in launch and delivery of the vessel. The Navy currently has 92 ships under contract with 56 actively undergoing construction, according to the Defense Department.

The GAO’s grim report comes at a time when the current administration has announced plans to create a new White House Office of Shipbuilding, and the DOD has prioritized a focus on the Indo-Pacific region across all branches.

In February, the cruiser San Diego made a historic visit to the Japanese port of Ishigaki to strengthen ties, while throughout March and April, the U.S. Army’s Project Capstone 5 exercise is expanding its focus to include scenarios about the Indo-Pacific region.

The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain also hosted Vigilant Resolve, a “first-of-its-kind” exercise involving mass casualty, a shelter-in-place order and the evacuation of noncombatants — preparing naval personnel and U.S. partners for a large-scale international emergency response.

“I fervently believe our Navy has never been more important than it is right now,” Seidle told lawmakers this week. “The United States projects its presence around the globe via our blue-water Navy, impacting geopolitical decisions on a daily basis and helping to maintain our way of life.”

Responding to a question from Defense News at Avalon International Airshow 2025 – held here March 25-30 – a crewman said that Australian P-8As performed “high-duration, high-frequency sorties” whilst the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships voyaged around the continent.

The P-8A platform, of which the Royal Australian Air Force, or RAAF, currently has 12, can perform missions up to 20 hours long if they are aerially refueled. Australia has two additional P-8As coming “soon” too, said Air Commodore Angus Porter, director general of the RAAF’s Air Combat Capability branch, at the biennial Avalon event.

Poseidons of the Royal New Zealand Air Force also monitored the trio of Chinese ships – comprising the Type 054A frigate Hengyang, Type 055 cruiser Zunyi and Type 903 replenishment ship Weishanhu – as they sailed through the Tasman Sea.

Australians and Kiwis were shocked when the Chinese ship trio conducted gunnery drills on Feb. 21-22, causing nearly 50 airliners to divert course between Australia and New Zealand.

It is unclear whether the Chinese task group was accompanied by a nuclear-powered attack submarine. Defense News asked whether the P-8s, which Australian and U.S. military officials at Avalon described as “the world’s premier anti-submarine warfare aircraft,” had detected an accompanying submarine.

Officials would not say definitively one way or the other.

Jennifer Parker, from the National Security College, Australian National University, told Defense News that the live-fire activities occurred on the high seas, and that such activities were normal and common for warships.

However, even if lawful, China’s actions were undoubtedly designed as posturing towards Canberra and Wellington, both of which send warships through international waters in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

Parker noted, “I think the nature of the deployment is certainly designed to send a message. There’s a reason they’re down here, there’s a reason they’re loitering down here and they’re not coming in for a port call. That’s about sending a message about their capability.”

Australasia is not used to hostile warships sailing through the Tasman Sea, but such a thing is likely to occur more frequently, especially as China buttresses its position in Antarctica, according to experts.

“Just by virtue of the scale of the navy they’ve built and their intentions to play a broader role in the Indo-Pacific, I just don’t think there’s any doubt that we’re going to see this more often,” said David Capie, Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University in Wellington.

Parker agreed, predicting Australia may even “see multiple task groups” – one in the Pacific and maybe one in the Indian Ocean.

“I think it’s about testing Australia’s responses – both in our defense responses but also our national responses in terms of, how does the population react to it.”

Capie described the Australian and New Zealand military response as “effective and very well coordinated.” However, both militaries are struggling to field surface combatants. New Zealand has only two frigates, while Australia’s navy is down to just ten warships.

In fact, one source told Defense News that New Zealand has almost become a strategic liability to Australia, because its military is so hollowed out. Parker believes New Zealand should align acquisitions and training pipelines with Australia.

Unmanned assistance

While the P-8s proved their worth in tracking the Chinese trio of ships, the mission was almost tailor-made for an unmanned capability that’s about to enter service: the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton. The Australian Air Force has one Triton at the moment, but officials said the second and third examples will arrive in April after being checked out by the U.S. Navy.

The air service also has a fourth Triton on order. The fleet is expected to reach initial operating capability in the first quarter of 2026. The aircraft will be based at Tindal in the Northern Territory, even though they are flown from an air base near Adelaide in South Australia.

Tritons have an endurance of more than 24 hours and 7,400-nautical-mile range, making them ideal for monitoring future Chinese navy task groups sailing near Australasia.

Hogan said, “Triton’s coming along really well. It’s flown here in Australia in both February and March. I’m really comfortable that it’s on track.”

Asked whether Australia will need more of the drones, Hogan said the original fleet-size projections are holding up.

“The current environment and what we’ve experienced recently does not change the maths,” he said. “The Triton is effectively going to surveil a maritime space the size of Western Australia every 24 hours for each platform. So we’re comfortable with the maths we’ve done to arrive at the fleet size we have.”

Phelan, founder of the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC, was confirmed by a 62-30 vote with nearly all of his support coming from Republicans. He is expected to be sworn into the military leadership role in the next few days.

Phelan was the first service secretary pick to be announced by Trump but the second to be confirmed. Last month, lawmakers approved Daniel Driscoll as Army secretary by a similar 66-28 partisan vote.

Navy secretary nominee blasts ‘systemic failures’ plaguing the fleet

In his confirmation hearing on Feb. 27, Phelan testified that he saw the Navy as a service in desperate need of reform and innovation.

“The U.S. Navy is at [a] crossroads, with extended deployments, inadequate maintenance, huge cost overruns, delayed ship building, failed audits, subpar housing and, sadly, record high suicide rates,” he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “These are systemic failures that have gone unaddressed for far too long. Frankly, this is unacceptable.”

He also argued that his lack of military experience was an asset to his role leading the Navy, because of his ability to reject “traditional” military thinking.

“The Navy and the Marine Corps already possess extraordinary operational expertise within their ranks,” he said. “My role is to utilize that expertise and strengthen it, step outside the status quo and take decisive action with a results-oriented approach.”

Earlier this month, former Virginia Senate candidate and Navy special operations veteran Hung Cao was nominated as under secretary of the Navy, giving Phelan a veteran with significant Navy experience as his top deputy.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to hold a confirmation hearing this week for Trump’s third service secretary pick, Troy Meink, who has been tapped to lead the Air Force.

The Navy is currently without an official in its top uniformed leadership post. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s first female chief, was dismissed by Trump last month in a Pentagon leadership purge.

A team of officers bearing the Norwegian flag on their uniform climb from one moving vessel onto another, a larger Norwegian Coast Guard offshore patrol ship, using a single pole with a hook and flimsy ladder to haul themselves up.

They are part of the Norwegian Coastal Rangers, a marine commando unit trained to operate in littoral combat environments. In the context of the NATO exercise Joint Viking 2025, organized earlier this month, they trained for the task of boarding a suspicious vessel.

The ship-boarding scenario has turned front and center in the alliance’s recent defense planning. Western officials fear that NATO adversaries employ ships under the guise of research missions or civilian cargo runs to damage undersea cables and energy infrastructure in the waters around Europe.

The small Norwegian unit, composed of roughly 150 individuals, is highly versatile, tasked with missions spanning from coastal raids and maritime patrol to intelligence-gathering. With sabotage risks on NATO’s mind, formations like this are rising to new prominence in national force structures.

In its annual national threat assessment report, the Norwegian Police Security Services noted that in the last year, Russia has shown “its resolve and ability to carry out sabotage operations on European soil” and that it is “likely” that it may affect Norway in 2025.

The NATO member shares a 198-kilometer (123-mile) land border with Russia in the Arctic and a maritime frontier in the Barents Sea.

While the Coastal Rangers have not noticed an uptick in the number of illegal or sanctioned vessels sailing along the Norwegian coast, officers did note that there has been an increase in the level of electromagnetic jamming over the last few years.

Norwegian defense authorities recently approved a series of upgrades to modernize and expand the capabilities of the ranger unit. Among these is the acquisition of new unmanned technologies, including long-range maritime surveillance drones, according to Frode Nakken, commanding officer of the Coastal Rangers.

“We’ve been operating with drones for a few years, primarily fixed-wing models, but they have proven vulnerable to the Arctic climate – the larger and longer-range drones we will get will have more endurance and power to resist these conditions,” he told Defense News during the Joint Viking exercise.

Winter temperatures in Northern Norway can easily drop to -10 degrees Celsius, where the cold quickly drains the drones’ battery life and the abundant precipitation makes it tricky for operators to fly them.

The 2025-2036 Norwegian Defense Pledge stated that the ambition is to have the unmanned aerial systems stationed at Andøya Air Station, some 300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.

The Norwegian Ministry of Defense has contacted U.S. manufacturers, including Northrop Grumman and General Atomics regarding this request for information, as reported by Janes.

A General Atomics spokesman told Defense News that the company has already responded to the solicitation, pitching its MQ-9B SeaGuardian.

“It will provide Norway with 360-degree maritime radar coverage and full SIGINT capabilities – the MQ-9B is the only remotely piloted aircraft able to perform anti-submarine warfare missions, allowing it to enhance the country’s existing fleet of P-8 patrol aircraft,” said spokesman C. Mark Brinkley.

The submarine sonar contract is the first in 15 years for Thales outside its core underwater markets of France, the U.K., the U.S. and Australia, said Emmanuel Michaud, vice president for submarines and surface vessels at Thales. The sensor suite for the four Dutch submarines will form the basis for Thales’s export offer for other upcoming submarine programs, he said.

The contract “is our stepping stone to a new generation of export-contract submarine systems,” Michaud said. “That’s why this contract is absolutely key for us, because that’s the first one of hopefully a long series of contracts. The market is pretty active now in the submarines.”

Thales signed an agreement with Naval Group to supply the four sonar suites, with a contract value somewhere between €100 million ($109 million) and €1 billion, according to Michaud, who declined to give an exact price. “Let say that we are extremely happy with this contract.” Thales won a contract from BAE Systems in 2020 to provide the sonar system for the U.K.’s four Dreadnought nuclear submarines with a value of £330 million ($428 million).

The sensor suite will be “heavily derived” from the system equipping the French Suffren-class nuclear attack submarines, according to Michaud. The same Thales team working on delivering the last three of the six submarines in the Suffren class will work on the Dutch contract, he said.

The Netherlands a year ago picked Naval Group to build four conventionally-powered attack submarines in a project worth as much as €5.65 billion to replace the country’s aging Walrus-class subs. The Dutch boats will be based on the same Barracuda program from Naval Group that produced the Suffren class.

“We had Barracude, we invested a lot thanks to the French MoD and French Navy, and this gives us a competitive edge,” Michaud said. “We keep improving our product with this export-contract submarine with very, very tough requirements from the Dutch Navy.”

Most of the products included in the sonar suite for the Dutch submarines already exist, and are being progressively improved with regards to hardware and software, he said.

The first two submarines in the Dutch contract are scheduled to be delivered by 2034, and “we are working full speed already to be on time for the delivery of the first submarine,” Michaud said. He said that given the complexity of everything that needs to be assembled, “I will be happy in 2034 when everything is delivered.”

Thales says it’s the world leader in sonar, equipping around 50 submarines and with a share of around 50% of the accessible market. Customers include the French, British and Austalian navies, as well as Singapore, Chile and Malaysia.

Thales will delivery “the full array of what can be installed on a submarine as far as acoustics are concerned” for the Dutch boats, including main antennas such as the bow-mounted cylindrical array and the flank array sonar, according to Michaud. Other equipment will include an intercept array on the top of the submarine and a mine and obstacle-avoidance sonar that can also do seabed mapping

The French company is working with Dutch company Optical11 to develop a towed linear antenna using optical technology that would be included in the Thales sonar suite. The Amsterdam-based firm says it’s the world leader in fiber optic sensing technology for ultra-sensitive early warning systems.

The technology readiness level for the optical array “is not yet at a stage that would allow us to go full production from day one,” Michaud said. Thales and Optical11 agreed on a feasibility study in November that will last most of 2025, with the goal of including the technology on the Dutch submarines. “It’s a very challenging technology, but very promising.”

“If this is successful, and we are working hard to make it successful, we will definitely adopt this technology or this product for our export-country contracts,” Michaud said. He said that France’s defense ministry is also developing a optical towed array, however this is proprietary “and we will never be able to export this.”

The Dutch submarines will be fitted with a double row of flank array sonar as a cost-effective way to increase the sensor surface and improve detection, as developing a new array would have been “extremely expensive” and would have taken too long, Michaud said.

Regarding a plan by Poland to buy submarines, Michaud said Thales doesn’t comment on market opportunities led by Naval Group. He said the Thales strategy is to offer a “very versatile” sonar suite that can fulfill the requirements of many customers, and avoid additional development that would increase cost, time and risk.

The issue of shipyard workers has become a rallying point for numerous advocates and lawmakers in recent days, especially after President Donald Trump vowed in his address to Congress earlier this month to establish a new office of shipbuilding within the White House in order to protect the industry.

Last week, sixteen Democratic lawmakers from districts with links to shipbuilding firms sent a note to the White House and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asserting the civilian defense employee hiring freeze had caused “chaos and uncertainty,” which in turn has hurt “the important growth that is needed at our shipyards.”

Pentagon leaders agreed. In a memo over the weekend, Hegseth clarified shipyard workers should be exempted from the hiring freeze, even as other areas see potential job cuts designed to “optimize our federal workforce, reduce inefficiencies, and align our resources with the president’s top national security priorities.”

Trump to launch new White House office focused on shipbuilding

Officials previously said critical needs areas would not be precluded from hiring vacant spots, but the new memo specifies shipyards, depots and military medical sites as among that group.

“DoD will only hire mission-essential employees into positions that directly contribute to our warfighting readiness,” the memo stated.

The news drew praise from both Republicans and Democrats, the latter of whom have been fiercely critical of the administration’s federal workforce cutbacks.

“I’m relieved that the administration heard our calls to protect jobs that are vital to national security at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and at shipyards across the country from ill-considered hiring freezes,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. and the second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

“While I’m glad that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth now understand our shipyard workforce to be an essential component of our national defense and preparedness, it should have never come to this in the first place. And the uncertainty that has swept through shipyards in the last two months has done real damage.”

White House officials have yet to announce specifics of the new office to oversee the shipbuilding industry. Several lawmakers have offered legislation to codify such an oversight agency, but it is not clear if those plans would align with Trump’s vision for the office.

Earlier this year, officials from the Congressional Budget Office said the Navy would need to spend more than $40 billion annually for 30 years for the service to fulfill its proposed plans to expand its battle force fleet.

There are currently 295 battle force ships in the fleet, with that number expected to drop to 283 ships by 2027 because of planned retirements. The service has stated it hopes to grow the fleet to 381 ships by 2054.

Defense Department officials have said that even with the exemptions, they plan to trim the civilian defense workforce by up to 8%, or 60,000 workers, in coming months, in keeping with broader administration plans to scale back the size of the federal bureaucracy.

The systems in question amount to an integrated solution from both companies, featuring Elbit’s DESEAVER MK-4 decoy control and launching system (DCLS), along with a range of Rafael’s countermeasures.

Rafael’s passive and active decoy countermeasures were designed to neutralize threats such as advanced Anti-Ship Missile (ASM) seekers, the companies said in a statement. And Elbit’s equipment provides a maritime electronic warfare capability for repelling complex missile attacks.

The integrated system “fires various types of decoy rounds from multiple launchers to counter simultaneous threats, positioning it as the fourth generation of naval EW dispensing systems that enhance soft-kill anti-missile defense capabilities,” the firms said.

The announcement did not name the buyer governments nor the deal amount, and company officials declined to elaborate. But the announcement mentions that the contract is set to be executed over a period of four years, and that it includes the delivery of systems for 5 vessels.

One possible client combo is the Netherlands and Belgium. The two countries announced a purchase of two anti-submarine frigates each in April 2023, built by Damen shipyard and Thales for the electronics.

The first Dutch frigate is scheduled for delivery at the end of 2029, while Belgium is scheduled to receive its first vessel in the second half of 2030.

The test took place on March 12, 2025, from the submarine TCG Preveze off the coast of Mersin in the Mediterranean Sea, as detailed in a press briefing by the Turkish Ministry of Defense. The missile was encased in a watertight capsule equipped with a propeller, designed to fit the submarine’s 533 mm torpedo tube.

After launch, the capsule propelled itself away from the submarine before the missile ignited and exited the capsule. Footage shared on social media indicated that the missile was not carrying a live warhead, as there was no impact observed.

A critical aspect of the test was the submarine’s ability to launch the canister from its torpedo tubes.

Developed and produced by Roketsan, the Atmaca missile serves as the primary offensive weapon of the Turkish Navy, gradually replacing the Boeing RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missile.

It is currently deployed on Ada-class corvettes and frigates undergoing the Barbaros mid-life upgrade.

International interest in the Atmaca missile has grown, with Indonesia and Malaysia among its export customers.

In November 2022, Indonesia signed a contract to procure 45 Atmaca missiles, marking its commitment to enhancing naval capabilities. Malaysia has also opted for the Atmaca missile system, planning to integrate it into its three Littoral Mission Ship (LMS) Batch 2 vessels, which are based on the Turkish Ada-class corvette design.

The joint drills, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025, took place in the Gulf of Oman near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all crude oil traded worldwide passes. The area around the strait in the past has seen Iran seize commercial ships and launch suspected attacks in the time since President Donald Trump first unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

The drill marked the fifth year the three countries took part in the drills.

This year’s drill likely sparked a warning late Monday from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, which said there was GPS interference in the strait, with disruptions lasting for several hours and forcing crews to rely on backup navigation methods.

“This was likely GPS jamming to reduce the targeting capability of drones and missiles,” wrote Shaun Robertson, an intelligence analyst at the EOS Risk Group. “However, electronic navigation system interference has been reported in this region previously during periods of increased tension and military exercises.”

China and Russia in Mideast waters patrolled by U.S. Navy

Russia’s Defense Ministry identified the vessels it sent to the drill as the corvettes Rezky and the Hero of the Russian Federation Aldar Tsydenzhapov, as well as the tanker Pechenega. China’s Defense Ministry said it sent the guided-missile destroyer Baotou and the comprehensive supply ship Gaoyouhu. Neither offered a count of the personnel involved.

Neither China nor Russia actively patrol the wider Middle East, whose waterways remain crucial for global energy supplies. Instead they broadly cede that to Western nations largely led by the U.S. Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet. Observers for the drill included Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates — with the Americans likely keeping watch as well.

However, both China and Russia have deep interests in Iran. For China, it has continued to purchase Iranian crude oil despite facing Western sanctions, likely at a discount compared to global prices. Beijing also remains one of the top markets for Iranian imports.

Russia, meanwhile, has relied on Iran for the supply of bomb-carrying drones it uses in its war on Ukraine.

Iran highlights drills to boost public support after Israeli attack

The drills marked a major moment for Iran’s state-run television network. It’s aired segments showing live-fire during a night drill and sailors manning deck guns on a vessel. The exercises come after an Iranian monthslong drill that followed a direct Israeli attack on the country, targeting its air defenses and sites associated with its ballistic missile program.

While Tehran sought to downplay the assault, it shook the wider populace and came as a campaign of Israeli assassinations and attacks have decimated Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” — a series of militant groups allied with the Islamic Republic. Syrian President Bashar Assad was also overthrown in December, further weakening Iran’s grip on the wider region.

All the while, Iran has increasingly stockpiled more uranium enriched at near weapons-grade levels, something only done by atomic-armed nations. Tehran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes, even as its officials increasingly threaten to pursue the bomb.

Iran’s nuclear program has drawn warnings from both Israel and the U.S. that it won’t allow Tehran to obtain a bomb, signaling military action against the program could happen. But just last week, Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking a new nuclear deal with Tehran. Iran says it hasn’t received any letter, but still issued a flurry of pronouncements over it.

Yemen’s Houthis renew threats to Mideast waterways

As a shaky ceasefire holds in Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have threatened to resume their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connect the two waterways.

The rebels’ secretive leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi warned Friday that attacks against Israel-linked vessels off Yemen would resume within four days if aid didn’t resume to Gaza. That deadline came and went Tuesday. Though no attacks were reported, that again put shippers on edge. The rebels had targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels in their campaign that has also killed four sailors.

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

In 2024 alone, one Chinese shipbuilder constructed more commercial vessels by tonnage than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has built since the end of World War II. China already has the world’s largest naval fleet, the Washington-based bipartisan think tank said in its 75-page report.

“The erosion of U.S. and allied shipbuilding capabilities poses an urgent threat to military readiness, reduces economic opportunities, and contributes to China’s global power-projection ambitions,” the report said.

Navy shipbuilding plan would cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years

Concerns about the poor state of U.S. shipbuilding have been growing in recent years, as the country faces rising challenges from China, which has the world’s second-largest economy and has ambitions to reshape the world order. At a congressional hearing in December, senior officials and lawmakers urged action.

Last week, President Donald Trump told Congress that his Republican administration would “resurrect” the American shipbuilding industry, for commercial and military vessels, and he would create “a new office of shipbuilding in the White House.”

“We used to make so many ships,” Trump said. “We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.”

In February, the heads of four major labor unions called on Trump to boost American shipbuilding and enforce tariffs and other “strong penalties” against China for its increasing dominance in that sector.

“What we are seeing now is a recognition of the strategic significance of shipbuilding and port security, and the related challenges posed by China,” said Matthew Funaiole, a senior fellow in the China Power Project at CSIS and a co-author of the report. Funaiole said concerns over shipbuilding are “a fairly bipartisan issue.”

The report said that China’s shipbuilding sector went through “a striking metamorphosis” in the past two decades, transforming from a “peripheral player” to the dominant player on the global market, with efforts centered on one state-owned enterprise: China State Shipbuilding Corporation, or CSSC.

At the same time, China has greatly expanded its navy. Last year, a CSIS assessment found that China was operating 234 warships, compared with the U.S. Navy’s 219, although the U.S. continued to hold an advantage in guided missile cruisers and destroyers.

In developing recommendations for the U.S. to compete with China, the researchers zoomed in on the Chinese company’s use of Beijing’s “military-civil fusion” strategy, which blurs the lines between the country’s defense and commercial sectors.

They found that CSSC, which builds both commercial and military ships, sells three-quarters of its commercial production to buyers outside China, including to the U.S.-allied Denmark, France, Greece, Japan and South Korea. These foreign firms are thus funneling billions of dollars to Chinese shipyards that also make warships, advancing China’s modernization of its navy and providing Chinese defense contractors with key dual-use technology, the report said.

The CSIS researchers suggested that, as a long-term fix, the U.S. should invest in rebuilding its shipbuilding industry and work with allies to expand shipbuilding capacities outside China. For the near term, they recommended actions to level the playing field and “disrupt China’s murky dual-use ecosystem,” such as by charging docking fees on Chinese-made vessels and cutting U.S. financial and business ties with CSSC and its subsidiaries.

The Trump administration has proposed new fees on China-linked vessels calling on U.S. ports. A BlackRock-led consortium last week agreed to acquire stakes in 43 ports across the globe, including the two ports on either side of the Panama Canal, from a Hong Kong-based conglomerate.

Presented by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces Eva Högel, the annual paper outlines the military’s status quo while highlighting key shortcomings. Her office was created to ensure parliamentary oversight over the German armed forces.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Germany has undergone a deep transformation in how it approaches its armed forces. It has come with a major cash injection to the tune of hundreds of billions of Euros and a more assertive role for its fighting force internationally.

Symbolizing this, last fall, the country ratified an agreement for its first-ever brigade permanently stationed abroad, which will be 5,000 strong and whose facilities are currently being built in Lithuania.

The Bundeswehr’s navy, meanwhile, for the first time ever fired live rounds in a combat setting. It was the frigate Hessen that saw the engagement while on an EU mission in the Red Sea to protect the region’s vital shipping routes against attacks by the Yemeni Houthi rebels.

For the first time in recent years, Germany’s defense spending in 2024 reached the NATO goal of 2% of GDP, the report says, with military expenditures amounting to more than €69 billion, or $75.4 billion USD.

Roughly a quarter of this was funded from the special one-off cash injection announced by Chancellor Scholz in the form of a “Sondervermögen” — a special fund — worth €100 billion ($109 billion) that was created in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Only about 18% of this funding source is remaining, the commissioner said.

The government’s budgetary committee approved a record 97 major procurement decisions last year, up from 55 the year before. Several of these large purchase decisions fall in the domain of air defense, which is itself a key priority highlighted in this year’s report.

In 2024, Germany decided to buy both the Skyranger 30 from Rheinmetall and the Arrow 3 from Israel. The country also ordered new Leopard main battle tanks and 22 self-propelled howitzers to replace those the country sent to Ukraine.

But money alone cannot solve some things, and one of the most stubbornly persistent issues plaguing Germany’s armed forces remained a central topic in 2024: Staffing.

While recruitment increased by 8%, bringing in more than 20,000 new people last year, over a quarter of them chose to leave after their six-month probationary period. Meanwhile, nearly 20% of non-enlisted and 28% of enlisted positions remained vacant. The Bundeswehr is 21,826 heads short of its 203,000 active personnel target, the report laid out.

There was a significant structural reform to report, too. The cyber warfare arm last year was elevated to become a full branch of the German military, alongside the Luftwaffe, navy and land forces.

On a touchier subject, the report included several pages discussing cases of neo-Nazi sympathies among the ranks and institutional shortcomings in addressing and successfully investigating these situations. In one case, a soldier had reportedly played an SS song for comrades. Only after several years did the case make it to trial; by then, the witnesses professed not to be able to recall whose phone had been playing the song or who had put an end to it.

A new enforcement mechanism became available in 2024 following an amendment to the Soldiers Act passed the year prior that sought to accelerate such proceedings. While only a “small minority of soldiers” harbored extremist views, this mechanism was touted as being a necessary and “sharp and effective means against identified enemies of the constitution in the Bundeswehr.”

Germany’s incoming governing coalition of conservatives and social democrats has promised to continue down the path of revitalizing and building up the country’s military might.

To do so, incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz has suggested exempting defense spending from the country’s constitutionally enshrined debt ceiling, a move that would have been largely unthinkable in notoriously fiscally frugal Germany until recently. While this particular proposal is still mired in a political tug-of-war at present, the more militarist tone of the past few years appears here to stay.

The drone is a 115-pound, battery-powered twin prop-rotor aircraft that the company said can be scaled larger, “requiring hybrid-electric propulsion.”

The company designed the vertical take-off and landing aircraft to “fly faster and farther than traditional helicopters,” Rich Benton, Sikorsky’s vice president and general manager, said in a statement.

The drone development took place over the course of a year with the company’s rapid prototyping group – Sikorsky Innovations — moving through preliminary design, simulation and tethered and untethered flight.

In January 2025, Sikorsky Innovations successfully completed more than 40 take-offs and landings with the 10.3-ft composite wingspan aircraft, according to the statement. Sikorsky said the aircraft also performed 30 transitions between helicopter and airplane modes, calling it the “most complex maneuver demanded of the design.”

The drone also reached a top cruise speed of 86 knots.

“Our rotor blown wing has demonstrated the control power and unique handling qualities necessary to transition repeatedly and predictably from a hover to high-speed wing-borne cruise flight, and back again,” Igor Cherepinsky, Sikorsky Innovations director, said. “New control laws were required for this transition maneuver to work seamlessly and efficiently. The data indicates we can operate from pitching ships decks and unprepared ground when scaled to much larger sizes.”

The company envisions future applications for the aircraft in search and rescue, firefighting monitoring, humanitarian response efforts and pipeline surveillance, the statement notes.

Larger versions could perform long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and manned-unmanned teaming.

Sikorsky will incorporate its MATRIX flight autonomy system in all variants of the drone, according the statement.

The company is also developing a 1.2-megawatt hybrid-electric tilt wing demonstrator called HEX that is large enough to carry passengers or cargo on longer-haul flights.

Sikorsky plans to demonstrate HEX’s hover capability in 2027.

Sikorsky’s technological advancements over the last year come on the heels of the U.S. Army’s abrupt cancellation of its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft, or FARA. The company was competing for the program with a coaxial rotor blade aircraft called Raider X.

The company had, over a year prior to the cancellation, lost the Army’s other future aircraft competition to Bell. Sikorsky and its Boeing teammate had submitted another larger version of Raider X called Defiant.

Since then, Sikorsky hasn’t scrapped the promise of its X2 coaxial helicopter technology and continues to pitch it to other potential customers. The company is pursuing a next-generation helicopter for Italy and the NATO Next-Generation Rotorcraft Capability, among others. Lockheed, Airbus and Leonardo were awarded contracts in July 2024 to help NATO develop a new helicopter.

The federal government announced plans last week to construct two new Arctic icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard. The first contract, worth Canadian $3.2 billion (US$2.2 billion), went to Vancouver-headquartered Seaspan, which is set to begin the construction process in April.

The second icebreaker will be built in Levis by the Quebec shipbuilder Davie as part of a $3.3 billion deal. It is expected to be completed by 2030.

Both companies are key players in Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, a long-term project seeking to modernize the country’s federal fleet of combat and non-combat vessels.

Seaspan and Davie have both positioned themselves to play important roles as part of the trilateral Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, or ICE Pact, which seeks to combine Finnish, Canadian, and U.S. expertise to build advanced ice boats.

While the U.S. has not yet clearly defined its icebreaker requirements and industry strategy, President Donald Trump has said he wants to buy 40 new ones.

Another contract announced last week was to Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding for a new fleet of warships destined for the Canadian Navy. The cost to build the first three River-class destroyers is of approximately $22.2 billion, excluding taxes, according to the Canadian government.

“By investing in our own industry, Canadian workers are helping to build the fleet of the future, equipping the Navy and our members in uniform modern and versatile ships they need for Canada’s important contributions to peace and security at home and abroad,” National Defense Minister Bill Blair said.

These contracts come at a critical time for Ottawa. Over the last month, it has been battling a trade war with its southern neighbor following the imposition of U.S. tariffs on imports from Canada.

On March 9, the Liberal Party of Canada selected Mark Carney as their new leader, succeeding Justin Trudeau as prime minister. The new leader could call for a federal election as early as late April.

In a Jan. 24 press briefing, Trump announced a target of acquiring roughly 40 icebreakers for the U.S. Coast Guard.

“We’re going to order about 40 Coast Guard big icebreakers – big ones – and all of a sudden, Canada wants a piece of the deal. … I say, ‘Why are we doing that,’” he told reporters.

On March 4, the U.S. government reinstated an executive order that hit its northern neighbor with 25% across-the-board tariffs and 10% on Canadian energy, triggering a continental trade war. Ottawa has responded with its retaliatory tariffs at the same rate but placed on a smaller basket of American goods.

According to Canadian shipbuilder Seaspan, in charge of building two new heavy polar icebreakers for the country’s Coast Guard, the Canadian naval industry already possesses the requisite know-how for Trump’s plan.

“40 icebreakers are fantastic, but that is pretty aggressive – I don’t want to go against what Mr. Trump said, but I would say that the U.S. shipbuilding industry capability is pretty stressed and busy right now. … I think it’s fair to say that it is not [currently] capable of doing that,” David Hargreaves, senior vice president of business development at Seaspan, told Defense News.

“He also said that Canada is trying to get a part of it – what we are trying to do is be a contributor to our neighbors and help them,” he added.

The economic rift between the two nations does not appear to have negatively impacted the shipbuilding industry so far. On the contrary, companies from both sides of the border continue to engage in dialogue and appear determined to carry out business as usual.

Davie, a Quebec shipbuilder, told Defense News earlier this year that it was moving forward with plans to acquire an American shipyard despite the threat of a looming trade war.

Canadian and Finnish government representatives shared similar perspectives in Feb. 4 email statements, stating that the tense climate seen as of late between Canada and the U.S. had not compromised cooperation within the trilateral Icebreaker Collaboration Effort.

While that agreement, signed last summer and known as the ICE Pact, seeks to bring together Finnish, Canadian and U.S. expertise to build best-in-class ice boats and cooperate in other areas, Hargreaves notes that Washington has the most to gain from it when it comes to gaining knowledge.

“I don’t think it explicitly says this, but it is really about helping the U.S. to build their icebreaking capability,” he said.

Whereas Finland and Canada have long histories of manufacturing these vessels, America has lagged behind. For example, the U.S. Coast Guard has not launched a new heavy icebreaker since 1976.

U.S. regulations have previously required that military vessels be built domestically. Two new bills introduced last month by Utah senators Mike Lee and John Curtis, both Republicans, seek to modify these practices, placing greater emphasis on shipyards in NATO countries or in trusted Indo-Pacific nations for getting America’s ship count up quickly.

Regardless of the bills’ prospects for adoption, Canada’s Seaspan is already putting itself in a position to help out.

“We are exploring how a U.S. shipyard(s) could use our existing Canadian Coast Guard Multi-Purpose Vessel design, a polar class 4 icebreaker that could be relatively easily upgraded to class 3,” Hargreaves wrote in an email.

Talks are already underway with the U.S. Coast Guard about cooperating. The Americans are “very interested” in the ship design, according to the company.

The trials took place in waters near Denmark from Feb. 17 to 20 and involved integrating manned and unmanned assets in live-firing events and tactical maneuvers.

Participating drone boats were fielded through the Task Force X initiative established earlier this month by the alliance’s top transformation branch as part of patrolling activities in Baltic waters.

“It provides a framework for all nations to contribute by enabling the deployment of their autonomous capabilities. … This collaborative effort will fill gaps in surveillance, particularly in areas not covered by existing systems like the Automatic Identification System,” Adm. Pierre Vandier, commander of NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, said in a press release.

Additional ships from NATO’s Standing NATO Maritime Group 1, the Royal Danish and German Navies took part in the demonstration.

In a recent interview with Defense News, as Vandier detailed plans for the alliance’s first fleet of naval surveillance drones, he hinted that it was likely to be equipped with proven platforms that would lean on experiments by the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 59.

TF59 is a unit dedicated to integrating unmanned systems and artificial intelligence in the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet area of operations that operates out of Bahrain.

However, according to an Allied Maritime Command press release, Task Force X will also leverage successful campaigns such as the U.S. Navy’s TF66, which experiments with uncrewed systems in the Europe-Africa area of responsibility.

Established in 2023, the group is made up of civilian and military personnel that put a variety of unmanned maritime systems to the test in bodies of water faced with different challenges than in the Gulf region.

Last year, it launched a pilot program centered on boosting maritime domain awareness, during which it tested the autonomous underwater and surface vessels of the Ocean Aero Triton platform, as reported by USNI News.